ON TREND

Resolving the New Year

By Don Long

By the time you receive this month’s magazine most of you will have set your resolutions and goals for the year. Nevertheless, I hope you may have space for a few more suggestions.

As a community member:

■ Consider others and follow the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you”. ■ Discover at least one way to help or give back to the community. ■ Be conscious of actions within the community and with your points of contact. Take note of good activities while reporting or helping to correct actions that may negatively affect the community.

As a business leader:

■ Ensure that customers and employees are treated fairly and with compassion. Bring diversity programs and actions to the forefront in your business. ■ Help inspire community spirit through giving back efforts or mentoring others whenever you can. ■ Encourage career training and higher education within your business. ■ Offer employee benefits whenever you can. ■ Inspire your employees to be part of the community by sharing community information and opportunities with them.

As a family member:

■ Remember to plan time for family. Frequently if you do not plan time for family, it will not happen. Numerous family members find that family connections build the best support groups. ■ Take actions to keep and improve your health so you will be there to support your loved ones. A good plan for exercise, diet and regular medical check-ups is the key. ■ Inspire your family members by setting the example for love, become aware of potential challenges and threats, and find methods to help. ■ Seek self-improvement through reading, educational programs, or meditation. ■ On a personal level develop your sense of spiritual connectedness. ■ Bring an appreciation of fairness and equality to all your dealings with others. ■ Pray and act in the interests of peace and an end to violence whenever possible.

Though we should not need to wait for a New Year to resolve to act on ideas we cherish, the New Year does materialize to bring a time of reflection to us as we look at the past year for our successes and failures. Conceivably one final suggested resolution is to select the best ones as goals for the year. Construct the goals as attainable and measurable and assign a standard of performance along with a timetable. In short, create a plan. I will leave you with a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (poet, author, and WWII hero fighter pilot), “A goal without a plan is just a wish”. Let us all strive to get past the “wish” stage and take action toward our 2023 “goal”.