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Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

If you have made it this far in your post-holiday back to work a full week, then you are likely to have survived more than one irritating person quip about "last year" and you're well on your way into a Happy 2016. One of those amazingly bad habits we all seem to have around thit time of year is the formation of New Years resolutions.

I've never been a fan of them myself as I usually break all of the ones I set by the second day of the year and then spend the next 363 days being mad about it. It isn't as though I don't want to change but I am a creature of habit and tend to not get really wound up about changing my daily routine.

If you have made some resolutions there may be a little voice in the back of your head telling you that you will never make it. That simply isn't true. Not only can you do it, you know deep down you probably should. The key is looking at whatever thing you want to change as a climb up a ladder.

Each year as I prepare to hang Christmas lights I get out that long silver ladder I spend the better part of an hour looking at it leaning on the side of the house trying to convince myself that I won't fall to my death the minute I reach the top. At first I'm resolute...stepping into the bottom rung and doing a little hop to make sure it is firmly planted. Next come the wobbly first few steps up and about halfway up I can feel the ladder flexing, which not only feeds my fear of falling to my untimely death but also reminding me that I probably shouldn't have eaten the entire bag of chocolate mini doughnuts that morning.

Before I know it I'm at the top and I'm up there just working away until I look down or drop the staple gun. Regardless of how scary the height is, or my own fear of falling, I could not have made it to the top of the ladder without taking those first few steps, and continuing on when the ladder began to wooble and flex.

Sometimes I think that maybe we set the bar to high and instead of taking the rungs of our resolutions one by one we think we should reach the top of that ladder sooner than we should. It is that simple feeling of being overwhelmed that causes our failures. It doesn't matter if it is going on a diet or cleaning that room that hasn't been touched in months, it is important to remind yourself that you didn't get to the point where you felt a change was necessary overnight and you won't see the results of the change overnight either. So don't sweat getting to where you want to be if you aren't getting there fast enough, whether that be fixing your credit score, loosing a few pounds or getting on a plane to visit someone you should have years ago. Sometimes you just have to stop halfwat up the ladder and catch a deep breath. You will get there eventually... I have faith in you. See you next week…remember, we’re all in this together.