(photo courtesy of stocksnap.io by Angelina Litvin)

School Is In — Time To Re-examine Where We Are?

Or, How Are We Doing With Our New Year’s Resolution List?

Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. (Lamentations 3:40)

I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes. (Psalms 119:59)

 

Review Time:

September seems to be a second time in the year when stop to take stock of our lives. Even if it’s limited to “What will I do now that the children are back in school?”

So, let’s pull out our New Year’s Resolution lists and see how we are doing.

Why? BECAUSE – We still have a little less than 1/3 of the year to make them a reality.

 

Articles:

1. Forbes.com, “Just 8% of People Achieve Their New Year’s Resolutions, Here’s How They Did It.” – Dan Diamond shares this sad statistic with us. – This finding was based on research done by the University of Scranton – only 8%. Will you be part of that 8%?
2. Psychologytoday.com author Ray Williams – “Why People Can’t Keep Their New Year’s Resolutions” shares the psychology behind our failure to keep them. Here are two of his points to ponder: – Timothy Pychyl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Canada and a fellow PT blogger, says that resolutions are a form of “cultural procrastination,” an effort to reinvent oneself. People make resolutions as a way of motivating themselves, he says. Pychyl argues that people aren’t ready to change their habits, particularly bad habits, and that accounts for the high failure rate. Another reason, says Dr. Avya Sharma of the Canadian Obesity Network, is that people set unrealistic goals and expectations in their resolutions. Psychology professor Peter Herman and his colleagues have identified what they call the “false hope syndrome (link is external),” which means their resolution is significantly unrealistic and out of alignment with their internal view of themselves. This principle reflects that of making positive affirmations. When you make positive affirmations about yourself that you don’t really believe, the positive affirmations not only don’t work, they can be damaging to your self-worth.
3. Quirkology.com, (I like the name), author Richard Wiseman’s article “New Year’s Resolution Experiment” suggests that we “Plan ahead – Reflect on what you really want to achieve.
4. Lifehacks.org – “7 Steps for Making a New Year’s Resolution and Keeping It” author Annabel Candy. Interestingly her first point, “just pick one thing,” was the common consensus of all my research. By choosing one thing – we can write a concrete plan of what we want to do to achieve it and then achieve it which will encourage us to set a second goal and work to achieving it. It is a win-win situation.

 

Followed the Consensus

If you remember that is what I had decided to do this year – pick one thing to work on – “To seek God first and let Him take care of the other areas of my life.” I did some research and decided to pursue this resolution by working to increase my faith; grow in trusting God, and to choose to actually believe and live by the truth that I am His Masterpiece.

 

How have I done?

I lost my way in the last few months – the first 4 months, I was diligent and intentional about making the time to be with God and in His Word – during the next 3 months I let the cares of the world (the challenges that I was facing in life) plus a number of distractions (including learning all I could to get this new blogging adventure off the ground and summer time fun to name a couple), plus I got really sick and lost a month to exhaustion, chills, running nose, extremely sore throat (this sickness is behind me now). But together they took their toll and suffice it to say God was not always first on my mind – and you know what – I could actually feel the difference in my life. It was a scary place to be – so I repented and recommitted myself to God and asked Him to help me get back on track – for me to have Him as the center of my life (in everything I think, say and do is very important).

God and I are using this last third of the year to deepen our relationship and to learn from the lessons of my drift.

 

Still Time to Achieve Our Goals

Just under 4 months to still reach those goals we made for ourselves.

Don’t beat yourself up, take a stand and decide “I’m worth It.”

Hopefully the dog hasn’t eaten your list, but if he/she has then make a new one – which contains one thing that you can work on between now and December 31 at midnight.

If you have your list – look and see what you have accomplished; what may need to tweak so it can be accomplished; what may need to be removed (either permanently or to be re-addressed January 1, 2016) and what may need to be added because you accomplished the first step of the change but now is a good time to address the second step.

 

Encouragement

Remember at the end of the day, we make these lists to become better people and it is “Never a good time to quit becoming a better you.”

Let’s be encouraged today, to continue to move forward in our quest to become a better person than we were yesterday – even if at the end of the year we can say that we are only 2 steps closer than before. Two steps towards our final goal is still progress!

Remember, two steps closer to your final goal is still progress. Click To Tweet

Click to tweet: Two steps forward is progress, don’t discount it.”

Let’s be part of the 8% who succeed.

 

Triumph is waiting for us on the other side of the decisions we make. Click To Tweet

Decision Time

What decisions do you have to make today to meet the resolutions you made January 1, 2015 – we have just under 4 months to accomplish our goals. Let’s not waste that time.

Triumph is waiting for us on the other side of the decisions we make.

What New Year’s resolutions have you accomplished so far?

What changes do you have to make to a) meet your New Year’s resolutions or b) to finish another item on your list? Remember to share in the comment box below.