Be a new person in 2012: It all starts with you!

I've been writing, working on my blog, experimenting, doing this for Flat Classroom but I'd like to share my favorite 5 posts for looking at yourself this 2012 in the common retrospection that we have this time of year. I don't make resolutions, I make appointments with myself to improve habits. Here are some of my favorite posts on this topic.

Take time to consider what habits you need to put in place now. If you keep doing what you're doing, where will the normal course of human habits take you? Face it. Lack of sleep, overeating, and lack of exercise will take you to a heart attack. Assume no exceptions and deal with it. Face it. Not balancing your checkbook. Having no budget. Spending more than you make will make your situation worse this time next year. But there is hope, you can improve yourself.

1- Add to your life by subtraction

“I want to determine the goals that my family and I have and focus on those. I want to focus on my family. I want to do the strangest math I've ever heard of and subtract the unimportant so that my life will have more.”

Orchmid's Photo Stream – Creative Commons

2- 20 Questions that will make you a better person.

If everybody where I work was just like me, what would this place be like?

What one thing, if I did it every day, would make the biggest difference in my life?

3- Happy New Year

What 2011 means to me.So, it is appropriate for this to be 2011. Because really I like how the 11 look on the end of it.  It looks like you and me. Friends, standing beside each other beside a big globe.  And what is that at the beginning — what does the 2 look like?
Well, I'll leave that to your imagination but to me, the 2 means “To” —
2011 = To look at the world as people living and working side by side. People who can make a difference together to change the world.

4 – The Routine of Being Amazing or Focus on your Habits to Change Your Destiny

There is good teaching and there is great teaching. Teaching is more than just “in front” of the class. It is proper planning, preparation, timely assessment, classroom organization. In fact, I've often found that the “little things” become the big things more often than not. It is about your habits.
2011 has been the “year of the habit” for me where I've focused on one question:

“What are the habits that are going to help me be the kind of person I want to be in this life?”

5 – Money Talk for Teachers or Doing More with Less: A Look at your To's, Who's, You and Do's

The fact is that we all have to spend less than we make and the likelihood is that most of us are spending more than we make. This is a losing formula.

Take some time to think about what you're doing and live life intentionally.

Your new year could be a new day. You can be a new you in 2012 but remember… it all starts and ends with you. Think about these things.

Sometimes life isn't about finding the perfect answer but in facing the right questions.