Resolve to set goals this year

Don’t make New Year’s resolutions. You won’t keep them. I’ve tried for years and have almost never taken one through a whole year. Most people start theirs on Jan. 1 and abandon them well before the Super Bowl. Instead of making New Year’s resolutions, make real, personal goals. Some really good advice on goals passed to me by Dave Ramsey includes these five simple steps: First, put your goals in writing. Don’t scribble them out on a cocktail napkin. Write them someplace more permanent. Type them in a Word document that you can save on your computer and also print a copy to display somewhere where you will see them every day. If one of your goals is weight loss, post it on your refrigerator door. Second, make your goals specific. If you want to lose weight, determine a specific amount. Don’t just say I want to lose a few pounds. If you want to lose 20 pounds, make that your goal. Map out how much you need to lose each week to reach that goal, set an exercise regimen and chart your eating habits. If you want to read more, determine how many books or how many hours a week you will spend doing that. Write out what you want to read and why. Third, make your goals time sensitive. A goal without a deadline is just an unfulfilled dream. If you want to lose those 20 pounds before summer, set Memorial Day as your deadline. That is one pound a week. If necessary, break a larger goal up into smaller, more manageable steps. Fourth, make your goals measurable. How will you know that you’ve reached your goal unless you have some way of measuring it? If weight loss is your goal, you can measure that on a scale or in the size of your clothes. Fitness goals can be measured by the amounts and duration of weights lifted or miles run or walked. Reading is measured by the number of books read. Fifth, make your goals personal to you. This is the big “why.” For what reason do you wish to achieve your goals? If it’s to please others, you may have a problem with co-dependency. Your goal may involve service to others, but don’t sacrifice your own satisfaction for the sole purpose of someone else’s happiness. If your goal isn’t personal, you will lack the motivation to achieve it. Without motivation comes failure and a further sinking into whatever you’re trying to get out of. What do you do once you achieve your goal? Celebrate! Don’t get caught up in the “now what funk.” Don’t fall back into old habits. Take some time to enjoy what you have accomplished and then move on. Keep the habits that helped you reach your goal and, if applicable, stretch your goals farther. If necessary, make new and more challenging goals. If you have a book reading goal, try writing a book. If you lost weight, blog about it. If you reached a financial goal, increase it. If your goal was a one-time thing like earning a college degree, embark on a new mission. That mission may include use of your degree or something way out in left field. The key is not to stop. The minute you stop pursuing goals is the day your dreams will die and take you along with them. Zig Ziglar, who is well into his 80s and has short-term memory loss due to a brain injury, still has goals of helping motivate others through books and speaking engagements. He has had to modify his techniques, but the goals are still before him. Getting back to Dave Ramsey, I recently listened to one of his recordings where he urges people and companies to have a BHAG — big, hairy, audacious goal. Not an unachievable pipe dream, but a mind-blowing goal that requires you to stretch way out of your comfort zone to accomplish. Most likely that will be a longer-term goal. It may take some time and several steps to set up. Each step toward your BHAG can be a personal goal. My first goal for 2012 will be to no longer make New Year’s resolutions. My next goal will be to set my goals for the year following these proven steps.

What a hairy mess this is

The year was 1981 and I had just entered high school coming off three years in a private Baptist school. For three long years I had to keep my hair cut short. Really short. I hated it. This was the era of big hair, and I looked like a nerd. That was back in the days when being a nerd wasn’t cool. We’re talking swirlies and shoved-in-the-locker uncool. But now I was headed back into public schools and the freedom that went with it. I rebelled against short hair, shirts with collars and any pants that were not blue jeans. For the next several years my ears and the back of my neck vanished under the thick, bushy main of yak fur that was my hair. We’re talking about a killer hair helmet. I loved the feel of my hair as it swept across my neck and shoulders. I loved the way it made me look. I hated the time it took in front of a mirror with my hairbrush and blow dryer to get it that way, but this was the , and it was worth it. I have naturally cowlicky hair. It’s not wavy or curly. It is straight in places with a smattering of wicked, sharp curls. Because my hair was so bushy, it would puff out like the tail of a frightened cat. At the apex of my mane ordeal, I got a perm. It made my hair easier to manage, but by then it was managing me. Still, as much of a fur coat as it was, it didn’t come close to Troy Polamalu’s lengthy locks. My hair mounts my head like mop when I let it grow long, which I am doing now after about 20-some years of cutting it as short as my private school days. The longer it gets the more I am reminded of why I went to the conservative cut in the first place. Those darn cowlicks are impossible to control. I don’t use a blow dryer anymore, but I still wield the same hairbrush with the deftness of a dork trying to be cool. That old hairbrush is starting to thin out a bit, but not nearly as much as I am. Most people can’t see it because these locks are so bushy, but it’s getting quite thin down the middle. Gray hair doesn’t help, either. Gray hairs stick out any old direction they please. Between the gray hair and the cowlicks, the top of my head looks like Donald Trump tangled with Don King. So why, you might ask, am I putting up with it? Good question; please let me know when you find out. Actually, I’m hoping that someday in the coming year I will be cast as an extra in the new Lone Ranger movie being made by Disney. I recently contacted the casting agent who is in charge of finding extras for one of the locations in New Mexico. She told me that they want guys with long hair and whiskers. I went right to town on the long hair part, but since filming is still a couple months away I held off on the facial follicles until after Christmas. I can grow a scruffy, partial beard that would make Johnny Depp proud. Since he is starring as Tonto in the movie, I guess that is a good thing. While the top of my head is the envy of many a balding man (and more than a few women), the lower portion lacks much to be desired. The left side of my face has huge, hair-free gaps that render my beard-growing abilities to a lopsided goatee. I can grow a mean mustache, for whatever that is worth. I did have a mustache from 1996 to 2008. I’d grow it back, but my wife won’t let me. And we all know that if Mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. All that will change after the holidays as I try to get my best Indiana Jones/Jack Sparrow look going. I need to decide soon what to do about the mop. The bangs get into my eyes, which is very annoying. My hair is so thick and puffy that my cowboy hat doesn’t fit well. When I do wear a hat, my hair curls up around it like a rain gutter. If I don’t wear a hat, my hair still curls up like a rain gutter, but with a few downspouts in it. As I look back over what I’ve just written, I realize that I sound more like a bratty celebutant blogger than a he-man columnist. Who really cares about my follicular drama or the fact that I look like I just rolled out of bed after a night of wild parties. OK, who really cares besides my wife and our mothers? The last time I obsessed so much in print about my hair was in 2000 when I had it shaved off after thankfully losing a bet during a food drive. Who knows, maybe it will be time to do something like that again. I should get Donald Trump and Don King to join me. Then we can get this whole mess untangled.

'Fess up: It's all about the Christmas loot

Ah, the holidays. It’s the joyous time of year when the War on Christianity heats up and the real meaning of Christmas moves deeper into folklore status. It’s Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays. Keep Christ in Christmas. Merry CHRISTmas. Jesus is the reason for the season. Nativity scenes are OK to display. I get as tired of these bumper sticker battles as I do listening to Christmas music endlessly for a month. To be honest, I really find Christmastime to be very depressing. As long as I can remember, Christmas was always supposed to be about the birth of the Christ. As a boy, however, it was all about the gifts. What am I going to get? What’s in it for me? Be honest, isn’t that what Christmas is really about in the heart of most every American youngster? Don’t give me the politically correct answer. When I was a kid I would invariably be asked what Christmas is all about. Like a good little Christian boy I would say it’s the birth of Jesus. I ask my own kids and get the same answer. But their anticipation of Christmas and their conversations say otherwise, just like their old man. Now that I have 19 years of parenthood behind me and two seasons as a mall Santa, I have come to firmly believe that modern Christmas is all about gift-getting. When was the last time you asked someone – especially a child – what they wanted to GIVE for Christmas? Do children have a hard time going to sleep on Christmas Eve because they are in such anticipation of how their loved ones will react when they see what they gave them? Come to think of it, do people have their children wait hours in line to see Santa so they can tell him what to give? No, they plop on his lap to give him a laundry list of toys that have been marketed into their heads on TV and to pose for overpriced “priceless” photos. We’re taught from the get-go to want stuff for Christmas. Oh yeah, we call it the season of giving and remind folks that it is better to give than receive, but we all know deep down the thing we like most about Christmas is hauling in the loot. If we somehow manage not to get everything we want, we hit the stores the next day to cash in on sales to get the things we think we need. What really depresses me this time of year is the tremendous pressure to spend money I don’t have to give gifts because it’s expected, not because I want to. That kind of giving isn’t from the heart. It stems from social norms and artificial expectations. When all is said and done and we return to work and school, discussions will center on what you got for Christmas. Was Santa nice to you? What did Santa leave under your tree? How did you spend your holidays? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone anxious to tell their friends what a wonderful candlelight service they went to or how much they were inspired by “the reason for the season”. I don’t recall anyone talking about the gift of eternal life they received from God’s gift to mankind. A week later the average person will make their New Year’s resolutions. Have you ever noticed how resolutions almost always seem to be about self? Lose weight, read more books, quit smoking, eat healthier – this list goes on. While those are indeed good things, they do little for anyone else. Try this instead – resolve to volunteer at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter. Go to church regularly and volunteer for some of the ministry opportunities they have. Make a promise to donate time and money to helping people who need it. Resolve to reconcile broken relationships and to give forgiveness whether deserved or not. Let’s make 2012 The Year That’s Not About Me. By now I’ve probably been called a Scrooge and a killjoy by just about everyone who has read this far. I don’t want to take anything away from the joy and happiness that anyone feels at Christmas. It really is a lovely time of year. Please go and bless and be blessed. Who knows, maybe this time next year we can give Jesus the front seat on his birthday and start relegating Santa and Co. to folklore status.

Texans are finally winners

Let’s hear it for the Houston Texans! Before I go on, first this disclaimer: I am first and foremost a Denver Broncos fan. I have been and always shall be. More about that later. That being said, I am a fan of the Texans and have followed them from the start. I didn’t really get serious about the team until I moved to Texas six years ago and more so in the last three years here in the Houston area. When the team formed I often referred to them as Denver South because of all the players, coaches and administrators that the Texans picked up from the Broncos and Colorado schools. Coach Gary Kubiak is a former Broncos quarterback and assistant coach. Offensive coordinator Rick Dennison is a Colorado State graduate who played and coached for Denver. Center Chris Myers played for Denver and the Texans roster has four players from Colorado State and one from the University of Colorado. All that is to say I had good reason for following the Texans from the start, even loosely from a distance. I consider myself to be a hard core Texans fan, just a couple of notches below the Broncos. This year my teams have given me plenty of reasons to be excited. Both teams are on a tear and have overcome spectacular odds to win. Houston is, at the time of this writing 9-3 and has secured the team’s second winning season. For the first time since the Oilers left, Houstonians are talking NFL playoffs. At 9-3 the Texans are tied for first in the AFC and hold a two-game lead over the former Oilers (Tennessee Titans) in the South with four games to go. What is amazing about this is the team has done it with depth. Many key starters are out for the season or have missed several games due to injury. Mario Williams, Matt Schaub, Andre Johnson, Kasey Studdard and more have been sidelined by injury. Despite those significant hits, the Texans keep on winning. They have the best defense in the NFL and one of the best offenses. If it’s true that defenses win Super Bowls, then perhaps Houston is headed for the big one in February. Amazingly, it was only a year ago after the Texans underachieved their way to another lousy season that fans were calling – no, screaming – for Kubiak’s head to roll. This year he is nothing shy of a genius. You don’t take a team with so many key injuries and keep them winning like this. It defies conventional wisdom, but speaks well for the coaching staff. When you have a rookie, third-string quarterback leading your team while key pro bowlers sit bandaged on the sidelines and you continue to have this level of success, you know that something beyond the tangible is at work. The same can be said of the Broncos where Tim Tebow is proving to be the Chuck Norris of NFL quarterbacks despite having the skills of a toad stool (at least according to the so-called experts). His style is unconventional (i.e. sloppy) but the bottom line is he wins games. Love him or hate him, you cannot deny that he is a winner. A man of faith, he is a natural leader and a man of integrity. In NFL vernacular, they call what he has “intangible”. He has those qualities that you can’t teach or coach. It’s those very qualities that his detractors call his faults that keep defenses befuddled and the Broncos in the W column. I guess you could say those same intangible qualities are at work with the Texans. Some call it luck and others call it dumb luck but either way the wins keep coming and the success keeps building. You gotta love that! One of the things I’ve learned from the likes of Zig Ziglar and other motivational gurus is that success is a choice. How we plan, prepare and execute determines the outcome. Obviously with the Texans working plans B and C, there has been some very careful planning and preparation in order for the team to execute and win the way they are. That is the hallmark of teamwork, commitment and dedication. Losers don’t have that. Winners do. So, I say it again, how ’bout those Texans!

Meet an astronaut's astronaut: Scott Parazynski

(To the tune of the opening of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.) You know Aldren and Armstrong, Young and Crippen, Shepard and Glenn, and Cernan and Grissom; but do you know the most accomplished astronaut of all? Probably not. If you have ever heard the name of Dr. Scott Parazynski, it was probably in passing on a newscast or a space shuttle story you read in the paper. Chances are that you probably glossed over his name and lost it in the ethereal realm of hundreds of shuttle astronaut names. He is one of more than 500 people who have flown in space, and unless you’re a space nut, you’d probably walk right by him on the street and never know the amazing things he has accomplished in his life on and above the ground. I have the privilege of calling Parazynski a friend. Actually, most everyone who meets him becomes a friend. I can’t see too many people being an enemy. That’s just who Scott Parazynski is. He is friendly, engaging and very down-to-earth. On top of that, he is tall, (mostly) blond and handsome. Oh, and he is incredibly smart. The “Dr.” in his title isn’t just because he earned his PhD. He is a medical doctor and currently serves as chief technology officer and chief medical officer at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute here in Houston. His lists of awards and accomplishments are far too numerous to fit in this space. His NASA biographical data sheet is three pages long. Parazynski is what you would call an astronaut’s astronaut. Parazynski has flown in space five times, conducted seven space walks and spent time on the International Space Station and the Russian Mir space station. He was the medical doctor who conducted all the tests on John Glenn on his celebrated return to space. The first time I spoke with Parazynski, he told me that Glenn (who hates needles) had become so weary of blood draws that he began calling him Count Parazynscula. Among his earthly accomplishments, he is a pilot and an avid mountaineer who has summited major mountains in the Alaska Range, the Cascades, the Rockies, the Andes and the Himalayas. His summits include Cerro Aconcagua (22,841 feet above sea level) and 53 of Colorado’s famed 14ers (peaks over 14,000 feet). On May 20, 2009, he became the first astronaut to stand on top of the world when he climbed to the top of Mount Everest. Parazynski was originally supposed to stay aboard Mir, but his 6-foot 2-inch height made him too tall for the Russian Soyuz spacecraft (hence his call sign of Too Tall Parazynski). He is one of the world’s leading experts on the effects of long-term space flight on the human body. He invented some of the exercise equipment astronauts use to keep their bones and muscles from atrophying during long flights. My first contact with Parazynski came in 2001 when I did a telephone interview with him, Jeff Ashby and Kent Rominger, the three of seven astronauts onboard Endeavour for the STS-100 mission with Colorado ties. Rominger and Ashby were born and raised there and Parazynski, though born in Arkansas, considers Evergreen, Colo., one of his hometowns. I dubbed the flight the “Colorado Flight” because that is the highest number of Coloradans on one shuttle flight. That, and there were a number of projects and equipment on the flight made in the Centennial State. A few years ago we became Facebook friends and have corresponded a few times on the website. Last week, 10 years after that first phone call, I got to meet Parazynski in person when he was the guest astronaut at Space Center Houston. He gave two talks in the Blast Off Theater, where I took several pictures and lots of notes. Prior to his first talk, I ran into him in the hallway and he was gracious enough to visit with me and pose for a picture together. His talks were fascinating, at least to me, a handful of fellow space geeks and several school children on a field trip. He put things in a perspective that the children would understand, so he got a few laughs when he referred to his “orange pumpkin suit” and having “superhuman strength” in space. For all the clean-cut, straight-laced profiles of astronauts, the 50-year-old adventurer/explorer is really a kid at heart. “On launch morning it’s a lot like being a kid on Christmas morning,” he said. He began his talks by showing a picture of him as a 5-year-old boy holding a toy rocket in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida. He joked about flying in the mid-deck of the shuttle as “flying coach” and said it is an amazing experience going from three times your bodyweight to weightlessness within a few short minutes during launch. “You have a smile on your face every second you’re up there,” he said. In describing weightlessness, he compared it to being an Olympic gymnast. “There is no up, down, left, right, forward or backward in space,” he said. He called the last spacewalk on his last flight the “Apollo 13 moment” of the shuttle era. One of the giant solar panels was being unfurled when a cable snapped, creating a huge rip that put both the station and the shuttle in danger. That’s when Dr. Parazynski was called on to perform the riskiest surgery of his career. Using special equipment and hoisted on the end of the station’s robotic arm, Parazynski risked electrocution and other dangers to repair and save the solar panel. “We either had to fix this thing in some way or throw away a billion-dollar piece of technology,” he said. It would be easy to write a book about Parazynski and his incredible career, but there simply isn’t enough time or space here to do that. I do hope you realize now what a remarkable man he is, even if his funny-sounding name escapes your memory within minutes of reading this.