New Year’s Eve has always been a great time to look back on the past year, but more importantly, to look forward to the upcoming year. It is a time to reflect on changes that we want, or need, to make. New Year’s resolutions are often quite easy to come up with, but much harder to follow through with. We all have the quit smoking or lose weight resolution, but how long does that last?

Here is my top 5 list of New Year’s resolutions that most people, I think, will try to stick to for 2012:

1.      Fit into Fitness. People always want to get into shape and lose weight after the holidays. This is obviously much harder done than said.

2.      Enjoy Life More. Let’s face it, life is hard, stressful, chaotic… the list goes on. The “enjoy life more” resolution has become popular over the years, and is very important.

3.      Quit Smoking & Drinking. This is always a popular resolution, but again, much harder to do than it is to say. Many people tend to use the New Year as an incentive to finally quit smoking, or drinking, or both. Most people are not equipped to make such a drastic lifestyle change all at once. Heavy drinkers and chain smokers often fail to quit cold turkey, but do much better when they taper gradually, or moderate the smoking and drinking.

4.      Learn something new. This could be the year that you take up Spanish, or yoga lessons. Maybe you want to go skydiving or learn how to fix your computer on your own. This could be the year that you try something new, after all, why not?

5.      Spend more time with family and friends.  Family and friends are usually the center of people lives; however, how much time do they actually spend together? This year try to make time to spend with family, make plans to meet up with friends. Work should not come first this coming year.

Whatever your resolution is, try to stick to it this coming year!