Welcome to the tail-end of the first week of a new year! How have you been? How have things gone for you this week? Made any, ah, changes, lately? *Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more.*

It's traditional to consider the new year as a blank canvas, one open to all the dreams, goals and plans you want to draw on it. And while envisioning a beautiful life for yourself is the first step, making it real takes a lot of things into consideration: a supportive environment, a clear vision that begs to be given life, and the magnetic quality of a dream you're so passionate about that it attracts help from the universe. Making it possible, however, begs a few questions.

Are you in a good position to make your goals attainable?
If the environment in which you plan to realize your goal is unfriendly, that takes a toll on your emotional, mental and physical health. You've probably heard or read about jobs where the only thing that kept people there aside from the money was their co-workers.  And we all have our own 'best conditions' for growth and real involvement.

Some people prefer working in small, tight teams, or mostly unsupervised, while others need the social stimulation of a big group and a team leader to give clear directions. What you need is a place that will challenge you to grow and stable enough to help keep you steady at the same time, not one where you'll get lost, flounder and be left without support or options.

If the things you need to make your goals achievable are in in short supply or unavailable, you have to take it on yourself to introduce these things into your environment. Sometimes that means a consistent, demanding investment of time and labor: to carve out a space for serious study, or strengthen the habit of getting up early to exercise first thing in the morning, or to write two pages every day, no matter what. Sometimes that means a continuous resistance to the impulse to buy something to cheer you up when you're feeling down. Sometimes that means saying "No." And meaning it.

If the circumstances of your life are such that it would be difficult for you to get started or keep on course, you have to take it upon yourself to change them, one day at a time, bit by bit, for as long as it takes for things to change.

You have to maneuver yourself into a place and a position to go after what you want for yourself. That means setting up the circumstances to favor you, and setting yourself up in a position to go after them with as little interference as possible.

Is the goal clearly broken down into achievable steps?
While you really "can't cross a chasm in two small leaps", the bulk of the work that need doing happen in inching along. Making steady inroads, bit by bit and step by step. Do you know what you need to do today, and tomorrow? What about next week and next month? Prior planning prevents piss-poor performance, dude. Remember "as little interference as possible"? This is part of it. You iron out the little things, read the fine print and pay attention to the details. These are all small steps.

Have you asked for assistance, or sent signals to get others to buy in for your vision of the future?
Get rid of your world-view that you're in this alone.  We have a big planet and a lot of people.  If you can't find your tribe where you are, you can go world-wide via the internet and seek others like you.

(Yeah, sure. How?)

ONE: Communicate your vision.
And who is your first target? Who do you need to convince the most? YOU. Yes, you. You have to win YOURSELF over with the fierceness of your goals. You have to buy into your own plans, or else they're just scribbles on paper. And when you are full of passion and energy for your vision, people can sense that and are attracted to it. It's an energy that can connect us to others and touch the heart. Resonare: we resonate. We vibrate on the same level, like different strings humming within the same chord, or different voices in a chorus.

Ask this of your self about your ambitions this year:

• Can you be trusted to do what you say? How will you work on it?
• Do you care about what you're doing? How will express that in your work?
  
• Will you help yourself do it by planning for your weaknesses and playing to your strengths?

If you find yourself singing alone where you are and no one else seems to be responding, maybe it's time to sing a little louder somewhere else. You may attract the curious, the mindlessly cruel, and the judgmental, but you also up your chances of meeting those who sing the same song in a different voice, and you can support one another.

TWO: Clarify your vision.
If you know exactly what you want, and have a very, very good idea on what you need to do to get it, you're already ahead. Clarity demands conviction -- that this is what you want to happen, this is what you want to get, and that these are the many ways (of course you have to have back-up and fall-back plans, don't be silly) you can get it done.

What keeps you from seeing clearly? Sometimes the most common blindness is to things we see all around us everyday -- where we get so used to it  we don't even see it anymore.

• You have money but no time to enjoy the fruits of your labors.... But that's okay. It happens to everyone, anyway.
  
• You're relatively young but your body feels old. YOU feel old...But that's alright. Everyone else is getting old. Or will, anyway.
  
• You have the job you want, but exercise no choices other than the same old processes you've gotten down pat. But that's fine. You're safe anyway.
  
• You have an education but you haven't learned anything new in the past few years, either  in the work you've been doing for or in the life you're living now. But it's cool. That's less stress, anyway.
  
• You live in the world but you haven't seen much of  the world. You haven't changed much of anything since ...you can't remember when you last changed anything. And that's...okay?
  

No. No it's not. That's just settling. And you're more than that. You're here to live and dream and give back. You're here to bring out what you came here to make real, and if you don't do it, no one else will be able to give it in the way only you can. Whether it's a series of kind acts, or years of steady, solid service, or practicing a sense of humor that brightens people's days, when you live your way to realizing your vision, that in itself can serve as a shining example to other people that they can live their dreams too.

Have you ever been lost in a daydream, or were caught gazing off in the distance, rapt in a  a vision? A vision is attractive - you see something that interests you in the distance, you go over it. You find a situation engrossing, you don't feel the passage of time. Attraction is pull -- when your vision is vivid enough, it pulls you towards it. Alone, you can marshal internal and external resources towards making it real. With others attracted by the same vision, you can accomplish amazing things.

Bonus links:
Three benefits of finding your tribe and leading it, by Michael Hyatt
How to Build Your Tribe: Finding Your People, by Marc and Angel at Marcandangel.com
Ignite Your Life: Relationships – Find Your Tribe, by Darcy Lussier
A Three-Step Approach To Ensuring Resolution Success by Thorin Klosowski