A new you for thenewyear

A need to turn over a new leaf has turning to self-help books to kick-start her resolutions

RESOLUTIONS. We all make them. And break them. As the year draws to an end, the whole idea of starting on a new slate becomes appealing. After all, a new year ushers in endless possibilities of how your life can somehow turn around if you’re motivated enough to make the necessary changes.

I’m guilty of that. At the beginning of 2017, I joined the gym. My fervour to lose the middle-age paunch lasted exactly one month. Now it’s December all over again and all I’ve accomplished Is to make donations to my neighbourhood gym without making an appearance.

The paunch remains, I still have a gym membership I don’t use, and right now, at the end of 2017, I’m starting to have that same intense fervour to make some changes in my life.

This time, I’m going to stick to it! That paunch has to go. I’ve got to start fitting into my old clothes again without having to lop off a body part, or remove a couple of ribs. Life MUST change for me. So help me God.

So I roped in my editor along with my sister into my Life-Has-To-Change-In-2018 grand plans, and got them to get me a couple of books to help me make a head start. Nothing like having a couple of rahrah cheerleaders to buy me books, which incidentally feeds into my other plan of Saving-Money-In-2018 a.k.a. Get-OtherPeople-To-Buy-You-Things-You-Want. My second plan however, is a different story for a different day.

Do books work? Can self-help gurus change your life for the better? Or are they merely masquerading as snake oil salesman waiting to make a fast ringgit by claiming to hold the answers to life? Can I be motivated enough to make resolutions that finally stick in 2018?