Try this.

Have you ever been in a room with someone who just got off the phone and they always say something negative or defamatory about the person they were just talking to? Or when someone leaves a room, do you find yourself talking behind that person’s back?

Stop it.

Even if you don’t do these things yourself, try to make it a point to say one positive thing (that’s true) about the person that just left the room, or who you just hung up on. It literally takes a lot of people by surprise when you do it. Which is sad, but awesome at the same time.

It’s a super simple thing to do that rips a bit of the negativity out of our lives.

Try it.

Here’s the big problem with New Years resolutions:

We usually only make one of them.

The reason why we rarely stick to them is the same reason why we rarely stay with diet plans. We put ourselves in the wrong state of mind right from the beginning. Whether you decide to eat better, exercise more, stop drinking or whatever in 2012, take a look at this…

Our human brain has a finite amount of will power. It’s true. Smart people did studies and wrote some papers on it. So when you tell yourself “This year I’m going to go to the gym 5 times a week”. You probably will for a week or a month. And then you’ll stop. Flat out stop. You’ll do this because going from being at the gym zero times a week, to five times a week is too much for your brain to handle.

Instead of going to the gym 5 times a week (which is a lot), start out by going once or twice a week and gradually increase that as weeks go by and you get comfortable with your new lifestyle. Same goes for diets. Ease into them. That being said, you need to set up your new lifestyle change so you can ramp it up gradually. So don’t just buy a punch pass gym membership. Buy a full year, so when you decide to go three times a week instead of once, you don’t feel limited.

I’m going to start applying this to everything in my life this year.  Each week I’m going to change one minor thing in my life and focus on it for that one week.

My first lifestyle change: Improve my diet.

I eat like hell. One meal a day sometimes. Sometimes I just eat chips for meals. Sometimes I don’t even eat at all for like a day and a half (when business gets crazy). Just pathetic. I eat out all the time. I’ve been grocery shopping maybe 3 times in 2011. My fridge has Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, mustard, an old can of pineapple juice, and some old McDick’s fries.

I’m not joking.

So this week I’m going grocery shopping (tomorrow, no time today). And from now on, if I feel like it, I’m only going to eat out on Sundays and Wednesdays (not including tomorrow). This allows me a few days a week to go out and eat at a restaurant, something I do 7+ times a week now, but keeps me focused on watching what I eat the other 5 days.

Next week I think I’ll focus on implementing one Facebook-free day a week into my routine. It’ll probably be on Wednesdays. For me, and a lot of us, Facebook is a huge productivity killer and it needs to be controlled.

More on that next week!