No Resolutions for the New Year!

I’ve been feeling a big shift happening in my life, and I’m excited about the future. I’m making plans.

But let’s get real. There’s a big difference between making plans and making New Year’s resolutions. Be honest. Have your New Year's resolutions ever really worked? If you’re like most people, they haven’t. 29% of Americans forget about their resolutions by the end of the first week of January.  Another 49% have given up on their resolutions by the end of January. Fewer than 10% finish their resolutions for the year.

Kim and I used to play a private little game during the first week of January. We’d go to the gym, where we always went, and it would be uncomfortably packed with new members. We’d look at the crowd of people in the gym and try to predict who wouldn’t be there by the end of the month. It was easy to be correct. Almost everyone who joined in early January was no longer coming there at the end of the month, which was great because we got our equipment back.

How about this year? Let’s all do something different. Instead of making “New Year’s Resolutions,” let’s make decisions and then set goals. Yes, let’s decide to make permanent life changes. Let’s all decide to live our best lives and do this in sustainable, meaningful ways. Setting goals is a better way to accomplish the things you want in life.

I’ve set goals for 2024 for what I want in each of the most important areas of my life. These are what I call my life priorities, and they are, in order of relative importance:

• Spiritual

• Physical Health

• Relational

• Emotional Health

• Professional

• Intellectual

• Financial

I know that if, in 2024, I grow in each of these seven areas of my life and stay in relative balance, my year will be awesome. I will have done all I can to live my best life.

So, for me, NO NEW YEAR’s RESOLUTIONS!  Instead, I’ve set well-thought-out goals. I encourage you to do the same thing.