STRENGTHEN YOUR your RESOLVE

It’s been just a few days since another set of New Year’s resolutions kicked in, along with renewed motivation and rededication to make positive changes in our lives.

That also means it’s just a few weeks before another set of New Year’s resolutions circles the drain, washing away that motivation and rededication for another year.

Can this year be different? There’s always hope. And, amid all the resolutions that aren’t kept, there’s always proof that sometimes they work.

Here are some examples to inspire and instruct us. Happy New Year and good luck.

A quitter who won

Dave Sallee’s New Year’s resolution was a year in the making. In 1989, on the verge of turning 50, he says, “I decided to quit smoking. I just made up my mind that was enough years of abusing my body.”

So he started spreading the word.

“I kept talking about it all year,” says Sallee, 64, who owns a small computer company in Richardson, Texas. “What helped me the most was telling all my friends I was quitting and they said, ‘Sure you will.’ One of my friends even told me he’d give me $100.”

Sallee and his cigarettes had a great time at a New Year’s Eve party welcoming 1990.

“Then I got up in the morning and threw away a pack and part of another pack and haven’t had a drag since,” he says. “I figured if I didn’t quit, people would really give me guff. That gave me a little more gumption to carry it through.”

And then there was the $100. “When he said it, it was like he was kidding,” Sallee says. “But he ended up giving me the money.”

To succeed in any resolution, he says, you have to be ready.

“I used to joke that I quit smoking 20 times a day,” he says. “The difference was to plan in advance and be dedicated, and just wanting to bad enough.”

The writing on the wall

Go visit Felicia Green after New Year’s and you’ll have a clear picture of what’s in store for her in 2005. It’s all over the house.

“Every year I sit down and write my goals,” says Green, 41, who lives in Duncanville, Texas, and teaches at Faith Family Academy in Oak Cliff.

“Then I put them up everywhere – on the front door, in the bedroom, in the bathroom,” she says.

“You need to put them where you can see them when you get up in the morning and all day and the last thing before you go to sleep.”

Green says that has kept her focused on goals ranging from making more money to being a better mom to self-publishing her recent book, “Hurry Up and Get Over Your ‘X.’”

She usually has about five goals for the new year, and no problem staying motivated.

“If you want to tell others, that’s good, but you have to keep reminding yourself,” Green says. “If you keep seeing it and saying it, you’re going to force yourself to do it.”

Reflecting on his goals

Every morning when Colonel Mason peers into his shaving mirror, there’s more in his face than just a day’s worth of beard.

“I tape my goals on the mirror,” says Mason, 60, who runs a public relations firm in Lewisville, Texas. “You can’t put them in a place to automatically ignore it. You’ve got to trick yourself into seeing them.”

First he had to write them down. Back in the ‘70s, Mason says, he figured out that New Year’s resolutions weren’t working.

“Just by saying it one day on New Year’s, you can’t track it,” he says.

So he started calling them goals and put them on paper. “I break them into categories – personal, civic and business – and probably have five or six goals in each category,” he says. “Then it’s not just a resolution, it’s a plan. And you keep track of them all year.”

Mason says the technique has helped him quit smoking, build his business and tackle new challenges, among other things.

“I’ve never gotten them all,” he says. “I figure my batting average is about 60 percent.”

But there’s always next year, and a new set of goals on the mirror.

Body language

The only New Year’s resolution that Spokane resident Mark Spyder Thompson ever made in earnest, he says, and kept true to was “to start every morning with 15-20 minutes of yoga.”

Thompson spent the better part of three decades as a beach lifeguard, to which, he says, he added a number of “aggressive ocean sports, triathlons and water polo, as well as working on rock ‘n’ roll tours.” The result: two knee surgeries, dislocations of both shoulders, osteoarthritis and lumbar disc damage.

“I woke up each morning in pain and agony,” he says, “too stiff to move happily in any direction.”

Then, following the advice of a friend, he began doing yoga and Pilates.

“I get up, go to my mat and work through my positions,” he says. “Each day begins now with open flow of movement, my back free of pain, my knees and shoulders loosened up.”

He says it is “easy to keep a resolution when it brings something so immediate to the well-being of the whole person.”

Buddy system

Marjean Nielson finally decided she couldn’t keep her resolution on her own. Sherron Truax knew she couldn’t avoid a 60th birthday or thinning hair, but she could change her weight.

Together they met their goals for 2003: losing 100 pounds each.

“We all try to do it by ourselves and we’re not that strong,” says Nielson, who teaches high school physics. “Recognizing that you need help is half the battle.”

“Whatever you attempt, if you don’t have the support of family and friends, it’s not going to work,” says Truax, 60, an artist and sculptor who’s now busy taking care of her three grandchildren.

The longtime friends, who live in Plano, Texas, had dieted for years, with limited or temporary success. Two years ago, hoping to make a fresh start for the new year, they talked about joining Weight Watchers.

Neither was very enthusiastic on her own. “I was the skeptic,” Truax says. “I said, ‘I’m not counting points and all that.’”

Nielson, 53, says she resisted the idea “of paying $12 to have somebody weigh me,” referring to the cost of a weekly Weight Watchers meeting. “I thought I’d go sneak in once and get all the materials.”

Neither was sure the other would show up until the first meeting. “When we saw each other there, we just hugged each other and said, ‘We’re doing this,’” Nielson says. Truax says the combination of personal motivation and group support was key.

“You can’t make anybody lose weight,” she says. “It has to come from yourself. But having a support group made all the difference for us.”

Both women reached their weight goals within a year, then kept their resolutions for 2004 – to keep it off.

“It seemed a lot harder to maintain it than it was to take it off,” Truax says. “You have to think, ‘Oops, I don’t want to get back to that bad habit.’”