As the New Year approaches, I'm feeling pressured to come up with a New Year's Resolution. 

The thing is, I'm a little stumped.

I don't need to lose weight.  I'm not a smoker.  I like my job, even. 

That doesn't mean that I don't have goals for the coming year, only that I don't need a flip of the calendar to urge me to stay on track with those goals.  I just need something I call "my five-year plan" and a compass.  That is, the compass in my brain.  The brain is a powerful tool, whether you program it with resolutions or not.   

My birthday falls the day after Christmas and it was an "even number" birthday -- the ones that always seems to hit me the hardest.  It wasn't a landmark birthday -- not the big 3-0, 4-0 or 5-0.  But I choose to look at my birthday as my own personal New Year's Eve, a day that requires reflection on the prior year and anticipation and/or planning for the future year.  I think because it falls around year end, so close to all the holidays that force us to reflect and be thankful, that it causes a sense of what-are-you-waiting-for syndrome. 

So, I don't really need resolutions.  I just need my birthday.  It always helps me to focus on what is most important.  It helps me to find my compass, point it in a certain direction, and move forward. 

I've got plans, I tell you.

What will you be doing?