I can tell it’s January. Everywhere I look I keep seeing the same two words: Diet. Exercise.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick of seeing them and feeling guilty. This is the time of the year when 99 percent of us have both words on our list of New Year’s resolutions. It isn’t even about weight. Everyone needs exercise and a healthy diet. It should go without saying huh.

I usually have an excuse why I can’t stay on an exercise or diet program. That excuse is a “book deadline”. Even a nutritionist told me that I shouldn’t try to diet, exercise and meet my deadlines at the same time — that it puts too much pressure on me.

I can laugh about that now since I am ALWAYS on a deadline. She had handed me “The perfect excuse.” And believe me I’ve used it enough times in the past.

But this is 2013 and I am ready for a change.

It’s funny how sticking to something seems to work. It’s like when I start a book. If it isn’t working, I often think about the next one. That plot always seems like it will be easier to write.

But ultimately, I come back to the book that is going to be due soon, and I write it.

Diet and exercise is no different than writing a book. Both require staying power – especially when it gets hard. All the other times I’ve tried to stay on a diet and exercise plan, I would do it for a while. When it got to the point where I realized it was going to take continued work, I quit. The difference between it and the books I write, I didn’t go back to it.

But I realized something recently. Sticking to anything is tough. Writing books is the hardest work I’ve ever done. Sure there are times in the middle of a book when I’ve painted myself into a corner and don’t know how to get out and I want to quit. But I don’t.

So doesn’t that mean I should be able to stick to a diet and exercise program — even when I’m on a deadline?

One week in, I’m not saying I have this figured out. But if I’ve learned anything after writing sixty-nine books, it is that some times you have to tough it out. I’m tired and sore from working out, my stomach is empty or at least it thinks it is, and I just lived through a book deadline — all in the same week.

All kind of things happened this week that could have made me quit. But I didn’t. I’ve proven I can do it for a week. I can feel my progress. I feel good realizing I’m tougher than I thought I was. I want to keep at it.

I know there will be bumps in the road but I’m tired of saying that one of these days I’m going to get in shape. I’m beginning to sound like people I know who say that one of these days they’re going to write a book.

Are you tired of having the same list of New Year’s resolutions? Do you keep putting off something you really want to do thinking you’ll do it some day in the future?

Why not do it in 2013? It will be one less thing you have to put on your list come Jan. 1, 2014.

So write down that one thing you really want to accomplish this year for the very last time — and then come the end of 2013 stop by one of my blogs and tell us what you did. We’ll celebrate!!! This is our year!!