We might feel obligated to make New Year’s resolutions … but they’re often the same old promises or endeavors. I put “write a book” on my list every year as far back as 1990; and Hampton Roads didn’t publish my first book “Naked Relationships” until 2002.

What takes us so long to get what we want — whether it’s losing 20 pounds, breaking a habit or changing careers? Fear. Fear is the only thing that holds us back, or trips us up as we’re trying to move forward. We might “fail” because of a lack of desire, effort, follow-through, or understanding of what we truly want. But in every case, the “lack” is rooted in fear.

You might do a stand-up job of documenting your goal (year after year, like I did) to lose 20 pounds, but still lack the motivation to eat less and burn more calories. With all the hoopla on dieting, who knew it was so simple! Smile. What if you weren’t afraid to order a meal at your favorite restaurant and share it or take half of it home? If you knew you could have just as much fun, and look like your best self, eating half as much food, you’d do it, right?… More

We cannot be deeply happy in love and at the same time afraid to follow our heart. There is no fear in love.… More

In a sea of self-help, swimming with bigger and smarter fish, I will be so bold as to isolate the one thing that spawned humankind’s cries for salvation. Then I will label it a lie. I will explain where the lie came from and why we mostly still believe it. And I will do my best to convince you that, despite any and all evidence to the contrary, you are all that is good–not that you can be, or that you will be when you meet certain criteria, but that you are innately good, innately love, innately more than you ever dreamed of being.

Note: This paragraph opens my book “Innately Good: Dispelling the Myth That You’re Not” (Health Communications, 2008).… More