Dr. Jim Surrell, Journal columnist

Just 2 days ago, we celebrated our 2023 New Year’s Day. I wish you all a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2023. Of course, many of us will come up with our “New Year’s Resolutions”. These resolutions are generally made with the intent to make positive changes in our lifestyle or habits leading to some personal improvement in our life.

If you choose to make some 2023 New Year’s resolutions, let me take this opportunity to suggest a few simple items for you to consider. Let’s make this very straight-forward and make it as simple as ABC. These 3 ABC items can have a positive impact on our life as we head into 2023.

A = Attitude – We all need to be very aware that we all choose our own attitude each and every day. We can choose to have a positive attitude or we can choose to have a negative attitude. This daily choice is very important and will significantly impact our personal interactions with family, friends, co-workers, and others. The attitude we choose will most certainly influence how we deal with the many various situations we encounter each day. Clearly, a positive attitude will help us achieve positive results as we interact with other people and various situations on a daily basis.

B = Believe in Yourself – If you truly believe in yourself, then you already know the answer to the following question. Who should be your best friend? This is a very important question, and clearly, there is only one correct answer. The answer is you! As we truly become our own best friend, we will learn from both the successes and the failures that we all will experience in life. We must take pride in our success, and also learn from these positive experiences. We all will certainly make mistakes, and know that this just is a part of being a member of the human race. We do not need to pick on ourselves or put ourselves down. None of us can change the past. We all need to learn from our past mistakes, make the choice to not make that same mistake again, and just move on. It is very important for all of us to be our own personal best friend!

C = Choices – We all live by choice, and not by chance. We choose our friends, our attitude, our spoken and written words, our lifestyle and personal habits, and make many other choices every day. We must all understand and remember that each and every one of us will become a product of our personal choices. Healthy lifestyle choices include choosing healthy personal habits, including our diet, avoiding all tobacco, and simple exercise choices such as walking, taking time to relax with family and friends, and many others. Every choice we make will have consequences and, without question, our good choices will lead to good results. Of course, we cannot always choose what happens to us in life, but we can always choose how we respond to what happens to us in life.

I sincerely wish you all a very prosperous, joyful, and Happy New Year!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Jim Surrell is the author of “The ABC’s For Success In All We Do” and the “SOS (Stop Only Sugar) Diet” books.Contact Dr. Surrell by email at sosdietdoc@gmail.com.