This message is a great reminder from Dave Marr for all of us who are into goal setting and making dreams come true.

4 short weeks till the New Year. How will you spend the remaining time of 2014 as it relates to your goals for the year? If you’re like me for a quite a bit of my young adult life, you’ll slide into the final month figuring the year is essentially over, the goals are either achieved or not, no point in pushing hard now, just coast and enjoy the holidays. I remember one year eating an entire box of chocolates that we got for Christmas. I never did New Year’s resolutions, but because of my year end slide there was certainly a pent up need to get going again.

There is another little technique that you could pick up that would cost you very little and increase your likelihood of success. It’s not much really, just a little mental flip of a switch. It’s something that I picked up in my late 30’s as I was building my company and my life. It’s a perspective that has served me very well over the years. I wish I had it earlier. The technique is this: make your New Year’s resolution now and act on it today.

My observation is that very few people run through the tape. If there’s a specific goal people are more likely to try and finish strong. But if the goals are behind you, then the likelihood of indulging in the moment of food, drink, or sleep, or just plain letting down all seems justified. That feeling of letting down makes New Year’s resolutions more vital because you have to gear back up for the next set of goals.

Instead, think of the New Year beginning now. You’ll be one month ahead of everyone else. You’ll get a jumpstart on your health goals, your financial goals, your personal goals, your spiritual goals. But more importantly, you’ll be aligned with reality. The calendar is a man-made construct anyway. There is no such thing as a calendar, or a day, or even time, in reality. It’s just you and the ever present moment of now. The past is a memory. The future is an expectation. The only thing you truly know is that you are faced with now.

And that is it. It could be nothing or it could be everything. By looking at time as now, only now, as the only moment that decides your fate, then you can look at yourself honestly. Now, they way you are at this moment projected into infinity, is all you are. You can see your motivations, your intentions, your present mindedness as a true reflection of who you are. There’s no tomorrows where you’ll be better, only the reality of now. With this perspective, you can run through the tape because you run through the tape because that’s what you do, now. Each continuous realization of now is a gift that you open and engage in those activities that bring you joy, grow your capabilities, connect you with other people, and have you live the life God has intended. There is no tomorrow. Certainly no New Year’s resolution worth doing next month that you can’t start now. Now is your time.

So give yourself an early Christmas present, the gift of now.

There’s no time like the present