January 1 is the very worst time to make a New Year's resolution. Why? Because people who are broke and exhausted from the holidays won’t be able to rally the physical and emotional energy needed to shed pounds or stop smoking. At least that was my experience with clients when I was a therapist in private practice. I also learned some other valuable, but unorthodox lessons about goal setting:

• Don’t focus on building up your areas of weakness. Talents overlooked may atrophy, and weaknesses -- regardless of how much effort is put into trying to improve them -- will never match a person’s natural abilities. Instead, focus on your strengths and place yourself in positions where those strengths can make you successful.

• Learn to embrace failure. Appreciate that growth and development comes as much from failure as it does from success. Understanding what doesn’t work may be at least as important as understanding what does, especially when these failures are acknowledged early on and are swiftly examined.

• Realize that unlearning is hardest part of learning new behaviors. One of the greatest challenges of making resolutions is to identify those behaviors and attitudes that need to be unlearned in order to more quickly adopt new behaviors. The trick is to use past competencies, not as a reason to stop progressing (by getting stuck in your comfort zone) but as a springboard to future success.

• Don’t set goals. Create action plans. Anybody can write a wish list. The secret of success lies in forming the habit of doing the things required to succeed. I have no complaint with those who write down their goals and ambitions. But please don’t stop there. Jumping into action is what will turn dreams into reality.