Are you one of the gajillion people who vowed to lose weight this year? I’m not. I got started last year, and am still at it, making decent progress little by little. Even though I’m doing well, I enjoy reading what folks are writing about weight loss. Encouragement is a Good Thing.

Did you read Dr. Wayne Dyer’s blog post on weight loss? It’ll probably resonate best with guys carrying stubborn weight around the middle, but I found the punchline truly wonderful. If I still had a pithy e-mail signature quote, I’d probably use it. (Did signature quotes go out of fashion, or did I stop for other reasons? And no, I’m not going to tell you the punchline. Go read the blog!)

Or did you see the article over on the Shine pages of the Yahoo portal: 4 Ways to Lose Weight Like a Guy? There were new ideas in it, which is always nice, but also a couple of things that have been working for me, which is good, too. It never hurts to have independent corroboration for something you’ve figured out on your own.

Whatever you’ve decided to do to improve your life this year, I wish you success. If it was important enough to call a resolution, it probably has a high risk of failure. So here’s a tip from me: Self-improvement is like a baseball game. There’s no time limit. In great games, the score is close, and the winner is not a foregone conclusion. The key is to keep your mind on the current play. Not what just happened, not what’s on the scoreboard, not what you’d rather be doing, but how you execute your position right now.

So let’s get out there, and play a good game!