Some ways to start the year off with momentum:

1. Instead of setting numerous goals, set three. Then work diligently to achieve them. Setting fewer goals allows you to better focus your (limited) energy and get better results.

2. Start each week by scheduling your priorities for that week on Sunday evening. Put them on the schedule as you would a doctor's or dentist appointment. Let the "busyness" of the week work around your priorities instead of the other way around.

3. Reduce emotional stress by multitasking less. You don't need to watch TV and fold laundry and talk on the phone at the same time, nor do you need to eat breakfast, surf the web, and text message your best friend simultaneously while listening to The Black Eyed Peas on the stereo.

4. Resolve to carry less baggage around with you on your personal journey in 2010. Though we all experience problems and issues, we have choices about how long we want to suffer under their weight, and to what degree.

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"My sister's expecting a baby, and I don't know if I'm going to be an uncle or an aunt."

Former NBA player Chuck Nevitt, when asked by his college coach why he appeared so nervous at practice one afternoon.

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Mindfulness is one of those oft-discussed but seldom understood terms that has found its way into our everyday discussions on mental health and happiness. We've all heard of it, yet nobody really understands what it is. So let's fix that.

Mindfulness can be described as the experiencing of being fully engaged in the present moment. It involves an intentional awareness of what is going on around you. Typically, it is associated with the term meditation; however, meditation is simply one way to practice being mindful.

Mindfulness involves the following:

• being able to take in your surroundings without judging them or criticizing yourself -being able to experience any emotion without it overwhelming you -narrowing your focus to the present situation only

  Research on mindfulness has shown that it has tremendous health benefits, as it helps reduce blood pressure, reduce stress hormone release in our bodies, and improves the functioning and effectiveness of our brains.

  In 2010, try to be more mindful in the way you live. This means:

• learning to quiet and/or ignore that little devil on your shoulder that finds fault with all that you do -attempting to do one thing at a time, and seeing it through to completion -when engaging in conversation with someone, attempting to hear what they are really saying, and how they are saying it -when eating, trying to enjoy the subtle difference in tastes and textures of your food -when working, focusing on enjoying the details and the process of doing the best job possible on the task at hand -understanding that all emotions serve a purpose, and that the experience of any emotion is a teaching tool. If you are feeling lonely, instead of trying to fight it off, try to understand what that emotion is telling you about your present situation. It's the attempt to fight it off, after all, that causes the problem anyway, not the emotion of loneliness itself. The more mindful you can be, the less anxiety you will experience on a daily basis, and the more engaged in life you'll be. You don't need to practice meditation to improve your ability to be mindful. You simply need to practice utilizing it within the parameters of your daily interactions and habits.

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