It is the start of the New Year.

Everyone's making resolutions.

And I'm sure that so many of you have made resolutions pertaining to Japan or learning Japanese coming overto hang out and stuff.

And I know that 2012 is going to bring a lot of changes upon my own life.

And I've been doing a lot of thinking about, you know, the future and where I'm going and what I'm doing.

So I thought that I would share these thoughts with you and maybe we could make a promise to each other that we are going to have the confidence that regardless of what makes sense, we're going to follow our intuition and we're going to trust that we know what's best for us more than anyone else, unless you're like still a kid and you should probably isn't your parents.

The first point that I would like to get through to everyone is that there is a phrase.

If you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself.

And this applies to your life.

More than anything else, you can ask other people for help.

You can ask for their support.

You can contact people and ask them for information.

But never expect anyone to want what you want as badly as you.

D'oh!

Everyone's dream is different and everyone's dream is special.

When I wanted to come to Japan, I remember asking my Japanese teacher if there were any exchange opportunities available for high school students.

And the first thing that he told me was, Oh, yeah, sure.

But, you know, you would have so much more fun if you went in university.

As much as I appreciated his help in his advice, I remember my first instinct at that time being like Yeah, but that's not that's not what I want.

If I had listened to what other people had thought was best for me, I probably wouldn't be here right now.

Don't let anyone tell you what you should be doing.

If it's not what you think you should be doing, always trust your intuition because in the end, if you're not satisfied, the only one who really suffers from that is you.

So you've decided that this year you want to make a change, or this year you have a goal, and you're gonna make sure that you get there.

If you were a visual learner like myself, that this is gonna help you so much, We have a blank piece of paper.

Start with where you are now, and over here, this is where you want to be.

Now, between you and your future, we're going to write down the steps that you need to take to make it happen.

You can apply this to so many things.

Try it with any goal that you have.

See, once you can visualize all the steps, it doesn't seem that impossible, doesn't it?

Finally, this is something that I read a lot in my YouTube comments.

And I want you guys to stop it.

Stop it.

Don't ever, ever forget the phrase Better late than never.

Oh, I wanted to do in exchange in high school, but I didn't or I started studying Japanese, but I But I quit.

Really.

I think the biggest problem that I've seen, like from e mails that I get, is that people want to be here.

People have these ideas and they have these dreams and they want to do it.

But they don't have confidence.

There's no need to regret the past or blame the past for, um What you aren't accomplishing now because, hey, you're never gonna get that time back.

Figure out what you're gonna do now to start moving.

Really?

The first and best thing that you could do for yourself today or this week or this month is to send out a ton of e mails and enquiries.

I'm not saying this, assuming that you all have things that you can improve on.

But I'm saying this because, you know, I've thought about it a lot myself, and it's all of these things are a big factor when I'm considering.

You know what I'm gonna do this year in the future for myself.

And, um uh, if you don't make the decision to do what you need to do to be happy, the only person who has to live with the fact that you didn't is you anyway, So that's all I have for today.

I just got I just got a giant as a birthday present in the mail and I'm really excited and I'm gonna open it now.

So good luck to all of you in the new year.

And thank you so much for all of the support that you have given me.

I know that some of my earliest subscribers have been following for, like, five years.

And that's crazy.

Um, I love you guys.

So take care, and I'll talk to you soon.

Bye.