New December’s Resolutions

Nothing’s ever perfect; so what could be better than a time for resolving to improve? Bring on the new year.

I love a new year’s resolution, and always want to make the most of it. Sure, you can just wait until January 1st and ‘do it live’, but studies show that between 80 and 92% of resolutions fail! I think there’s a couple reasons for this.

Maybe you’ve failed to maintain resolve some time in the past. We may not be prepared for how hard the resolution is, may have misjudged the scope, or didn’t plan ahead through all the details. We like a perfect score card! Failing in a minor way will lead to temptation to just completely quit. By the time you figure that a resolution isn’t scoped or planned correctly it feels too late to change it. I’ve been there!

The new year is just a few weeks away, and now’s the time when I start planning and demoing the resolutions I want to work on. I’ve had success with this the past few years. By acting on the resolution in December I can do any adjustments needed, change the way I approach it, and even fail without feeling like I’m ruining my year.

In past years I’ve used this strategy to get into a routine of journalling, for planning to read the bible in a year (using the December time to pick a translation, demoing the time of day), and for (hardest of all) trying to eliminate sarcasm. I really feel that my December trials made all the difference in seeing these habits not just through a year, but beyond.

In 2017 one of the things I want to improve on is knowledge of geography. Realistically I think I could improve by about 1000% on knowing even what continent countries of the world are in. This week I’ve started looking for maps online (I want to print a blank one, try it as a quiz to capture my “before” state), and checking out geography quiz apps, and generally planning how I’ll chip away at this throughout the year, and what specific things I want to learn. I’ll also be figuring out what other resolutions I want to make! I want to grow spiritually, and in practical life skills.

It takes more than a morning of reflection to see the areas one needs to grow. I love that old adage that failing to plan is planning to fail. Time is one of the most valuable resources we have, and I’m thankful for the milestone of a new year that we can use to continue to improve ourselves; for some reason that resonates with me more than just resolving to change at other random times. Start planning now if you want to be in that 8% success margin!

Categorized in: Personal

This post was written by ArleyM