Resolutions failing? It might not be your year

OK, SO the New Year’s resolution is gone, but that’s because the best time to make it is not on January 1, but on your birthday!

Sworn to give up chocolate? No problem. Until you find there’s just a few left over in the box you left at the back of the cupboard. It would be a shame to waste them.!

And, now you have that gym membership card you can go whenever you like and watch yourself trim down, but just now it’s raining /threatening to rain/could snow/is much too cold to go out...

Sworn off the smokes once and for all? Yes, of course you can cope with the stress of your workplace ... the kids getting back to school ... rush hour traffic....

Surely having just the one won’t mean you’re back on them for good, or does it?

And as for that promise about leaving your credit card at home .... those retail sales are so enticing, honestly, it’d be a sin not to invest in that new handbag, and that matching pair of shoes?

With Christmas a fading memory, as we face into another January no doubt you have made at least one New Year’s resolution which you have sworn, faithfully, to keep. Surely it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility to fulfil one, just this once? But as Mark Twain commented as December gave way to January: “Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” Is failure inevitable?

Perhaps, but don’t panic, you’re not facing into 2014 as an abject failure if you’ve already broken those resolutions. !You have another chance to try again, for January 1st is merely the start of the calendar year and the new tax year, not the start of your Personal Year which begins on your birthday, (unless your birthday just happens to fall on that date). Yes, according to the ancient science of numbers (numerology), your birthday is the first day of your ‘Personal Year’, so that is the time to start afresh with all those promises. No matter on what date, even if it falls in June at the Summer Solstice or in September at the Autumn Equinox, you are at the beginning of your new year then and only then.

The good news is that while each person’s ‘Personal Year’ starts on their birthday, if you’ve missed the chance to make those New Year’s resolutions on a recent birthday, you may still plant those seeds of promise up to ninety days from your birthday.

Let’s look at the most popular resolutions and how some celebrities might deal with them. For instance, who hasn’t promised to lose weight and get fit? Getting fit doesn’t necessarily mean getting thin, so Victoria Beckham could promise to stop obsessing about her weight, or lack of it, from her birthday in mid-April. Body image is high on most people’s lists and after a wardrobe malfunction on stage in Las Vegas recently, Britney Spears is still in her springtime (with her birthday on 2nd December), and might resolve to check her dress size before putting on her glad rags and dancing centre-stage. Closer to home, Cheryl Cole has six months to plan her New Year’s resolutions with her birthday on 30th June. Perhaps she will talk herself into never having a mis-placed tattoo again?

Giving up smoking comes high on global resolutions, and there’s a chance Brad Pitt, whose birthday was on 18th December, may decide to give up the habit, as might Lady Gaga from the start of her new year on 28th March.

The end of January is the time when we discover just how much we overspent at Christmas and the only way to stop spending on your credit or debit card is to either cancel outright or else simply never carry it with you. According to the media, singer Rihanna spends $23,000 a week on her hair styling (yes, that’s $23,000 a week). When she moves into her new year on 20 February, perhaps she’ll review where her money’s going. Mind you, she can certainly afford it.

Don’t totally despair about your resolutions falling in line with your date of birth. No matter what it says on the calendar, take writer Louise L Hay’s advice and remember to tell yourself each morning: “Today is a new day and I am a new me.” And remember what Oprah Winfrey said recently: “Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.”