Dear Friends,
Now that we have made it part of the way through January, it seems like a good time to discuss more do-able New Year resolutions! It’s right about now—the third week of January—that statistics indicate that many of us start to fall off of our new resolutions.
Instead of feeling failure over that, I want to suggest we use these next couple of weeks in January to revamp some of those over-the-top resolutions we made—and turn them into real-life ones.
A new, attainable resolution is more often stated in the positive. And, a positive resolution ignites the energy we need for our success. A negative resolution weighs us down in failure. A negative resolution reads like this: “I will not eat chocolate.” I don’t know about you, but after reading that, I kind of feel like a piece of chocolate! So, let’s just forget about making statements regarding chocolate all together, and go with something more attainable like: “I will make a point to eat at least one vegetable a week as a side-dish at dinner.” That’s all.
Now, how to keep it? In his worthwhile book, Atomic Habits, author James Clear stresses the life-changing value and power of the smallest habit. We think we’re only changing one small thing, but we end up with unforeseen, snowballing positive results.
So, let’s make our resolution even smaller than our original positive statement. How about: “I will steam or microwave carrots as a side dish with my dinner once a week.” That’s it. That’s the entire real-life, capable of being carried out, ever so small new habit.
It’s also true that our highly important, large goals are more attainable when broken down into smaller, positive, and attainable ones that can be done now. It puts us on the road to success!
Here’s one. How about: “I will read one psalm out loud, to myself, from the Book of Psalms in the Bible, once a week.” That’s it. Not a psalm every day, not a number of chapters. One psalm, on one single day out of the entire week. Some psalms are extremely short. It would be fine to choose one of those.
It could be life-changing.
“Do not despise these small beginnings…” Zechariah 4:10
Blessings,
Mary Ann Simkins
Founder, FaithPrayers Prayer Line