So How Are Those New Year’s Resolutions?
It was January, 2012 and my wife and I were ready to make some new year’s resolutions. Of course, this is something that millions of people do every January. And just like almost all of those millions of people, we would start strong and then slowly (or not so slowly) let our desire to make changes fade away.
But not this year. This was the year we were going to do something different. This year we were going to make new year commitments. It may sound like only a one-word difference but in reality, it was a big change.
The first thing that we did differently was instead of trying to commit to something for a whole year (which often doesn’t feel entirely possible), we would be committing only for a month at a time. A month always seems like an amount of time that is doable. Can you stop eating desserts for a month? Sure. Can you stop watching movies for a month? Absolutely. How about a year? Well, maybe, but I’m not quite so sure.
So that was our first change. We would commit to doing something different for a month. Then at the end of the month, we would reassess. How did it go? Were we able to stick with it? Do adjustments need to be made? If so, in which direction?
The next change was to pick very specific categories for change.
We decided to choose health/exercise, devotions, media, and food/diet as the four categories we would focus on. All of these categories were areas that we both wanted to make meaningful changes in our lives.
We decided to individually make decisions on what we would commit to for the first month and then we would share those with each other so we could have both an accountability partner and an encourager/coach.
So how did it go? Fantastic. As I said, a month just feels like a doable time frame. So making commitments like “no dessert” or “no TV/Movies” were things that we could accomplish. Were we perfect? Of course not. And at the end of the first month, we made some adjustments moving into the second month. And from there we were off to the races. Once we found something that felt just right and we were able to accomplish it from month to month, then we would just keep that commitment going.
Now skip forward ten years and yes, my wife and still try to make it a regular habit to go over new year’s commitments each January and try to find areas in our lives that could use some attention.
We have found this to be a powerful and wonderful way to make changes and to allow us to grow closer to each other and closer to our Heavenly Father. We have seen our devotional life improve. We have seen our physical bodies become healthier. We have seen our desire for worldly entertainment change.
Call to Action: It's Not Too Late to Start
So let me ask you. Do you have areas in your life you would love to improve? Do you have any habits you’d like to break? Have you had trouble making and then breaking your new year's resolutions? If the answer to any of those questions was yes, would you consider making a “new year’s commitment” for just one month to see how it goes? You could pick one category or ten. You could be aggressive and make big changes or try something more subtle to start with.
What I can promise you is that when you do make it through your first month you just might be hooked.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Philippians 4:13
All scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
