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Time has no trumpet to announce the start of a new year, yet it feels very real

• Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. Thomas Mann
• New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. Hamilton Wright Mabie
• Why do we even celebrate the New Year? It’s just this arbitrary quirk of how we measure time in years, right? Midnight tonight is the very same transition from day to day that we do every 24 hours. But this thing in my hands, it feels real in a way the numbered calendar box never does. Why? What makes midnight tonight any different? Hillary DePiano

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The year ahead is a chance for a fresh start; a new beginning

• Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past. Henry Ward Beecher
• For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning. T. S. Eliot
• New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday. Charles Lamb
• No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam. Charles Lamb
• The merry year is born Like the bright berry from the naked thorn. Hartley Coleridge
• The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. G.K. Chesterton
• This is a new year. A new beginning. And things will change. Taylor Swift
• A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare to the jeweled vision of a life started anew. Aberjhani
• Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. Hal Borland
• It is never to late to make a fresh start

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The year ahead is full of opportunity and possibility …

• And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been. Rainer Maria Rilke
• Approach the New Year with resolve to find the opportunities hidden in each new day. Michael Josephson
• The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead.  The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time.   All hail the duties and possibilities of the  coming twelve months!  Edward Payson Powell
• Whether we want them or not, the New Year will bring new challenges; whether we seize them or not, the New Year will bring new opportunities. Michael Josephson
• May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall! Aleister Crowley
• Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress. Charles Kettering
• Opportunity,  Possibility

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The year ahead offers new hope

• Hope / Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, / Whispering ‘it will be happier’… Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Some people swear there’s no beauty left in the world, no magic. Then how do you explain the entire world coming together on one night to celebrate the hope of a new year? Claire Morgan
• Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. Albert Einstein
• Hope

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The year ahead is another chance to get it right

• Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. Oprah Winfrey

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The year ahead is a chance for new experiences

• Today dear friends, we stand upon the verge of the unknown. There lies before us the new year and we are going forth to possess it. Who can tell what we shall find? What new experiences, what changes shall come, what new needs shall arise?   Charles E. Cowman
• Embrace new experiences

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New Year’s day is the first blank page of a 365 page book

• Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one. Brad Paisley
• We will open the book. Its pages are blank.  We are going to put words on them ourselves.  The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.  Edith Lovejoy Pierce
• Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Henry Ward Beecher
• It depends on us. . . Another year lies before us like an unwritten page, an unspent coin, an unwalked road. How the pages will read, what treasures will be gained in exchange for time, or what we find along the way, will largely depend on us. Esther Baldwin York
• We all get the exact same 365 days. The only difference is what we do with them. Hillary DePiano
• Be the author of your life story

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It’s traditional at New Year to set resolutions for the new year

• The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows. George William Curtis
• And even when I don’t stay up until midnight, I still enjoy the tradition of New Year’s resolutions. What can I say? I like setting personal goals and challenging myself to improve. I suppose I could do it on any day of the year, but the New Year is as good a day as any. It’s a fresh start. Hillary DePiano, New Year’s Thieve
• My New Year’s Resolution List usually starts with the desire to lose between ten and three thousand pounds. Nia Vardalos
• Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self-assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle. Eric Zorn
• Intention

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However, resolutions have a notorious reputation for not lasting past January

• A new oath holds pretty well; but… when it is become old, and frayed out, and damaged by a dozen annual retryings of its remains, it ceases to be serviceable; any little strain will snap it. Mark Twain
• A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.
• Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient short comings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in, community. New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion. Mark Twain
• But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits. André Gide
• May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions. Joey Adams
• Resolutions are a complete waste of time. They’re just this meaningless ritual, empty promises we make and break within hours of each other. Hillary DePiano, New Year’s Thieve

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Not everyone advocates resolutions

• He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool. F.M. Knowles
• Many years ago, I resolved never to bother with New Year’s resolutions, and I’ve stuck with it ever since. Dave Beard

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Instead of making yearly resolutions, make daily ones

• I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me. Anaïs Nin
• I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s. Henry Moore

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If you set New Year’s resolutions, let them start on the 2nd

• I do think New Year’s resolutions can’t technically be expected to begin on New Year’s Day, don’t you? Since, because it’s an extension of New Year’s Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Year’s Day isn’t a good idea as you can’t eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second. Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

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Tell your resolutions to others and you’re more likely to keep them

• Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it’s twice as onerous a duty. John Selden
• Not surprisingly, commitment is especially potent when made in front of other people. A University of Scranton study found that people who made public New Year’s resolutions were a remarkable ten times more likely to succeed at their goal.  Sonja Lyubomirsky
• Commitment

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Resolve to carry out your resolutions using the power of your character and soul

• Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed. Cavett Robert
• Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy. Akhenaton
• Character,  The soul

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Resolve to rise above the little things this year

• One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things. John Burroughs

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Resolve to step out of your comfort zone this year

• This is the new year the new you. You can pass through another year, coasting on cruise control. Or you can step out of your comfort zone, trying things you have never done before, and make 2012 as the year that you elevate from where you are & soar high. Make it happen! Pablo
• Stretch your comfort zone

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Resolve to make mistakes during the this year

• I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.  So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.  Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.  Make your mistakes, next year and forever.  Neil Gaiman
• Mistakes

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Resolve to fulfil your potential this year

• We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential. Ellen Goodman
• Potential

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Resolve to be a better person by the end of this year

• Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. Benjamin Franklin

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Resolve to be yourself this year

• Every new year people make resolutions to change aspects of themselves they believe are negative. A majority of people revert back to how they were before and feel like failures.  This year I challenge you to a new resolution.  I challenge you to just be yourself. Aisha Elderwyn
• If you asked me for my New Year resolution, it would be to find out who I am. Cyril Cusack
• Be who you are

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Here are more ideas for resolutions

• Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will. Jonathan Edwards
• Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word. Gran Persson
• New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. James Agate
• From New Year’s on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining. Leonard Bernstein

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When the new year comes, let go of the past year, especially any regrets

• Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go. Brooks Atkinson
• It wouldn’t be New Year’s if I didn’t have regrets. William Thomas
• A new year can begin only because the old year ends. Madeleine L’Engle
• Regret

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Celebrate what was good in the past year

• Celebrate what you want to see more of. Tom Peters
• What wins do I need to celebrate for the past 12 months?  What have I achieved?  What things did I do that I need to appreciate myself for?  What were the most special moments?  Robin Sharma
• Celebration,  Gratitude

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Expect the year to be a great one

• This is a new year. A new beginning. And things will change. Taylor Swift
• Expectation

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Start your year with a positive spirit

• Write on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Positivity,  Optimism

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Here is an exercise for planning your year ahead

• Robin Sharma recommends the following 5 step plan for planning the best year of your life:
• What wins do I need to celebrate for the past 12 months?  What have I achieved?  What things did I do that I need to appreciate myself for?  What were the most special moments?
• What did I learn during the past 12 months? What are the three best business lessons I learned?  What are my three best life lessons?  What was I doing when I achieved my best results in the past 12 months?  What were my best practices?
•  What are my big 5 for the next year.  What 5 big things must happen for the next year to be a great year?  These will be my magnificent obsession –  a seduction to distraction.  What will be my top 5 values?  What are my goals for the next 12 months?
• Take your big 5, values, goals and create a month by month plan of execution.  Make it one page, double sided.
• Close your eyes and start to emotionally engage with what your life will look like in the key areas of your life.
• Planning

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Here is an exercise for setting goals for the new year

• Make New Year’s goals. Dig within and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you’re interested in fully living life in the year to come. Goals give us direction. They put a powerful force into play on a universal, conscious, and subconscious level. Goals give our life direction. What would you like to have happen in your life this year? What would you like to do, to accomplish? What good would you like to attract into your life? What particular areas of growth would you like to have happen to you? What blocks, or character defects, would you like to have removed? What would you like to attain? Little things and big things? Where would you like to go? What would you like to have happen in friendship and love? What would you like to have happen in your family life? What problems would you like to see solved? What decisions would you like to make? What would you like to happen in your career? Write it down. Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it all down – as an affirmation of you, your life, and your ability to choose. Then let it go. The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals. ― Melody Beattie
• Goal setting

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Don’t look to the new year to make you happy; but rather look within

• The conventional Happy New Year approach is to think of the New Year as something that happens outside of our selves. It is a good luck wish that the New Year, in some magical way, will bring us our heart’s desire.  We look to the New Year to make us happy. When we expect happiness to come to us from the outside, we are usually disappointed. Happiness is not guaranteed by sunny weather, a raise in pay, a new car, a beautiful home or anything else of a material nature.  External things are often possessed by very unhappy people.  Happiness does not come out of a New Year, it comes out of men and women.  Life does not change when we hang a new calendar on the wall or when the clock strikes midnight and a New Year begins.  The only way life will change for us is when we change ourselves. Wilferd A. Peterson
• Happiness,  The treasure within

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• A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.
• An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. Bill Vaughan
• Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits.
• May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions. Joey Adams
• New Year’s Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot. Unless, of course, those tests come back positive. Jay Leno
• The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year’s Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to. P.J. O’Rourke
• Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to.  Bill Vaughn
• May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall! Aleister Crowley
• I would say happy new year, but it’s not happy; it’s exactly the same as last year except colder. Robert Clark
• But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits.  Andre Gide

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