You are not going to transform yourself just by deciding to - the way your brain is wired will prevent it... you will inevitably revert to type.

So, don't try to bite off more than you can chew. If you want to set the world alight in a brand new year, discipline yourself to take the one small step after which all others are effortless.

Resolve to meditate - or mental exercise, if you're a little coy! - for five minutes every day. This little discipline will go along way.

I just received a 'phone call from a frozen foods company of which we have been long-standing customers: "We're calling to find out why you have asked our sales person to stop calling to your home - because our customers' views are important to us." My response? "This is December, we explained the situation to your sales person in July!" They must truly value their customers' opinions.

But how about having difficulties even becoming a customer in the first place? We wanted to buy a Gift Voucher for our daughter last week. She is forever buying cheap sunglasses that last a fortnight so, we thought, it would be nice if she could choose a good quality pair. When we told our local opticians - the national franchise of which spends a fortune on advertising for new customers - it took them forty minutes to figure out how they could take the money that we willingly wanted to give them!

Of course, other businesses go over the top. I emailed the company that we use for mailing this Ezine every week with a relatively mundane technical query. Their reply? "Thank you for reaching out to us today!" However, with all their niceties, they couldn't answer my question!

In the last Ezine before Christmas, I made the point that you are the maker of your own life. What goes on in your head drives your behaviour, which creates your reality. The problem is that most of us don't control what's going on in our head. Psychology tells us that the key drivers of our perception and resultant behaviour, our so-called 'stored knowledge' were learned during our formative years. These drivers may provide us with a personal compass but they're really quite an inappropriate basis on which to act years or, perhaps, decades later. Yet, it is on this basis that your ordinary mind drives and creates your ordinary life. And, when enough ordinary minds get together and subscribe to a herd mentality, the results can be catastrophic.

Everyone immediately understands this concept in the context of Hitler's Germany, Pol Pot's Cambodia or China's autocracy. But, open your eyes, look around you - it's happening on a smaller scale in front of our very eyes. And we're all a part of it.

It can be challenging to cut yourself adrift from the herd. Nobody - or, at least, nobody anaesthetized by their ordinary mind - likes the idea. Yet, until you wake up from your self-induced slumber, you are part of the problem. And it is impacting every aspect of your life: if you have children, your brainwashing them as you go, if you are heading up a team, department or business, your lack of true leadership is messing up people's lives. And, on the basis that we all interact with others, we're all a force for something less than good as long as we don't bother to grasp a hold of our own state of mind.

So, here's your challenge for 2013: could you possibly do a little something that would not only create huge benefit for you in your own ordinary life but would have a positive impact on those whose lives you touch? Could you take a small step that amounts to a giant leap? Could you cast aside your preoccupation with what others think of you? Could you look beyond your preconceived notions of who you think you are and how the world works? Could you grab a hold of your own state of mind?

If you can even say "well, I'll give it a try" then it's time to take that tiny step. Look at today's Quick Tip to find out more!