HAPPY NEW YEAR, I’m wishing you a wonderful 2018! Today, I’m setting the tone for my 2018 by doing things I want to do more of throughout the year such as writing, running, spending time with my family and reading. Another must is setting up my Happy Planner and starting a new Bullet Journal and Morning Pages journal.

I just love having a fresh slate!

It’s always tricky figuring out what to put on the first page of journals, though. Nothing super personal because what if someone takes a peek or it falls open? So my tradition is to write out the words of my favorite poem, Start Where You Stand, by Berton Braley since it’s perfect for New Year’s and … well, any day you declare as a do-over.

Need an extra dose of motivation? Here’s a good place to start:

Start where you stand

Start where you stand and never mind the past,
The past won’t help you in beginning new,
If you have left it all behind at last
Why, that’s enough, you’re done with it, you’re through;
This is another chapter in the book,
This is another race that you have planned,
Don’t give the vanished days a backward look,
Start where you stand.

The world won’t care about your old defeats
If you can start anew and win success,
The future is your time, and time is fleet
And there is much of work and strain and stress;
Forget the buried woes and dead despairs,
Here is a brand new trial right at hand,
The future is for him who does and dares,
Start where you stand.

Old failures will not halt, old triumphs aid,
To-day’s the thing, to-morrow soon will be;
Get in the fight and face it unafraid,
And leave the past to ancient history;
What has been, has been; yesterday is dead
And by it you are neither blessed nor banned,
Take courage, man, be brave and drive ahead,
Start where you stand.