by Michael Josephson, charactercounts.org

It's a wise custom to end an old year and begin a new one with serious self-reflection. What did you learn this year that could improve your life and make you a wiser and better person?

If you want to have a successful and fulfilling New year, start by examining the way you think and feel about your job, your relationships, and yourself. After all, the single most important factor in personal happiness and your impact on others is your attitude.

In the geometry of life, the axiom is "positive attitudes produce positive results." They make success more likely, failures less harmful, pleasures more frequent, and pain more bearable. Some people tend to bring warm sunshine wherever they go; others bring cold chills. What do you bring?

To find out where you can improve, take an inventory of your predispositions, the attitude you're most likely to start with:

Are you generally optimistic or pessimistic?

Do you tend to assume the best or expect the worst of people?

Is your first instinct to be empathetic or judgmental?

Is your first instinct to be supportive or critical?

Do you send the message that you enjoy life or that you're barely enduring it?

Do you come across as the captain of your own ship or simply a passenger?

Wherever you are on the positive-attitude spectrum, think how much better things could be if you were more consistently and self-consciously optimistic, empathetic, supportive, grateful, enthusiastic, hopeful, and cheerful.

So why not resolve to think, act, and speak more positively about yourself, your family, your coworkers, and everyone else in your life?