Happy New Year! And Happy 13th birthday to Mormon Momma!

If you're looking for some motivation, a nudge, a push, a shove, or just a little incentive to start 2016 off with a bang, here are some great resources for your consideration.

Mormon Hacks: New Year's 2016

26 Ways To Take Your Life Back When You’re Broken

Generally, I try to avoid labels. Too often when we begin seeing ourselves in a particular way it can be hard for us—or for others to allow us—to move on to the person we would like to be. While I wouldn't call someone “broken,” I admit there are probably times in every life where we feel that way: exhausted, beaten down, rock-bottom, at the end of our rope.

If you feel that way today or if you feel less hopeless at all, this list gives some solid, foundational ways to get your trajectory going in the right direction.

50 resolutions? Are you nuts? Before you think this is a list of 50 things the author—or I—thinks you need to do right now, it's not. Instead, it's a list of fairly common goals, with a tip or two to help you move past common barriers to success.

Trying to stop procrastinating, reduce your stress level, or watch less TV? This list could give you some ideas to get on the way to reaching your goal.

The Ultimate Guide to Totally Nailing Every One of Your Resolutions

Like the list of 50 things above, this article tackles specific types of resolutions (like saving money and sleeping more (ahem…that would be me)), but it does it in greater detail. I'll be implementing some of these tips in my own quest to be healthier.

7 Secrets of People Who Keep Their New Year's Resolution

These seven tips are pretty basic, but good reminders of how to keep going on those things you most want to accomplish this year.

Here’s the Secret to Sticking to Your New Year’s Resolution

The idea in this post seems simple, but it's one I have found powerful for years. I taught this as part of my course in goal setting titled Super Charged Stay-at-Home Mom.

In this article, the author got some advice from Columbia University psychology professor and leader of the Motivational Science Center, Tony Higgins. According to the author:

He says there are two categories of resolutions: promotion goals, and prevention goals. Promotion goals are hopes and dreams, aspirations towards a future that is better than the present (“I will run a marathon,””I will buy an apartment.”) Prevention goals are duties and obligations, discipline-oriented targets to keep you on track (“I will go to the gym,” “I will pay my credit card bill on time.”) A good way to think about these is that promotion goals are about improvement, while prevention goals are about maintaining what you already have.

Check out this article to see the potential power of prevention goals.

17 Resolutions Only the Most Successful People Make

OK, I don't know about “most successful people” (even if I knew how the author defined it), but I love this unconventional list of resolutions because it can push you out of your comfort zone and into some great space. For example, one goal is to prove one person wrong. Another, quite different goal, is to ask one person for help.

These aren't the things you'd normally use as a New Year's resolution. They are open-ended and interesting. Try them!

101 Motivational Quotes to Start 2016 Off Right

For family home evening this week, we sat down as a family and read through this list. Each person had a pencil and paper so they could jot down the quotes that most moved them personally. I'll be copying our favorites and hanging them on our homeschool bulletin board this year.

See if some of these give you a needed shift in perspective!

100 Day Challenge

If external motivation helps keep you going, check out this program. I completed it myself—yes, and blogged about it—in 2013 and found it very helpful to keep on track. I recommend a structured approach for anyone who struggles to keep going past the first few weeks of the new year.

New Year Resolution Video - 100 Day Challenge

Jeffery R. Holland Wants You to Succeed

The start of a new year is the traditional time to take stock of our lives and see where we are going, measured against the backdrop of where we have been. Several years ago at BYU, I shared my thoughts on the scriptural story of Lot’s wife.

Often, like Lot’s wife, we long to return to past days. I have come to the conclusion that Lot’s wife did not just look back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin.

So, as a new year starts and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in.

To all such of every generation, I call out, “Remember Lot’s wife.” Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the “high priest of good things to come.”

Keep your eyes on your dreams, however distant and far away. Live to see the miracles of repentance and forgiveness, of trust and divine love that will transform your life today, tomorrow, and forever. That is a New Year’s resolution I ask you to keep this new year.

Do you make resolutions? How do you keep yourself motivated and moving forward?