It’s December 31st. Resolutions fill the air. It’s only natural to want to make changes, and we’ve been conditioned to assign a “start date” to every “project.” Think: first day of school, Mondays, first of month, summer.

But some changes take a bigger shift than one day can signify. We can start a diet on a certain day… but a journey to permanent weight loss has no start date. That’s because every day of the past is part of it, including all those bloomin’ diets and freaky binges and the very sad thirteen Weight Watchers tries where I let some stranger put me on a scale and record my worth.

My own journey to permanent weight loss has been going on for over 35 years. I’ve helped thousands of people on their journeys. And my experience has taught me that we all want real, deep and meaningful change in our lives. But that scares the crap out of us so we opt instead for superficial change.

A new dress size for a month.

A “better” number on the scale for a wedding or event.

Six months hanging on by mere fingernails to the diet from hell.

So, if you’re thinking “diet!” at the first of this new year, think again. What’s the change you really want? Is it a relationship, a career, a new environment in which to live? Is it more meaningful friendships or peace within?

Ultimately, diets and superficial change are hard. They involve struggle, restriction, pain and suffering. It’s like stuffing a round peg into a tiny square hole, because it doesn’t start with us. It starts with the tiny square hole, the “eating plan” or “diet.”

Deeper change is actually easy. It’s 100 times easier than our minds make it out to be. I vacillated about real weight loss for 20 years, trying and abandoning diets at will when they didn’t work or were too painful. When I decided to really commit to permanent change, it was so damned easy I found myself asking “Why did I wait so long?”

It was easy because the changes came from inside me, not from outside myself where diets are in charge. As one of my brilliant clients said this week:

“I want inner strength, not outside pressure.”

Empowerment, always from within, is the real jet fuel to change. And you can’t buy it in a box.

So what’s the only real resolution? Empowering ourselves.

As a wonderful online buddy said this week: “I am not making resolutions!! My only ‘goal’ is to be the best ME I can be!!” (Way to go, Jen!)

The best me is empowered and strong. She has thirty-five years of hard-won experience on her side, not just one day to change. And, better yet, she’ll still be there on a “bad” day, and when things are hard, and on January 13 too.