Want a happy new you?

It’s 2013 and you’re kind of tired of your old self from 2012. If you’re looking for change and need a little help, a presentation this weekend might be just the inspiration you need.

Laurel Vespi is a certified life coach who runs Stone Circle Coaching. She is eager to be the keynote speaker at New Year New You, running on Sunday. Vespi says that her focus will be on accentuating the positive.

“I’m going to give a talk called More of This and Less of That. It really is giving people a different way to think about the kinds of changes that they want to make.”

“New year’s resolutions can sometimes be the kiss of death for people.”

She added it’s a rare occasion for her to hear about someone who effects significant and lasting change through a resolution.

“It can happen but my experience is that, for most people, resolutions go sideways. Often, I think we set ourselves up for failure.”

The event is hosted by image and style expert Shirley Borrelli of Style and Beauty Circle. She will be one of the panel of speakers along with several others who are lined up to discuss clothing, makeup and hair.

Vespi, on the other hand, is more interested on helping people to change themselves from the inside out. She has a masters degree in education and has spent 25 years teaching, consulting and facilitating groups on the same subject.

She says her primary client base is female but she’s helped people through all kinds of major life events and struggles like leaving home for the first time, relationship difficulties, and even changing careers or retiring.

Her talk will include five practical strategies to make this year the best ever.

“This is giving people a slightly different way of looking at how they can create some change. We often know what we don’t want but we don’t know what we actually do want. If we can switch our thinking into what we want then it’s easier to be able to make that happen,” Vespi said.

People tend to put on hold the things that are most important to them, she continued, a self-defeating behaviour that is all too common. The very reason that she got involved in this profession was to help empower people to take control and make positive changes in their lives, and not just as December turns into January. She cited how gym memberships spike in the first few weeks of each year and then drop off afterward.

“At this time of year it always comes up that people start talking about new year’s resolutions. The good thing about that is, if you’re ready, there’s this energy at the beginning of the year. The problem is that most people haven’t done the planning part of the change and so they jump in without having really thought through what it is that they need to do in order to be successful.”