I believe that the ultimate gamble with the greatest potential gain in life is to trust yourself and that in so doing, you gain a level of freedom, authenticity, and peace that is unreachable any other way.

Worry has historically played a vital role in our survival and it helps us cope with many of the challenges we face today. At the same time, worry that is too intense and too unrelenting can definitely cut down on your happiness and enjoyment of life.

Self-doubt is one of the major obstacles to living the life you truly deserve. This unhealthy food for the soul drags down your spirit, crushes your ambitions, and prevents you from achieving all that you can.

Today everything is digital, and we now have delete buttons. Your slate is clean. Stay on top of your junk, and when something shows up in your life that does not serve you, see it for what it is. Junk. Press the delete button and send it on its way.

Second-guessing and doubting ourselves can be deadly. It kills our enthusiasm for embarking on a big project, getting involved in a new relationship, and the list goes on. When doubting yourself rears its ugly head, here are ways to put down the monster.

With 2013's arrival, much like a gardener using a shovel to prepare for planting (then one day, harvesting), I invite you to explore your faith, facts and fictions with the following questions (shovels) over the weeks and months ahead.

Take a moment now to ponder your definition of a fact. How do you accept something as a fact? Do you take time to verify (through first-hand experience) a fact before you accept a fact to be true? How often do you check facts?

As the season soaks or shrivels expectations, hopes blossom into blessed bliss or dissolve due to daily duress. With seasons officially changing, we enter into a unique 10 days where expectations rapidly climax or crash, awash in faiths, facts or fictions.