You can forget about making New Year’s Resolutions if you’re hoping for a successful outcome.  Most aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

No less than Mark Twain has written of New Year’s Resolutions, “Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.”

The biggest majority of New Year’s Resolutions have gone by the wayside before January is over and most won’t even be remembered six months later.  And the reason is pretty simple:  Most are made in response to something negative — a habit or situation that the person wants to change or end. And therein lies the problem ­ it’s hard to develop momentum from a negative response. It is always easier to move toward something rather than away from something.

Consider one of the most adopted resolutions — weight loss.  No one can get excited about losing weight because it requires deprivation. It’s a negative response to concerns about appearance, health, etc. The results of weight loss Resolutions demonstrate their weakness.  A 1998 survey sponsored by Gardenburger found that more than three-fourths of all women between the ages of 25 and 54 make diet and weight-loss plans each year.  Nearly nine of 10 respondents reported only occasional or no success, while almost half lost little or actually gained weight instead.

The people who succeed at losing weight and maintaining the loss have usually been motivated by a dream much bigger and more positive than just losing weight. They see themselves living a healthy lifestyle. They begin to act and think like people who are in good physical shape. There’s more of a radical change in a person’s thinking and actions than you see with most resolutions.  It wouldn’t be possible to effect and sustain such a radical change unless the person is motivated by a big dream that is positive in nature.

If you’re going to make a New Year’s Resolution this year, make one with a high probability for success.  Make a Resolution to develop a life plan.  Most people are in a free-fall through life, careening from one crisis to the next.  They wake up one day and 10, 20, 30 or more years have passed and they’re nowhere near where they thought or hoped they’d be.  Working with a life plan you’re much more apt to be excited by what the future brings even if you succeed at attaining only a small part of your plan.

A life plan should address all areas of your life including finances, health, relationships, career, spiritual and even recreational.  While a lot of our focus tends to be on financial issues like increasing income or decreasing debt, or health issues like losing weight or quitting smoking, the undeniable truth is that a life lived out of balance isn’t a life of quality at all.

If you were going to build a new house and you had this idea for a fabulous master bedroom suite, you wouldn’t rush out and start building the master bedroom. You’d have a complete plan before you started. When you approach resolutions and goals in the same manner, you end up with a much better chance of achieving success.

Happy New Year!

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Driving in a Winter Wonderland

Driving safely in winter may require some people to make some changes in the way they handle the road and the car in bad weather.

Granted, some readers of this newsletter may never find themselves driving in winter weather, but many will, and some will, even by surprise.

What you learned about driving on snow and ice from your parents or in driver's ed might not reflect current thinking.  In fact, today's vehicles might have rendered some of those lessons obsolete.  It's never too late to learn, especially when one's safety and the safety of others may be at stake.

Holding the Wheel

Many people, especially those talking on hand-held cell phones, often drive with only one hand on the steering wheel, though we were all taught to keep two hands on the wheel at all times.  But where should those hands be?  Most likely you, like me, would say "grip the wheel at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions.

This position, according to AAA, prompts people to use hand-over-hand steering when negotiating a turn, a technique that is still taught by some driving instructors.

But this steering method has some important disadvantages in the newer vehicles that most people now drive.  It forces drivers to cross their forearms directly in front of the air bag.  If an accident occurs and the air bag is set off, drivers will be hit hard in the face by their arms.  More important, hand-over-hand steering increases the lateral transfer of weight in the vehicle, which increases instability and the likelihood of a skid  while turning.

A better place for your hands, then, is at 9 and 2 o'clock, using a steering technique known as "push-pull-slide."  For example, when making a left turn, your right hand would push the wheel up while your left hand slides up to the 9 or 10 o'clock position and pulls the wheel down.  Meanwhile, your right hand ends up at 4 o'clock.

This approach leaves nothing between your face and the airbag and, by limiting side-to-side transfer of weight, reduces the chance that the two outside wheels will leave the pavement.

Take a look at your car's steering wheel.  Chances are you'll find that there are convenient spaces at 9 and 2 o'clock for your hands to grip, just one of many safety improvements you can find on newer cars.

Pumping the Brakes

One of the hardest driving lessons most people have to unlearn when they get their first car with antilock brakes is not to pump the brakes when trying to stop quickly or when stopping on a slippery surface.

Antilock brakes are designed to do the pumping for you while minimizing the chances of a skid.  If you apply steady, firm pressure to such brakes, you are more likely to be able to stop safely without swerving.

Even without antilock brakes, pumping the brakes is not the safest way to stop.

Instead, consider a technique called "threshold braking":  with your heel on the floor, gently squeeze the brake pedal with your toes.  When you feel the wheels start to lock, reduce the pressure slightly and hold it there.

Shifting Into Neutral

Most people are taught, and probably you were too, never to put a moving vehicle in neutral because it reduces your ability to control its speed and steering.  In fact, in many states it is against the law to coast in neutral or even to put a car in neutral when it is stopped.

An icy roadway, however, presents a situation in which neutral may be your fastest and safest way out of trouble.  This is when you want to slow the car without skidding or get out of a skid without braking.

To maintain control on an icy hill, experts recommend taking the car out of gear, either by stepping on the clutch if you have a manual transmission or by shifting to neutral if your transmission is automatic.

When your car is in gear, the two wheels on the drive axle have residual turning force even if your foot is not on the gas.  By disengaging the transmission, you remove the force from all the wheels.  This allows the brakes to work on all four wheels evenly when you are braking on a slippery downgrade.

Likewise for getting out of a skid.  Try not to panic.  Instead, ease off the gas and put the transmission in neutral, where you are most likely to regain control of the car without braking.

Look and steer in the direction that you want the car to go.  Try not to overreact and steer too quickly.  Rather, do everything slowly and gradually.  If you move too fast you can send the car into a skid in the opposite direction.

Checking Your Tires

Worn tires are poor performers under the best of  circumstances.  When you are driving on wet, slushy, snowy or icy roads, they are a disaster waiting to happen.  Even if your vehicle is four-wheel or all-wheel drive, you still need good tires for good traction and stopping action on slippery roads.  As one tire manufacturer put it, "The brakes stop the wheels; the tires stop the vehicle."

Most people these days opt for all-season radials, which are designed to give decent performance for most seasonal conditions and save you the trouble of changing tires every winter and spring, as opposed to driving on "snow tires" in the winter, and regular treads in the spring summer and fall.

However, for the best possible performance if you live in snow country, you'd be wise to get snow tires, which have treads with molded grooves in the rubber that bite into snow, slush and ice.

You may think you need only two snow tires installed on the drive axle, but four snow tires are definitely superior for both starting and stopping the vehicle.

Finally, regardless of how well-equipped your vehicle is, the biggest component of safety on the road is how you drive.  Always adjust your speed and distance from the vehicle in front of you to the road conditions, and if someone cuts too close in front of you, fall back to maintain a safe distance.  If you must let off steam, curse if you feel you must, but stay far away from unsafe drivers.

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