Is the new year a good time to make some positive changes in your life? Or are new year resolutions a bit ... you know, cliched? And if you do decide to make some resolutions, how do you choose them? Your imperfect friend is here to hold your hand and guide you through it all. We're going to look at why, psychologically, new year is a pretty good time to make some changes, and why cynicism about new year resolutions is understandable, but overblown. We're also going to look at how you can dig down into any resolutions you've been toying with and get to the heart of what you really care about, so that you can focus your new year efforts in the right place.

Find the '5 whys' exercise here.

Reference:
Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, Jason Riis. 2014: 'The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior', Management Science 60/10:2563-2582.