What do Valentine's Day, Christmas, dating, dinner and a movie, marriage and couples have in common? Rituals.

A ritual is defined as 'any method of doing something in which the details are always faithfully repeated.' To relate this to your life, rituals include: the time you wake up, how your brush your teeth, the route you take to work - you get the idea. Rituals give life meaning and help us celebrate milestones in our lives. They offer security, stability and routine and a sense of calmness to an otherwise chaotic existence.

Rituals date back thousands of years with the ancient Egyptians. Theirs was a culture seeped in traditions. Eating, drinking, bathing, hunting and burying the dead were a succession of rituals.

Rules to help you control with this plethora of Information Overload

You sit at your desk, primed for another day of work when it hits you - overwhelm, lack of focus and frustration. There it is: your inbox has 125 emails and it is only 9 a.m. What's a sane person to do? Some of us might dream of doing the following: take two pills and skipping work for the day, pressing delete, running for the hills or choosing to do anything but answer the dang emails.

The 21st century is deemed the Century of Information Overload. This term refers to the state of having too much information to make a decision. It also refers to the massive amounts of historical information one must sift through and the high rate of new information being added every day. Not to mention the contradictions to the information you already read.

Quick - did you ever make New Year's Resolutions? Did most of your goals come true? If not, you're not alone.

If you've ever planned to quit smoking, lose weight, make more money, be a better person...you may have failed because you didn't know the rules.

If you want this year to be different, you must know the secrets to goal success. Here are some rules to get you started:

1. Clear, timed, defined goals

You need to write down your goals on paper, have a date when you know you'll reach the goal and the goal should point to your larger life vision. Build a contingency plan into your goals so that if you don't receive your goals exactly on time or exactly as you planned, you allow for it.