The start of a new year is a good time to review your dreams and goals. I am not asking you to make another new year's resolution you are going to break in a few days or weeks but to think of what is important to you or what you want to achieve or work towards in the months to come.

It is extremely important to have a goal in mind. You will not get anywhere by doing the same job day in and day out. It is so easy to carry on with an established routine if you are reasonably content and no one is making your life miserable. Most of the time we decide to change our job or get out of a relationship because someone makes our life difficult. Don't wait for that to happen. Think of what you would like to do this year that would help you make progress in your career, would improve your personal relationships or make you happier. Remember you must have a goal in mind. You must know what you want, otherwise you cannot get it. People who don't know what they want are like people who go to a store and come back with things they don't need.

To succeed in any aim we must be focused and concentrate on how to get there. The mind is all powerful. If you deeply concentrate on a problem or a goal, you will find the solution and the path how to get there. On the way people will come to your aid.

Focusing on your goal is like walking up a mountain ? one step leads to the next until you reach the top. And once you reach the top, what exhilaration, you suddenly see things from new and different perspectives. This will encourage you to set your sights on higher and more distant goals.

But you must keep on going. You cannot stop half way because you get tired or discouraged because you encounter seemingly insurmountable obstacles on your path. You must keep going until you reach your goal. Those who fall down and pick themselves up again and again are the ones who will be victorious in the end. Very few people become a success on the first try. President Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest Presidents of this country, failed in almost every undertaking before becoming President ? but he never gave up along the way.

Remember, to become successful you must (1) have a clear goal in mind; (2) deeply concentrate and focus on how to achieve it and (3) persist until you succeed. NEVER GIVE UP!

He is a veteran media personality and has appeared hundreds of times on television, radio and in print media. A film maker, he frequently appears on radio nationally. He is the host/producer of the Ostaro Show (Time Warner and RCN Cable TV every other Fri and Sun in NYC) featuring the best in celebrity horoscopes. Listed in Who's Who in America, he is a positive thinker and the author of the "Art & Craft of Success: 10 Steps" published by Svarg Syndicate Inc, NYC. Mr. Ostaro is a Premier Hindu Astrologer of New York City, and is a Kentucky Colonel. http://www.ostaro.com; ostaro@ostaro.com.