We’ve again reached that time of year when most people start thinking about all the things they want to change in their lives. For me, January 1 isn’t that significant. Hardly a week goes by that I’m not resolving to change or fix or start or stop something. New Year’s Day is the same with perhaps a little more enthusiasm because it’s not just a new day, week, or month, but a whole new year. But anyone can make resolutions. The challenge is to keep them.

It does take resolve to move mountains. Resolve, persistence, tenacity, doggedness, determination. Do you have it? That’s something you’ll discover soon enough. In the meantime, here are some more thoughts on accomplishing your goals:

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

—Proverb

“His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.”

—Aeschylus, Greek dramatist

“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”

—Leonardo da Vinci, archetypal Renaissance man

“Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.”

—Og Mandino, sales guru

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

—Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States

“It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t. It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not.”

—James Gordon, medical doctor

“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: My strength lies solely in my tenacity.”

—Louis Pasteur, biologist and bacteriologist

“Bear in mind, if you are going to amount to anything, that your success does not depend upon the brilliancy and the impetuosity with which you take hold, but upon the everlasting and sanctified bulldoggedness with which you hang on after you have taken hold.”

—A. B. Meldrum