TGIF – 2013 “Ready Or Not, Here I Come”

As the week winds down, we wind down with some tidbits for your information, education, health, and enjoyment.

Quote of the Week: “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

Humor Break: (Forgive me, I have used this one before, but it is soooooo funny… or true)

“Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average. Which means you’ve met your New Year’s resolution.”  Jay Leno

Stat of the Week: 10 Most Commonly Broken New Year’s Resolutions.  Next week starts the new year.  What a great time to let go of what didn’t work this year and get started on a new set of dreams.  January 1 is the day we all vow to get it right in the new year (or sit on the couch, eat all day and watch sports on TV).  The problem is that we generally aren’t nearly as good on the follow through as we are on the goal-setting.  Time (such an appropriate title) lists the 10 most commonly broken New Year’s resolutions.  Included are the usual suspects: Diet, exercise, smoking and drinking cessation.  But there others you might not guess so quickly such as time spent with family, reducing stress, and my personal favorite, continuing education.  I urge you to take time to read the Time list.  It is a quick and fun read.  Might even give you an idea or two.

Action Tip: The probability that you will make a resolution and keep it is less than 50-50.  So you might want to also give a read to this excellent and somewhat different article from the New York Times: Be It Resolved. It contains the most useful and practical tips I have read in all my searches.

The Self-Development Corner: If your New Year’s resolution includes getting your personal finances in order, consider this Coursera course: Fundamentals of Personal Financial Planning.  This free 6-week online course is offered by the University of California, Irvine.

“Explore the basic personal financial planning concepts. Learn how to define and reach your financial goals. Apply the framework of personal financial planning to monitor your own finances, with special emphasis on lifecycle-specific topics, such as saving for education, student loans, or wealth management and estate planning.”

Happy Growth Year!

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.