change

Whether it’s quitting smoking, spending less, or getting to a healthy weight, many of us want results, and we want them now. We look for quick fixes which only leave us with more cravings.

A New Year brings with it renewed hope and greater enthusiasm for making positive changes in our lives. So take a big inhalation of the New Year smell and formulate a plan for putting all that good energy to work. Here are five tips for making the most of 2012.

Over at The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin recently posted about a resolution of hers — "Take a Field Trip" — where she describes a recent visit to a perfumerie in New York to seek out good smells and cultivate some happy-making fragrances. It's a little touch that can make life a little happier, and it's got me thinking about how making (and, ideally, sticking to) some resolutions isn't just for January 1. Life in the spring and summer feels so different to me than it does in the fall and winter, so it's only fitting that I should have a different set of ambitions and projects.

Rebecca Eckler, author of How to Raise a Boyfriend, answers questions on how to turn a fixer upper into Mr. Charming

It doesn't take a fortune or a huge commitment to help out with the water crisis in your community or across the world. Here are some easy, useful ways to get involved