It may occur during your return drive from the snow-covered Sierras or as you carefully box up the last tree ornaments in preparation for next year’s trimming.

As the signs of Christmas disappear slowly in the rear-view mirror, the sight of the New Year looms on the horizon.

The transition from the faith of the holidays to the reality of a new year provides for all a welcome or unwelcome fork in the road. In the personal world, credit charges from the old year become the bills of the new. In the world of business, the engine of progress starts up again.

Confronting the inevitable road to a new year, one may view the fork in the road as a mountain of obligation and uncertainty — or choose the view of Eastern spiritual tradition and accept each of life’s challenges as a gift of opportunity.

It is from this foundation that the New Year’s resolution is born. A birth as traditional as Christmas itself, each of us sets internal and external commitments hoping to once again confirm that we are in control of our personal destiny.

It became interesting, but not surprising, to find that even such a personal and noble mission as the New Year’s resolution has been scientifically quantified on the Internet.

Knowing you have no bounds for privacy, you can surf the Web and see exactly how your ambitions for 2008 stack up against those of the 500 “normal people” compiled on the Web site www.mygoals.com.

The site bases its predictions on the current year's third quarter goal-setting activity. According to an anonymous, random sample of goals people have set at the site, this year's New Year's resolutions are expected to break down as follows:

1. Health and fitness, as losing weight retained its number one position.

2. Career goals was up 9 percent, with emphasis on the decision to start one’s own business.

3. Personal growth, with primary areas being attitude, interests, spirituality and reading.

4. Personal finance, with debt reduction up from 26 to 52 percent of the sample group.

5. Education and training, including earning degrees, learning a skill, certification and success in school.

There are four additional categories of resolutions and each is broken into sub-groups by percent age ranking. Home improvement and real estate aspirations are down substantially, with travel and vacations on the rise at an “80 percent level of all recreation and leisure goals.”

Beyond the scope of personal curiosity, this study provides an opportunity for any type of business to get a sneak peak at consumer intentions for the coming year.

For lack of better terms, I suggest a new terminology: the “Intention Index,” a clue to the expectation of how consumers intend to allocate their precious resources of time, energy and money.

If the “Intention Index” captures your imagination, a visit to the Web site may well affect the plan you create for your business or for yourself and how you wish to look back at 2008 12 months from now. The New Year is coming, ready or not.

Bogue, a broker with Coldwell Banker Brokers of the Valley, 1775 Lincoln Ave., Napa CA 94558, can be reached at 258-5221 or cbnapa@napanet.net.