Can you believe we are nearly here already! The countdown to midnight on January 1st 2014 is soon approaching! Eeeek! Every year we tell ourselves, “This year is going to be different! This is the year I’m going to lose weight, travel, get a promotion, volunteer and be super woman!”. We get out our new and improved diary and begin to write that list, a page full of promises, goals (some unrealistic), personal demands that we make to ourselves. Truth be told half the time they don’t work out really well. We’re really good at coloring inside of the lines of the perfect image we want to be depicted as at the turn of the new year. Until that pesky January 2nd rolls around.
Maybe you are better at keeping your resolutions. Maybe the honeymoon phase of being the fresh version of yourself lasts a little longer than the average goal-setting person’s does. That’s great! However, that’s really not true of most of us. Many of us of us don’t keep the promises we make to ourselves to be better, stronger, happier, thinner, fatter and more adventurous for very long. We’re almost incapable meeting the mark of our resolutions.
Well be encouraged, scripture tells us that we, as humans, are conditioned to fail; Although, sometimes simple stubbornness or just flat-out laziness is the key perpetrators in our unwillingness to change. We as a culture, as people who understand the imperfections in ourselves, throw in the pressure of this one day, the first day of the new year, into the mix. We heighten our expectations, and convince ourselves that a simple turn of the clock, like a fairy tale, can change our lives forever. Dolls, it really can’t.
But, all is not hopeless. Change is actually possible. And it is actually quite healthy to take action, to seek wise counsel and work to make improvements on the things in our lives that we are prone to consistently mess up. And, if we’re truly earnest about being more like Christ and seeking to do, act and love as He would, then these are the goals we should strive to every day of the year. Not just at the beginning of January.
So, why not start now? Get a head start! Why not practice getting into the habits you wish you were always in? Why not release some of the pressure of the new year and start making strides to your goals this very instant. Practice does not make perfect, no one is capable of perfection. You would know this if you’ve ever tried to keep a goal past January 2nd.
But hear this, practice does make progress. And the sooner you start setting the goals and taking small steps toward them, the sooner these changes do become habits (and the less discouraged you become when you fall short). I would like to challenge each and every one of you to start celebrating the new year right now. Countdown to a new, attainable way of achieving goals. And when midnight on January 1st arrives, smile and celebrate, knowing that you’re already well on your way to becoming a more well-rounded version of yourself.
Written by Brett E. Wilson