In the post-new year haze, you ask yourself the same question you always ask. Is this gonna be the year? 2010 was a mixed year for me, I got certain breakthroughs but it was all offset by the death of my father, so it could never be a good year. But nonetheless, it could have been called a good year apart from that, so what makes a good year?

A year is an arbitrary cut off point to measure time, but can a year be lucky? When you weigh the good and bad, then you can assess whether it was lucky or not but luck is something you look forward to not retrospectively.

The Chinese believe that years are blessed or cursed according to a sequence of animal signs, but the truth is that there is different luck for different years; the year of the Tiger brings different luck to the year of the Dog. It is mostly positive mental attitude, if you believe this is your year, then by all means it will be. But you have to work hard for your luck – they say that diligence is the mother of all luck and it is true, most people are born with the same average of luck and misfortune, just some use their luck better.

One of my favourite songs last year said "there’s no recession in here, I’m making money this year.” I also heard preachers all calling for their flock not to tune into the recession because it is a state of mind, if you acknowledge it then it has power over you. Of course, you have to tighten your belt to fit the times, but do not tune into negativity about recession or unemployment. Every person has a predesigned destiny that cannot be affected by simple world events; events that happen to you are unique to you.

All rich, powerful, achieving people have the same thing in common regardless of their faith or which religion they believe in – they visualized success and stuck to their vision. That is why a year change is a perfect moment to visualize success and change our direction, but within days we have forgotten our promises to change and resolutions are dashed. The trick to success is to treat every day like New Years Day – a new beginning. In essence a resolution made on any day of the year, will be binding if you have the resolve to carry it through.

My resolution was to be more patient, to not lose my temper at odd occasions and to be more congenial and less competitive. Within hours of making the resolution, I had lost my temper at my weekly quiz because my competitive nature could not relax. I could have waited till next year to make the same resolution, but I decided to make the same promise to myself again, again the next day till I change.

Everyday is the first day of the rest of your life, a cliché but true.

Ends