A park by our apartment in Las Vegas in 2000, and grinning and bearing it after my first shoulder surgery in 2016.

With the turn of every new year, talk always revolves around resolutions and new starts, and it certainly makes sense. But it has always bothered me. Why wait for one specific time of year to make yourself better or improve a skill -- especially when so many people fail at their own resolutions?

This year I’ll turn 56 (in January, in fact) and over the years I have faced my share of challenges including:

• Getting sick during 9/11 and having surgery (gallbladder), losing my job in the dot.com crash and having to move my family temporarily to Las Vegas to find work. We had to start over from square one (we lost everything)!

• Dealing with both anxiety and depression in my 40s

• Having rotator cuff surgery on both shoulders in my early 50s, greatly reducing my ability to strength train (something I love and that helps keep me healthy)

• Most recently: dealing with tinnitus in my left ear

In fact, my tinnitus has been acting up lately quite a bit, and it made me think of what I wanted to write about today and it is simply this:

Be your own advocate for wellness and self care, and be active in doing it all year long.

Please don’t suffer in silence if you are struggling with something. Reach out to friends and family and talk about it. Find a counselor, therapist or doctor. And most important, be active in doing the things that make you better. Captain your ship!

I want to acknowledge that this can be difficult, especially with mental health issues. It’s why I want to encourage you today. Here are the things I have done in my own past to be better:

Talk to someone

I sought out therapy in my 40s and learned to deal with my anxiety. This has been instrumental in my wellbeing ever since then. This can be a hard first step, but it’s next to impossible to deal with anxiety and depression alone.

Action: Find someone to talk to.

Be proactive in cultivating healthy life habits

When I was approaching 50, I had a terrible lifestyle in regards to eating and exercise and it was badly affecting me in many ways. I didn’t want to live like that anymore, so I made the decision not to. I changed the way I ate, dropped weight and it benefited me not only in my personal life but in my professional career, too.

Action: Make changes in your lifestyle for the better - but don’t be so strict with yourself that you can’t enjoy your life.

Partner with your healthcare professionals in self care

Follow your trusted doctor or therapist/counselor direction - and then find out what extra you can do, too! I did well in my shoulder surgeries because I went all in on my rehab both times - many people don’t, to their own detriment. My mental health improved when I not only learned from my therapist but found ways to further self improve.

Action: Follow good advice, but also find things you can do to better yourself, too.

My current example: In my struggle with tinnitus I have consulted my ear guy, had tests, etc. But I have also found a wonderful book that is right now providing lots of hope for living with it called Rewiring Tinnitus: How I Finally Found Relief From The Ringing In My Ears by Glenn Schweitzer. If you deal with this issue, I highly recommend a read.

Visiting Chicago Botanical Gardens with my wife this summer - one of our happy places!

Practice Happiness!

This is something I discuss with my family a lot. In these tricky times, people are finding it hard to be happy, but happiness is not just going to walk up and knock on your door. The world is going to be what is, but we still have to live, right?

Action: Do the things that you enjoy to make you happy! Do them often if not daily. 

Here’s the things I do to cultivate happiness in my life:

• I listen to music every day (lots of jazz, and this time of year, I love Christmas music)

• Spend quality time with family

• I like to cook and make things I like to eat

• I love going on walks and listening to favorite podcasts or books - even when it’s cold!

• Of course, reading!

• Exercise

• Watch favorite shows/movies

• Practice kindness whenever an opportunity presents itself (this is HUGE and I feel I could write a whole book on it)

• Practice gratitude (for me, every trip to the grocery store is an exercise in this)

If we don’t focus on the good things, it’s easy to let ourselves be overwhelmed by the negative. But we can do better, feel better, and live better lives if we take care of ourselves. I encourage you to try some things to see what works for you.

Reminder: Launch Team in full swing!

We’ve got a good team digging into the Blanchland Blues Advance Reader Copy in preparation for the February launch. There’s still time to jump in and read the book before release if you want to join the Launch Team.

About the Book

Disgraced Star Corp Captain-turned-smuggler John MacAlister decides to protect the teenage girl he’s supposed to be kidnapping. When he uncovers a corrupt plan to seize a remote colony devised by the man who robbed him of his rank and reputation, he must find a way to defeat him using only a weaponless robot, a teenage girl and a group of scared farmers.

Think Han Solo meets Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but maybe not as silly.

If you’re interested, fill out the form and you can join the Star Corps Launch Team!

Promotion

From time to time I’ll swap promotions with other science fiction authors if they have a book I think you might be interested in. They’ll always be listed here, last, under promotion.

Rescue: Book Three of the Rim Chronicles

It's not yet time to exhale…

The child that should have never been born in the Rimworlds, must be returned to her people. However, the frontier gods can’t see the future for her. And that can mean only two things—if the child is released, the galactic humanity is doomed. If she remains amongst the frontier gods, she may well eclipse them all…but at least one frontier god is not afraid to face the future under either of those conditions.