Atlantic City Weekly

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Happy New Year! The gift-giving holidays are over, but now is the time when all the hype is about our personal resolutions and how we are going to accomplish them. To some extent, this day is a motivating factor to get our butts in gear, but in reality it almost becomes a habit for us to blurt out some easy-to-say resolution and then make an excuse a couple of months later when we don’t follow through.

When I think New Year’s resolutions I think of weight loss, more time with the family, exercising, traveling, quitting smoking etc. However, when I posted the question of “What is your New Year’s resolution?” on Facebook, aside from the obvious, I did get many other ones such as: “To live within each moment and give back,” “to stay focused and enjoy everything life offers,” “to enjoy the little things as much as the big things in life.”

Most of the responses have to do with giving back to each other, the community, your family. Staying focused on your endeavors and remembering that every moment you have you should feel gratitude.

I feel that due to our environment and our economy, we are realizing that life is more than having lots of money, fancy houses and cars and things that we want. Be grateful for the small stuff. Be thankful for what you have instead of what you don’t.

In 2010, make sure to exercise, keep yourself healthy, spend more time with the family and follow your dreams. Remember, you are your own judge and when you complete your inner goals you will have a strong sense of accomplishment. Once you have that, you can start giving back to the world one person at a time.

I found this great article from Businesswire.com regarding a study commissioned from Dorothy.com and conducted by Harris Interactive. It states that while women are more likely than men to make New Year’s resolutions (74 percent of women versus 58 percent of men) among adults who have ever made a resolution, men are more likely than women to always or often keep them (22 percent of men versus 14 percent of women). Ladies, isn’t that interesting?

Their survey polled more than 2,000 adults in the U.S., asking how the population sets and achieves their resolutions. During the study they also found out that 66 percent of adults have ever made a New Year’s resolution, but only 17 percent always or often keep them. Men and women who have dreams in life cited financial limitations as the No. 1 obstacle (36 percent) preventing them from achieving their dreams, followed by lack of time and/or motivation (14 percent) and 33 percent of adults who have dreams in life have used online tools such as search engines and social-networking sites to help them achieve their dreams — gotta love modern technology. Ladies let’s kick it up a notch this year, and try to even out these statistics.

Dishing out advice on various topics to our female readers on issues related to networking, dating, employment, news, events, shopping and much more. She is the current president of the Greater Atlantic City Jaycees and owner of My Jewels by Whitney.