Toward December, I was almost dreading the start of another year.  It wasn't that the closing year had been bad; in fact, it had been a really good one.  But I was worried about goal-setting, or, more accurately, goal-failing.

It happened every year:  I would heroically set goals in January - new habits I wanted to develop, besetting sins I hoped to conquer - only to have reality set in around the end of February when I hadn't made any progress.  Ultimately, with feelings of frustration and failure, I'd throw up my hands and give up on accomplishing any of my goals for that particular year.