Every year, millions of people start to think about ways to make life better, and resolve to do something about it. Unfortunately most of them set themselves up for failure before they even begin, because they don't build a proper foundation from which to build.

The most common resolutions are things like 'lose weight', or 'stop smoking', or 'start a new business'. Sometimes resolution will be something like 'make new friends', or 'win ______ award', or 'spend more time with family'.

In short, resolutions are decisions to reach specific goals. Here are some ideas to keep in mind to insure success of your resolutions.

1. Positive Expectation People who succeed with resolutions are those who expect to succeed. Those who expect to fail won't even make effort to move forward.

One of best ways to build positive expectation is to find evidence that others have succeeded in what you're wanting to accomplish. This is one reason "Chicken Soup for Soul" books have become so popular. They contain hundreds of short stories of people succeeding in all areas of life.

Another excellent means of building positive expectation is to simply imagine yourself succeeding. Scientific studies have proven that inner mind cannot tell difference between a real event and one that is vividly imagined.

If you want to have feeling that you've succeeded in something before, all you have to do is to vividly imagine succeeding. Then, whenever you think about that goal, your inner mind will recall vivid experience of succeeding, and you'll have positive expecatation of future success.

2. Have A Clear Plan For Acheivement If you wanted to take a trip to a place you've never been, would you just jump in car and guess your way there? Or would you take a minute to look at a map to see which roads will get you to your destination?

Up until several years ago, I was a champion 'angry person', in that just about everything in my life made me angry. If someone was unkind, or thoughtless, or selfish, or anything I didn't like, I got angry. And not just upset, but all-out, smoke rolling out of my ears, ANGRY!

But principles that I was learning led me to realize that every time I got angry, whether I expressed it or not, I was directing Power to create future experiences that would mimic or resonate with that anger. I knew that I had a problem to deal with.

I understand where philosophy of 'living with your anger' comes from, as well as philosophy of express it to get rid of it. But at least in my case, everything I expressed got easier to express, and it just grew and grew. I had to eliminate it completely.

And here's major thing that helped with that. Anger is feeling that things, situations, and people should be something they are not. Anger is judgment. If you take away judgment, you eliminate source of anger. Actually, this is one lesson learned from Buddhists. If you can eliminate your 'attachment' to world and conditions, you can reach 'enlightenment'.

I don't get angry anymore. Frustrated sometimes, but I remind myself that world is as it is, and I won't help anything by getting angry, upset, or frustrated.

The transformation in me was like transformation of a lifelong smoker who got scared out of habit (yes, anger is a habit) by reality of disease (cancer in case of smoker). There's a simple truth; your actions (and thoughts and feelings) today will create your reality tomorrow.