Time flies. Christmas has come and gone in the blink of an eye. You wait a week for the next big thing, which comes right at the end of the holiday season, and suddenly, it's a brand new year. Everyone seems to be partying and toasting champagne a mere couple of hours before they swear they are going to give up partying and alcohol in the new year. You walk into your neighborhood fitness center and you can't even find a single treadmill or elliptical that is open, because everyone needs to start getting in the habit of exercising before the new year. They're running through their list; their mind saying "new year, new me."

I understand why people like to make new year's resolutions. I've noticed that, with some people, declaring that they are going to do something or not do something gives them more comfort. It creates a line of defense from any insecurities they might have about what they can actually accomplish. But if you're like me, you're the exact opposite. I've always found that if I make a definitive statement about what I'm going to do, then I have an obligation to stick to it no matter what. And that makes me extremely nervous, so I usually end up saying I'm maybe going to do something; or I might get that done.

Whether you're the person that falls into the former or the latter category, it is always a good thing to have goals. Aspirations and ambitions enrich people's lives. But is a new year really going to change that?

With the closing of 2016, I saw many Internet posts about how awful 2016 was. And although everyone may have different ideas of how the year was politically or socially, it seemed to me that most everyone agreed on one thing: 2016 was not a banner year. A lot of these posts are all in good fun, but I found myself thinking, do we really want to live like that?

Time is more complex than that. Do we really want to put a label on our entire year by claiming it one way or another, black or white? Yes, you can't ignore the terrible things that happened this past year, but you can't ignore the amazing either.

Maybe you didn't accomplish your resolutions in 2016; so you feel like you have to overcompensate in the new year, just to get tired and have your attempts fizzle out. And that's where insecurities start, where self doubt can creep in. Because we feel like we haven't lived up to our own expectations.

But everyone is human. Everyone falls short of what they want. Everyone sets their expectations too high. And the truth is that's okay. It's the little things that matter; the extra mile you ran at the gym, finally finishing the book you told yourself you would read, the new healthy recipe you tried out from Pinterest, the time you organized and cleaned your bedroom.

Most of us like to think in big terms, which is never exclusively a bad thing. Setting goals and having ambitions are what keep us going. But if we can focus on the importance of small victories and baby steps towards a goal, our new year can be that much more fulfilling.