Features

As I welcome 2023 with open arms, I can’t help but look back on 2022 in the hopes of having learnt a lesson or two. After all, the older we get, the better we appreciate how much we learn from our past mistakes.

We learn much more from our failures than from our successes. With that in mind, let’s start the new year a little differently this time. Instead of making a list of our New Year resolutions, let’s instead write two lists; one for the things that worked for us in 2022 and one for the things that didn’t work for us. This is not for the purpose of beating ourselves up, but so that we can make necessary modifications and adjustments to help us do better this year.

Food prep

Let me clarify what I mean, using my own journey as an example. One of the things I have been able to stick to in 2022 is eating more veggies and staying away from processed food. This has meant spending a lot more time in my kitchen for meal prep and washing more dishes! But it has also been very therapeutic in forcing me to slow down and to give my health priority.

Just hearing the sound of the knife chopping the zucchini and onions refocuses my mind on my goals. Hearing the sizzling sound of the squash and broccoli on my stove reinforces what I’m so desperately trying to accomplish. Sights, sounds and smells play a much bigger part than we’d like to believe. Usually this works against us; I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s succumbed to eating a hot cinnamon roll at the mall after smelling the cinnamon and watching that sugary white layer on top! 

Turning the table around

We can just as easily turn the table around and use our senses to make healthier choices. Once we train our bodies to make better food choices, our gut literally starts to crave them more. I still remember the wonderful smell of corn on the cob when my mama used to make it for us as children. We simply must fight the good fight and make these fresh foods readily available in our kitchens so they can make it onto our plates.

Healhty food at work

The second thing that worked well for me in 2022 is that I learned to pack healthy food to work. This way, I do not coming home famished and ready to eat everything in sight. This means meal prep on the weekends so that I can “grab and go” on workdays.

One of the easiest things to grab are hard boiled eggs along with a banana or apple that help take the edge off hunger. I eat them for breakfast and if I get hungry later, I keep nuts in my desk drawer to keep me from going into the break room and scarfing down the doughnuts and other homemade delicacies my co-workers bring to the office!

Water every hour

The third thing I’ve been very intentional about is drinking a glass of water every hour. Hydration isn’t just good for staving off migraines, but also doubles to fill and satisfy us so we’re not mistakenly thinking we’re hungry. You can always test true hunger pangs with a glass or two of water. After drinking and you still feel hungry, then you really should have something to eat. Interestingly enough, people fail to drink enough water in the winter because it’s not hot outside. Experts advise that if you wait until you’re thirsty to actually drink, then your body is already dehydrated. So, keep that in mind this winter season — your skin will thank you too!

As for the list of things that didn’t work well for me in 2022, I’m not sure there’s enough space in this article to share those! Perhaps it’s the times I bought the box of chocolates in case I needed a gift for someone. Somehow those always ended up on my hips instead! Therefore, the lesson learned is not to bring that special something inside your home if you know you won’t be able to resist it. Even if it’s on sale! Unless you are giving them away that same day, don’t kid yourself about having strong willpower, because you’re just setting yourself up for failure.

False beliefs

I’ve also become aware of false beliefs such as the belief that I can eat half the portion at the restaurant and take the leftovers home to eat later. As soon as the food is served, that great intention goes out the window. Therefore, I’ve learned to ask the waitress to divide my salad and hot entrée so that my husband and I can share our favourites without feeling guilty about the huge portions. It’s also easier on your wallet.

Sweet friend, join me this new season in learning from our past failures instead of letting them bring us down. Staying positive helps us to remain open to trying new strategies that keep us motivated to never quit!

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

LOS ANGELES — The brightest stars in pop music will vie for the industry’s top awards at the Grammys in Los Angeles on Sunday, with a Beyonce-Adele rematch set to take centre stage.

Kendrick Lamar, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift are also among the frontrunners at the gala primed to be the most star-studded in recent memory.

The performance-heavy ceremony will include songs from major contenders Styles, Bad Bunny, Lizzo and Mary J. Blige at the 65th annual show, hosted once again by comedian Trevor Noah.

Beyonce leads the pack with nine chances at Grammy gold, followed by rapper Lamar with eight. Adele and fellow balladeer Brandi Carlile scored seven nods each.

Music’s biggest night follows a year of blockbuster albums, including Beyonce’s “Renaissance” — a pulsating collecting of club tracks — and Adele’s introspective ode to the ugly cry, “30”.

Those records will face off in the most prestigious categories, six years after the British artist shut out Queen Bey’s culture-shaking “Lemonade”.

Adele’s sweep in 2017 left both women in tears, with the crooner calling Beyonce her “idol” and telling the audience her fellow megastar’s paradigm-shifting record should have won.

That contest fuelled perennial criticism that the Academy consistently fails to pay Black artists their due.

This year, Billboard predicts the Beyhive will rejoice over a best album win for their Queen, while the industry tracker thinks Adele has the top shot at best record — the award for overall performance of a song — for her single “Easy On Me”.

But as the shock upsets of Grammys past prove, it’s really anyone’s game.

Either way, with this year’s new nominations, Beyonce continues to forge a history-making path: She moved into a tie with her husband, Jay-Z, as the most nominated artists ever with 88 each.

Already the woman with the most Grammys, Beyonce could overtake classical conductor Georg Solti for the most wins by any artist, with four victories on Sunday; she’s tied for second place with music power player Quincy Jones.

Swift top songwriter?

Bad Bunny, indisputably the world’s biggest commercial artist, has three Grammy chances off his major drop “Un Verano Sin Ti”, which is in the running for Album of the Year.

It’s the first time an all Spanish-language album has a chance at that coveted award, and it’s the first time the Puerto Rican reggaeton megastar has landed a solo nomination in the major Grammy categories.

Styles, Lizzo and Doja Cat all figure among the top nominees, while pop juggernaut Swift could finally win the Song of the Year prize that has evaded her for years.

The superstar — who has been making good on a vow to re-record her first six albums to gain control of her rights to them — has a chance at the prestigious award celebrating songwriters for her 10-minute version of “All Too Well”.

The original song came out in 2012 on Swift’s album “Red”, but qualified for inclusion because the expanded version contained more than 50 per cent new material.

TikTok newbies

After several Grammy years with clear Best New Artist frontrunners — Olivia Rodrigo, Megan Thee Stallion and Billie Eilish — Sunday’s race is wide open.

The category has grown increasingly eclectic and reflective of the internet age’s impact on popular music, and many of the nominees including Brazil’s Anitta, Eurovision rockers Maneskin and rapper Latto have all found viral fame on TikTok.

South Korea’s boy band sensation BTS — who last year declared they were taking a hiatus — meanwhile is hoping for a first elusive Grammy.

The Academy — comprised of music makers including artists, composers and engineers — also shortlisted a coterie of the industry’s enduring stars, with Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson and ABBA each garnering a handful of nominations.

After wowing audiences with a show-stopping performance at the 2019 Grammys, the big-voiced Carlile will take the stage once more as she competes in the top categories as well as for roots and Americana honours.

Asked on a recent red carpet about her slate of nominations, Carlile said she was “ecstatic”.

“Those kinds of accolades are life-affirming,” she told AFP.

“Especially because the Grammys is my peers, it means other musicians think I did a good job this year.”

“That’s why it feels so good.”

WASHINGTON — The excitement around ChatGPT — an easy to use AI chatbot that can deliver an essay or computer code upon request and within seconds — has sent schools into panic and turned Big Tech green with envy.

But behind the headlines, the potential impact of ChatGPT on society remains more complicated and unclear. Here is a closer look at what ChatGPT is (and is not):

Is this a turning point?

It is entirely possible that November’s release of ChatGPT by California company OpenAI will be remembered as a turning point in introducing a new wave of artificial intelligence to the wider public. 

What is less clear is whether ChatGPT is actually a breakthrough with some critics calling it a brilliant PR move that helped OpenAI score billions of dollars in investments from Microsoft.

Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist at Meta and professor at New York University, believes “ChatGPT is not a particularly interesting scientific advance,” calling the app a “flashy demo” built by talented engineers.

LeCun, speaking to the Big Technology Podcast, said ChatGPT is void of “any internal model of the world” and is merely churning “one word after another” based on inputs and patterns found on the internet.

“When working with these AI models, you have to remember that they’re slot machines, not calculators,” warned Haomiao Huang of Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm.

“Every time you ask a question and pull the arm, you get an answer that could be marvellous... or not... The failures can be extremely unpredictable,” Huang wrote in Ars Technica, the tech news website.

Just like Google

ChatGPT is powered by an AI language model that is nearly three years old — OpenAI’s GPT-3 — and the chatbot only uses a part of its capability. 

The true revolution is the humanlike chat, said Jason Davis, research professor at Syracuse University.

“It’s familiar, it’s conversational and guess what? It’s kind of like putting in a Google search request,” he said.

ChatGPT’s rockstar-like success even shocked its creators at OpenAI, which received billions in new financing from Microsoft in January.

“Given the magnitude of the economic impact we expect here, more gradual is better,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an interview to StrictlyVC, a newsletter

“We put GPT-3 out almost three years ago... so the incremental update from that to ChatGPT, I felt like should have been predictable and I want to do more introspection on why I was sort of miscalibrated on that,” he said.

The risk, Altman added, was startling the public and policymakers and on Tuesday his company unveiled a tool for detecting text generated by AI amid concerns from teachers that students may rely on artificial intelligence to do their homework.

What now?

From lawyers to speechwriters, from coders to journalists, everyone is waiting breathlessly where the disruption from ChatGPT will be felt first, with a pay version of the chatbot expected soon.

For now, officially, the first significant application of OpenAI’s tech will be for Microsoft software products. 

Though details are scarce, most assume that ChatGPT-like capabilities will turn up on the Bing search engine and in the Office suite.

“Think about Microsoft Word. I don’t have to write an essay or an article, I just have to tell Microsoft Word what I wanted to write with a prompt,” said Davis.

He believes influencers on TikTok and Twitter will be the earliest adopters of this so-called generative AI since going viral requires huge amounts of content and ChatGPT can make the chore almost instantaneous.

This of course raises the spectre of disinformation and spamming carried out at an industrial scale. 

For now, Davis said the reach of ChatGPT is very limited by computing power, but once this is ramped up, the opportunities and potential dangers will grow exponentially.

And much like the ever imminent arrival of self-driving cars that never quite happens, experts disagree on whether that is a question of months or years.

Ridicule

LeCun said Meta and Google have refrained from releasing AI as potent as ChatGPT out of fear of “ridicule” and backlash.

Quieter releases of language-based bots — like Meta’s Blenderbot or Microsoft’s Tay for example — were quickly shown capable of generating racist or inappropriate content.

Tech giants have to think hard before releasing something “that is going to spew nonsense” and disappoint, he said.

MUMBAI/PARIS — Sitting in a lotus position, four men weave glittering beads through gold thread on an organza sheet, carefully constructing a wedding dress that will soon wow crowds at Paris Fashion Week.

For once, the French couturier behind the design, Julien Fournie, is determined to put these craftsmen in the spotlight: his new collection, which showed in Paris on Tuesday, is entirely made with fabrics from Mumbai. 

He says a sort of “design imperialism” means that French fashion houses often play down the fact that their fabrics are made outside France. 

“The houses which don’t admit it are perhaps afraid of losing their clientele,” Fournie told AFP. 

But that is absurd, he continued.

“India is number one in the world in embroidery. It’s ancestral. They’ve been dressing maharajas in gold-embroidered outfits since the 16th century.”

Fournie works with a company called Creations By Shanagar (meaning “to adorn” in Sanskrit), housed in a non-descript beige building near Mumbai’s international airport. 

Dozens of men in grey polo shirts sit cross-legged on cushions, heads bent over large sheaths of fabric. There is silence but for the clicking of needles and beads, the whirl of ceiling fans, and the occasional plane overhead.

‘A lot of fantasy’

For decades, they have played an essential but unsung role in the fashion industries of Europe, Japan and the United States.

“I like working with Julien because he is another master craftsperson who knows his subject very well,” said director Chetan Desai, 55. 

“He has a lot of fantasy. He comes up with his own concepts and I have to translate those ideas into embroidery. 

“It has been a very challenging experience and at the same time, it has been very fruitful,” he added.

Back in France, Fournie sends the compliments back. 

“What they know how to do better than anyone is to embroider with degraded gold thread, passing it through transparent beads to create colour gradients. It’s unprecedented,” he said.

It gives silk an aged, elegant look for wedding dresses that “shine, but not too much”. 

“Haute couture customers don’t want to look like a Christmas tree,” he added. 

“I’ve worked with great French embroiderers and each time it’s complicated. Everyone wants to put in their own ideas and you never get exactly what you want.”

Star clients

Desai’s father set up Creations By Shanagar in the 1960s as a workshop for handloomed and embroidered saris. 

In the 1990s, Desai looked further afield to France, partnering with Franco-Tunisian designer Azzedine Alaia on dresses that ultimately graced the likes of Naomi Campbell. 

He does not divulge the current clients on his books but his past roster gives a sense of the high demand. They include Jean Paul Gaultier, Yohji Yamamoto and Donna Karan.

Even Hollywood came knocking, with Shanagar helping design Nicole Kidman’s costumes for the 2001 hit “Moulin Rouge!”.

The atelier attracts workers from across India, such as Biswajit Patra, 31, who has been working here since he was 16. 

“I learned the trade in my village near Kolkata because my father was doing the same job and my brother and sister are also doing this job,” he said.

Among their unique ideas is a way of rolling up pieces of tulle to make embroidered flowers.

“They have a range of techniques that we don’t have here,” said Jean-Paul Cauvin, director of Fournie’s house in France. 

One of the most delicate jobs is preparing the fabric once it arrives from India and heads for the workshop where it will be assembled into the dresses. 

It is Fournie himself who irons out the fabric. 

“Sixty per cent of haute couture is ironing,” he said with a smile.

PARIS — The death of the world’s oldest person at the age of 118 has reignited a debate that has divided scientists for centuries: is there a limit on how long a healthy human can live?

After French nun Lucile Randon died last week, Spanish great-grandmother Maria Branyas Morera, 115, has assumed the title of the oldest living person, according to Guinness World Records.

Back in the 18th century, French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, known as the Comte de Buffon, theorised that a person who had not suffered an accident or illness could live for a theoretical maximum of 100 years.

Since then, medical advancements and improving living conditions have pushed the limit back by a couple of decades.

A new milestone was reached when Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment celebrated her 120th birthday in 1995.

Calment died two years later at the age of 122. She remains the oldest person ever to have lived — that has been verified, at least.

According to the United Nations, there were an estimated 593,000 people aged 100 years or older in 2021, up from 353,000 a decade earlier.

The number of centenarians is expected to more than double over the next decade, according to the Statista data agency.

The Comte de Buffon might also have been surprised by the rise of super centenarians — people aged 110 or over — whose numbers have been increasing since the 1980s.

Natural limit at 115?

So how far could we go? Scientists disagree, with some maintaining that the lifespan of our species is limited by strict biological constraints.

In 2016, geneticists writing in the journal Nature said there had been no improvement in human longevity since the late 1990s.

Analysing global demographic data, they found that the maximum human lifespan had declined since Calment’s death — even though there were more elderly people in the world.

“They concluded that human lifespan has a natural limit and that longevity is limited to around 115 years,” French demographer Jean-Marie Robine told AFP.

“But this hypothesis is partly disputed by many demographers,” said Robine, a specialist in centenarians at the INSERM medical research institute.

Research in 2018 found that while the rate of death increases with age, it slows down after 85. 

Around the age of 107, the rate of death peaks at 50-60 per cent every year, the research said.

“Under this theory, if there are 12 people aged 110, six will survive to be 111, three to be 112, and so on,” Robine said.

A numbers game

But the more super centenarians, the higher chance a few have to live to make it to record ages.

If there are 100 super centenarians, “50 will live to be 111 years old, 25 to 112”, Robine said.

“Thanks to a “volume effect”, there are no longer fixed limits to longevity.”

However Robine and his team are publishing research this year which will show that the rate of death continues to increase beyond the age of 105, further narrowing the window.

Does this mean there is a hard ceiling on how long we can live? Robine will not go that far.

“We will continue to make discoveries, as we always have, and little by little the health of the oldest people will improve,” he said.

Other experts are also cautious about choosing a side.

“There is no definitive answer for the moment,” said France Mesle, a demographer at the French institute of demographic studies.

“Even if they are increasing, the number of people reaching very old age is still quite small and we still cannot make any significant statistical estimate,” she told AFP.

So it might be a matter of waiting for rising numbers of super centenarians to test the “volume effect”.

And of course some future medical breakthroughs could soon upend everything we know about death.

Eric Boulanger, a French doctor specialising in the elderly, said that “genetic manipulation” could allow some people to live for 140 or even 150 years.

With German and British leaders spoilt for choice for official state cars, Italians often opting for the sporty Maserati Quatroporte and the US presidency relying on the truck-based, Cadillac-badged “beast”, the choice of such high level, high exposure transport is a matter of pride for industrial nations. A sought after status by manufacturers, the association can become part of a car’s mythos, with the Citroen DS even credited with saving Charles de Gaulle from assassination.

While the French presidency downgraded to a less glamorous crossover in recent years, Eastern industrial nations have instead maintained or reinvigorated their small specialised domestic luxury car segment. With Japan’s Toyota Century soldiering on uninterrupted, a re-imagined retro-influenced Hongqi limousine meanwhile become the flagbearer for China’s auto industry. A resurgent Russia has, however, launched the high tech Aurus brand in lieu of the Mercedes S-Class that temporarily replaced the iconic and formidable, but dated Zil.

Aurus Senat

Spiritual successor to the Zil limousine, the Aurus Senat is Russia’s Rolls Royce-rivalling high roller that shares similarly enormous dimensions, luxuriously long bonnet, arrogant aura and a huge upright chrome-ringed grille. With a more vertical design orientation and more curved surfacing than the Zil, the Senat is spacious and luxuriously appointed inside, with quality leather, metal accents and open pore wood trim. 

The only retail sale Aurus yet, the standard length S600 shares its 4.4-litre twin-turbocharged hybrid V8 engine with armoured and state car sister models. Developing 590BHP at 5,500rpm and 649lb/ft throughout a broad 2,200-4,750rpm, supplemented with a 61BHP electric motor positioned between its combustion engine and 9-speed automatic gearbox, the S600’s estimated 737lb/ft total system output provides effortlessly muscular versatility.

Putting power down through a sure-footed all-wheel-drive system, the S600 propels its 2,650kg heft through 0-100km/h in 5.8-seconds and onto 250km/h, while a more powerful 6.6-litre V12 version is speculated to be in the pipeline. Engineered for Russian winter conditions, the S600’s all-wheel-drive delivers reassuring road holding over ice, while generous SUV-like 200mm ground clearance provides an advantage over rough snow-covered roads. Driving modes meanwhile include an “all-road” setting. 

Riding on a far more sophisticated fully independent suspension system than its Zil predecessors, the Senat’s ride quality should match western rivals, while optional air dampers provide enhanced comfort and body control. Extensively equipped with driver assistance and safety systems including forward collision, lane departure and blindspot warnings, the Senat’s comfort, convenience and tech features meanwhile include folding tables, privacy curtains, rear refrigerator and double glazed windows.

Specifications

Engine: 4.4-litre, twin-turbocharged V8-cylinders, and electric motor

Gearbox: 9-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 590 (598) [440] @5,500rpm

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 649 (880) @2,200-4,750rpm

0-100km/h: 5.8-seconds

Top speed: 250km/h

Length: 5,630mm

Width: 2,020mm

Height: 1,685mm

Wheelbase: 3,300mm

Kerb weight: 2,650kg

Hongqi L5

Harking back to Hongqi’s long line of luxury limousines and state cars since 1958, the L5 is the retro-infused pinnacle of China’s rapidly growing and ever more sophisticated automotive industry. Introduced in 2014, and currently serving as an official state car, the ultra-luxury L5 flagship is, however, available for private purchase, unlike most of its predecessors, which were produced for government and state use.

Reminiscent of the 1966 CA770 model in particular in term of design detail, proportions and character, the L5 is a dramatically elegant and unapologetically formal three-box saloon with high and level waistline and roofline, slim vertical rear lights and jutting, high-set round headlights. Bearing a sharp and flowing version of Hongqi’s red flag emblem and broad vertically-slatted chrome grille, the L5 is meanwhile powered by a naturally-aspirated 6-litre V12 engine under it long bonnet.

Producing 402BHP at 5,600rpm and 405lb/ft torque at 4,000rpm, the L5’s smooth, powerful engine carries its vast 3,150kg mass to 210km/h, and can divert power to its front wheels for enhanced road holding. Enormous at 5,555mm long, the L5’s hugely spacious and upright cabin is designed as an invitingly impressive, sumptuous and tranquil environment elegantly decked with fine wood, leather, metal, jade and silk and equipped with an abundance of comfort and convenience features.

Specifications

Engine: 6-litre, V12-cylinders

Gearbox: 6-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 402 (408) [300] @5,600rpm

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 405 (550) @4,000rpm

Top speed: 210km/h

Length: 5,555mm

Width: 2,018mm

Height: 1,578mm

Wheelbase: 3,435mm

Kerb weight: 3,150kg

Toyota Century

A car that makes the Lexus LS look no more imposing than a glorified Toyota Camry, the giant Japanese auto manufacturer’s true luxury flagship is in fact the Toyota Century. First launched in 1967 and in its third generation since 2018, the Century’s evolutionary yet conservative aesthetic is a model of understated elegance and clarity, with its crisp lines, clean surfacing, upright cabin, long bonnet and level waistline and roofline.

An ultra luxury domestic model employed by the Japanese imperial household in stretched limousine and four-door convertible parade car guises, the standard Century is meanwhile designed with passenger comfort at the forefront. The vast Century’s low sill cabin is easily accessible, spacious, comfortable and understatedly luxurious rather than ostentatious. It features big comfortable reclining rear seats with a left side foot rest, privacy curtains and a choice of leather or wool upholstery.

Tastefully restrained in style yet boasting extensive comfort, convenience infotainment and safety systems, the Century’s driveline is similarly sophisticated with its hybrid system and naturally-aspirated 5-litre V8 engine positioned behind its broad and intricately styled grille. Developing 375BHP at 6,200rpm and 376lb/ft torque at 4,000rpm, the Century’s engine drives the rear wheels through continuously variable transmission, and is aided by an electric motor for a total 425BHP system output.

Specifications

Engine: 5-litre, V8-cylinders, and electric motor

Gearbox: eCVT, rear-wheel-drive

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 375 (381) [280] @6,200rpm

Combined power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 425 (431) [317]

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 376 (510) @4,000rpm

Length: 5,335mm

Width: 1,930mm

Height: 1,505mm

Wheelbase: 3,090mm

Kerb weight: 2,370kg

By Rania Sa’adi
Licensed Rapid Transformational Therapist and Clinical Hypnotherapist

Every year more than 50 per cent of people make New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, quit smoking, work out, save money, get a promotion and more. And yet, studies indicate that around 80 per cent of New Year’s resolutions will get abandoned around February. Here are seven reasons why!

Goals are not aligned with your values

Values are the most important thing in life. They are the driving force behind why we get up in the morning, the choices we make and why we behave the way we do. For example, the value behind reading is learning, the value behind exercising is health and so on.

Understanding exactly what is it that you value is the perfect starting point for understanding yourself and your motivators.

Why values matter: 

•Your decisions will be more aligned to what’s important to you when you prioritise as you make decisions

•By understanding your values, your life will be more fulfilling and balanced with meaning. This will lead to you becoming more genuine and truer to yourself, since what you think, say or do will be aligned

•Understanding your values gives you the WHY behind your goal, and therefore keeps you motivated in achieving it

You are too focused on what you DON’T want

The subconscious does not understand negation. Most people know what they don’t want and send out the message to the subconscious in that form.

Directing your thoughts towards the things you wish to achieve and NOT what you want to get away from, engages the subconscious more effectively.

This is how you should be talking to yourself: “I don’t want to be fat,” becomes” I want to be a size 6.” We should focus on: “I want to be healthy and fit.”

Your goals are too vague

Not only do your goals need to be positively stated, but they also need to be very specific.

For example, instead of saying you wish to get fit, a more specific goal might be “I will get fit enough to run the marathon.”

We also need to think about how we measure progress. In the previous example, the ultimate measure would be the exact weight you are aiming for.

Goals are unachievable or unrealistic

The goal(s) you are trying to achieve needs to be achievable within the timeline you have set for yourself. If your goal is not achievable in the time you have allocated, then either your timeline needs to change, or your goal needs to change.

A specific timeline needs to be set in order to keep you on track and direct your thoughts and brain to achieving that goal accordingly.

Trying alone

So many people try to achieve their goals on their own. This causes numerous challenges. Firstly, you have no-one around to help motivate you when things get tough.

Secondly, it’s a lot easier to give up when the only person you are letting down is yourself. When other people are aware of your goals (such as family and friends) you are less likely to give up as you don’t want to disappoint them. Setting a New Year Resolution is a promise to yourself and when you share your goals with others, you are making a commitment to them too. Especially if you know that they are going to check on your progress.

You are NOT emotionally attached to your goal

Your mind brings you closer to pleasure and keeps you away from pain.

You have a far greater chance of achieving your goals when they have real meaning for you. You have to understand why you want to achieve a certain goal. 

What will achieving it mean to you? You should feel a strong pull towards a successful outcome. If achieving it doesn’t mean anything to you, neither will not achieving it and you are far more likely to fail in achieving that goal.

You don’t have a backup plan

It is inevitable that you will hit barriers and obstacles as you progress toward your goals. Sadly, many people allow the first hurdle they hit to become their last and they give up on trying to achieve their goal. Creating a backup plan foreseeing the events or mishaps will prevent you from quitting when they happen. 

So, when you make your New Year’s resolutions for 2023, ensure to set smart goals that are doable and time-bound. Come February it will be smooth sailing for you! 

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

NEW YORK — Pop juggernaut Justin Bieber has sold his music publishing and recording catalog shares to the Blackstone-backed Hipgnosis Songs Capital for $200 million, the company said on Tuesday — marking the industry’s latest blockbuster rights deal.

The sale has been rumoured for weeks, and sees the 28-year-old join a who’s who of artists who have cashed out recently on their catalogs.

Hipgnosis did not publicly disclose terms of the deal, but a source close to the matter told AFP it was worth around $200 million.

Contemporary stars including Justin Timberlake and Shakira have sold large stakes in their work — both also struck deals with Hipgnosis — but the move has mostly been seen among legacy artists like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

The staggering sums — Springsteen’s catalogue went to Sony for a reported half billion dollars — are considered safe bets both for older artists getting their finances in order and investors who can count on consistent returns from time-tested music and the viability of streaming.

Younger catalogues are seen as riskier territory, but Bieber is among the best-selling artists ever, and now Hipgnosis has his share in some of the 21st century’s biggest hits including “Baby” and “Sorry.”

Hipgnosis Songs Capital is a $1 billion venture between financial giant Blackstone and the British Hipgnosis Song Management.

Hipgnosis said they acquired Bieber’s interest in his publishing copyrights to his 290-song back catalogue — all of his music released prior to December 31, 2021.

Bieber’s longtime home Universal will continue to administer the catalogue, another source close to the deal said, and still owns the artist’s master recordings. Hipgnosis has acquired the artist’s stake in his masters as well as his neighbouring rights — a royalty that sees its owner receive a payment every time a song is played publicly.

‘Remarkable’

After the Canada native was discovered on YouTube as a teen, Bieber skyrocketed to global fame, selling more than 150 million records.

He has charted eight number-one records on Billboard’s top albums list, and his songs have streamed on Spotify alone more than 32 billion times.

“The impact of Justin Bieber on global culture over the last 14 years has truly been remarkable,” said Hipgnosis chief Merck Mercuriadis, a longtime music industry executive, in a statement.

“At only 28 years of age, he is one of a handful of defining artists of the streaming era that has revitalised the entire music industry, taking a loyal and worldwide audience with him on a journey from teen phenomenon to culturally important artist.”

Bieber’s health has suffered recently, with the star going on an indefinite touring hiatus after he revealed he’d been diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a rare complication of shingles that for him caused partial facial paralysis.

Lucrative asset class

Music catalogues have always changed hands, but the current publishing sales boom had escalated rapidly, with financial markets increasingly drawn to lucrative music portfolios as an asset class.

Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis, which went public on the London Stock Exchange in 2018, has played a large part in publicising the spike in sales.

The sector had seemed to cool recently, but the Bieber deal shows investors are still hungry for music acquisitions.

Owners of a song’s publishing rights receive a cut in various scenarios, including radio play and streaming, album sales, and use in advertising and movies. Recording rights govern reproduction and distribution.

The flurry of sales came amid a wider conversation over artists’ ownership of the work, amplified in large part by Taylor Swift, who has found resounding success as she re-records her first six albums so she can control their master recording rights.

That move stemmed from Swift’s very public feud with Scooter Braun, the music manager whose company once owned her original masters, and later sold them to the investment firm Shamrock Holdings.

Braun has been Bieber’s manager for 15 years, and in a statement said “when Justin made the decision to make a catalogue deal we quickly found the best partner to preserve and grow this amazing legacy was Merck and Hipgnosis”.

“Justin is truly a once in a generation artist and that is reflected and acknowledged by the magnitude of this deal.”

PARIS — Far below our feet, a giant may have started moving against us. 

Earth’s inner core, a hot iron ball the size of Pluto, has stopped spinning in the same direction as the rest of the planet and might even be rotating the other way, research suggested on Monday.

Roughly 5,000 kilometres below the surface we live on, this “planet within the planet” can spin independently because it floats in the liquid metal outer core.

Exactly how the inner core rotates has been a matter of debate between scientists — and the latest research is expected to prove controversial.

What little we know about the inner core comes from measuring the tiny differences in seismic waves — created by earthquakes or sometimes nuclear explosions — as they pass through the middle of the Earth.

Seeking to track the inner core’s movements, new research published in the journal Nature Geoscience analysed seismic waves from repeating earthquakes over the last six decades.

The study’s authors, Xiaodong Song and Yi Yang of China’s Peking University, said they found that the inner core’s rotation “came to near halt around 2009 and then turned in an opposite direction”.

“We believe the inner core rotates, relative to the Earth’s surface, back and forth, like a swing,” they told AFP.

“One cycle of the swing is about seven decades,” meaning it changes direction roughly every 35 years, they added.

They said it previously changed direction in the early 1970s and predicted the next about-face would be in the mid-2040s.

The researchers said this rotation roughly lines up with changes in what is called the “length of day” — small variations in the exact time it takes Earth to rotate on its axis.

Stuck in the middle

So far there is little to indicate that what the inner core does has much effect on we surface dwellers.

But the researchers said they believed there are physical links between all Earth’s layers, from the inner core to the surface. 

“We hope our study can motivate some researchers to build and test models which treat the whole Earth as an integrated dynamic system,” they said.

Experts not involved in the study expressed caution about its findings, pointing to several other theories and warning that many mysteries remain about the centre of the Earth.

“This is a very careful study by excellent scientists putting in a lot of data,” said John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California.

“[But] none of the models explain all the data very well in my opinion,” he added.

Vidale published research last year suggesting the inner core oscillates far more quickly, changing direction every six years or so. His work was based on seismic waves from two nuclear explosions in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

That timeframe is around the point when Monday’s research says the inner core last changed direction — which Vidale called “kind of a coincidence”.

Geophysicists ‘divided’

Another theory — which Vidale said has some good evidence supporting it — is that the inner core only significantly moved between 2001 to 2013 and has stayed put since.

Hrvoje Tkalcic, a geophysicist at the Australian National University, has published research suggesting that the inner core’s cycle is every 20 to 30 years, rather than the 70 proposed in the latest study.

“These mathematical models are most likely all incorrect because they explain the observed data but are not required by the data,” Tkalcic said.

“Therefore, the geophysical community will be divided about this finding and the topic will remain controversial.”

He compared seismologists to doctors “who study the internal organs of patients’ bodies using imperfect or limited equipment”. 

Lacking something like a CT scan, “our image of the inner Earth is still blurry”, he said, predicting more surprises ahead.

That could include more about a theory that the inner core might have yet another iron ball inside it — like a Russian doll.

“Something’s happening and I think we’re gonna figure it out,” Vidale said.

“But it may take a decade.”