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Every year, as your hangover fades from the New Year revelries, you mutter into your Alka-Seltzer, “Never again,” and your mind naturally turns to resolutions for the 12 months ahead. Give up drinking. Give up smoking. Finally put that expensive gym membership to good use by actually turning up and doing some exercise. Work towards getting that promotion. Find Mr. or Miss Right.

While in previous years people would enthusiastically commit to making big changes in the early days of January and then rapidly return to their haphazard, dissatisfactory lives, recently they have embraced the reality that maybe they could use some help. And that’s where life coaches come in, guiding aspirants to the right goals and then helping them stay on track to achieve them.

So, to mark early January’s palpable sense of optimism and possibility, FilmInFocus also went out in search of not just one life coach, but a small army of them, and asked them to submit a Five in Focus list of their favorite movies.

Our life coaches are: Michele Caron, the Toronto-based founder of MyLifeCoach.com;Christina Watson, the creator of the Footprints at Fifty program; Bradley Foster, the founder of Giant Steps Coaching; Ellen Besso, who specializes in helping women navigate the challenges of midlife; and Sheri Hoff, the self-styled “Global Living Joyfully Every Day Coach.”