But it is also at such moments that we can see examples of outstanding people's bravery and courage. And you know, they don't even think about themselves as brave, they simply did what they thought was right.

I am referring to story of Phuket's resident Bill O'Leary, a former Australian, who saved many lives.

Just 2 minutes before first wave hit, he received a phone call from his employee, who was on beach where company's office is located, "The shoreline receded 250 meters past swim platform".

O'Leary was in sea with guests of his cruise company and his 3 children on board. He knew news spelled big trouble. The swim platform was anchored 8 meters deep. He also remembered a shake he felt earlier that morning.

Not many people in Thailand knew about tsunamis but Bill immediately recognized warning signs. Without delay, he phoned his offices and major hotels, telling them to remove people off beach, "A tsunami is coming. Clear beach and get people to high ground." He also asked other people on boat to make phone calls to places they knew.

Then he headed out to sea to face giant wave. Bill was on other side of island, further away from upcoming tsunami He was in open water when he received call from same employee that tsunami hit Phuket's beach. Bill pulled back engines and waited. Then he saw it. A 5-meter step on water traveling faster than any wave he'd seen before. He directed boat right at step and jumped on.

The guests and children were terrified as boat was riding wave and everybody was screaming. Bill managed to keep boat straight until waves passed. Looking back they could see a wall of water washing off small boats and fish farms ashore. But O'Leary and his crew were safe.

During New Year, most people make resolutions but often very few are able to keep them.

Psychologists, Janet Polivy and Peter Herman, reported that 25% of new year’s resolutions will be abandoned in first 15 weeks; average number of times an individual makes a new year’s resolution is 10, and that those whose resolutions lasted for about 6 months or more often tried 5 or 6 times before they succeeded.

For many years until recently, I was unable to keep any of my new year’s resolutions. So, my friend, you’re not alone.

This caused a lot of hardship in my life. I had many personal bad habits I wanted to get rid of, but due to lack of self-discipline and control, I was unable to do so.

Since 3 years ago, my life has changed and improved because of a few strategies I developed that helped me kick my bad habits, improve myself and achieve my ambitions in life.

What is your new year’s resolution? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to stop smoking? Do you want to stop drinking? Do you want to kick your drug habit? Do you want to stop gambling? Do you want to make three times more money this year?

Whatever your resolutions and goals may be, you can succeed if you adopt a few easy strategies I want to reveal.

Permit me to share with you 10 of these easy tips that have helped me keep my new year’s resolutions and make them work for me.

(1) Be reasonable

Know your weaknesses, define them and commit to improving yourself. Do all that is reasonable and legal to kick your bad habits and change your life for better.

Have reasonable expectations.

For example if you’re 100Ibs overweight, it will be unreasonable to expect to lose all of it in a week!

However, if you make a commitment to engage in more physical exercises, eat healthy food and allow about 3 months, then that will be reasonable and you may succeed.

I was 100 Ibs overweight for many years, but by being reasonable, I have lost all extra weight!

Make a resolution because it is right for you and will help you succeed in life and not because you want to please others or because it is fashionable.

You can’t please anyone until you’ve pleased yourself.

Set priorities. Start with small goals and resolutions and work your way up to jumbo ones.

(2) Don’t bite more than you can chew

Take it easy on yourself. You’re human, not a machine. Don’t make too many resolutions, which will then be hard for you to keep and cause you to fail and feel disappointed and hopeless.

Make about 2-3 resolutions at a time. Be very clear about bad habits that you wish to kick or goals that you desire to achieve.

Don’t make a decision to kick a habit unless you’re ready for it.

For example some people who have been smoking or drinking alcohol for many years have noticed that each time they decided to quit they have failed.

The reason is that they may not be physically or mentally ready yet to stop.

When you smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, there are many biological and chemical activities involved.

The cells and organs in your body change and become dependent on chemicals in cigarettes (nicotine) and alcohol.

Therefore even though you have realized dangers of smoking or drinking, you may not be able to suddenly wake up from sleep and decide to stop.

Those cells and organs in your body may still continue to need chemicals.

This is cause of “urge”, “desire”, or “craving” that you feel to smoke or drink.

So, take it easy. Withdraw from bad habits slowly. If you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, start by cutting it down to half a pack daily and continue until someday, suddenly, urge to smoke will stop.

And stop blaming yourself for bad habits. Accept your bad habits, but determine to kick them.

Acceptance frees you slowly from bad habits. Guilt and self- condemnation splits your energy and ties you more and more to bad habits, so avoid these feelings.

You can apply same strategy to kick any bad habit. Slowly and steadily, if you persevere, you’ll win!

(3) Write your resolutions down.

After you’ve clearly realized and defined your weaknesses and bad habits, write them down in a notebook. Write all your goals and ambitions down in a notebook. This is one way to get mentally and physically committed to taking action.

Bad habits are all behavior and personality traits that block your way in life and make it difficult for you to achieve your dreams and ambitions.

If you don’t know your weaknesses and habits in life, perhaps you can do what I did and ask any of your enemies to tell you. (Tip: Don’t ask family members or friends. They will never tell you truth because they are afraid of offending you. Only enemies can help you. And if you have no enemy, make one on purpose!)

(4) Picturize your resolutions daily.

Be sure you have easy access to your notebook in which you wrote down your resolutions, goals and ambitions.

Read your resolutions at least twice a day, first thing in morning and also just before you go to sleep in night. Think about and mentally picturize your resolutions. See yourself in eye of your mind succeeding with all your resolutions, goals and ambitions. Smile and tell yourself all time that you have willpower, self-control and discipline to run your life and to achieve all that you desire.

This is a good way to program your mind and thoughts. Instead of allowing others, TV, radio and magazine advertisements to program your mind and thoughts, control you and thereby force you to engage in bad habits, take matters into your hands and begin to constantly program your mind and thoughts with positive affirmations for success and happiness.

(5) Search for and obtain tools and resources that can help you actualize your resolutions, goals and ambitions.