The only resolution you should concern yourself with is to create your self.  The typical New Year resolutions of losing weight, spending more time with family/friends, getting a better job or stop smoking/drinking are worthy pursuits.  They are, however, part of the larger process of creating your self. Just as you seek to feed, cloth and house your self on a daily basis so too should you seek to create your self.

Since creating your self requires self-improvement you will need to increase your self-awareness.  As author Jonah Lerner observed: "The first step at self-improvement is self-awareness.  Only then can the right mental muscles get strengthened."  This will be challenging though and require effort as you deal with issues on a daily basis.

As Nobel prize winner Daniel Kamenhan wrote in Thinking, Fast and Slow "Conflict between an automatic reaction and an intention to control it is common in our lives." Resolutions require people to engage in "effortful thinking." In other words people have to "think hard."  How often to you engage in effortful thinking in order to think hard and intentionally react to a situation?

We obsessively pre-occupy our selves with what we eat, the clothes we wear and how our physiques are shaped.  At work our selves are wrapped up in employment status, the perception of how others are treated and salaries/bonuses.  We judge more than we listen.  We complain more than we celebrate.  We frown more than we smile.  Are these actions really conducive to the creation of our self?

Before you react to a personal or work related situation ask your self if you are even aware of how you would like to react?  If so you can intentionally react in the manner in which you envisioned.  If not, you will let others dictate your response.  Which way would you like to respond: intentionally or reactionary?

In the words of Henry David Thoreau: "As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.  To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again.  To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."

As the New Year approaches, begin to resolve to intentionally create your self today and every day forward.