I opened my blinds today and let a new light in. The feeling of a fresh 365 days still to be written streamed in with the sun’s rays. New Year’s could be my favorite holiday, because there is hope in a clean slate. The idea that the past doesn’t have to haunt us and the future is worth focusing on. A message we shouldn’t forget once the ball drops and the street cleaners come to clear fallen confetti. The excitement to open our shiny planners, start our exercise routines, and promise to keep our promises makes the actual commitment seem like a no brainer, but what happens when we’re in the thick of life and that dropping ball seems like a lifetime ago?

That’s when we have to listen to the cynics of the holiday. The one’s who’ve made no resolutions because the night is just another date on the calendar. I hate to say it, but they’re on to something. We all know that a new year doesn’t actually erase all the previous ones. That consequences and habits don’t leave us because we’ve slipped on sparkly dresses and tooted noise makers at midnight. There is a high chance that our planners will be shelved, we’ll be sore from the exercise, promises will be broken and by August we’ll all be counting down for the new year once more. That’s when we have to remember that January 1st is just any other day.

Clean slates can happen today, tomorrow, or three months from now. The magic of the holiday has very little to do with the date as it does with the mindset. My hope for this year is to learn a new language. I already have apps downloaded on my phone and software programmed into my laptop because this has been a resolution for about three years now. I’ve tried the method of full enthusiasm and committed myself to 2 hours of daily practice plus worksheets to no avail. I’ve also been practical and set a limit of only 20 minutes per day. I’m still not bilingual because about a month into learning I feel bored or I miss a day (and then another day and then another day). My hope this year is that when June rolls around and it’s been a few weeks since my last language session I’ll mark my calendar like its the first of the new year.

There is no reason to wait 52 more weeks or 364 more days to start a goal (new or otherwise). Start a project today and finish it. Or start a project today, stop for three weeks, start again and finish half of it, stop again until September, do a little each day until January, and finish it in 2018. If it helps, put on the sparkly dress and pour yourself some champagne. There is no reason we can’t make any other day just as special, fresh, and enthusiastic. The important thing is that we open the blinds, let the sunshine in, and continue to start something.