New Resolutions

For most of us, each new year brings the desire to start fresh and do things better. We find ourselves motivated to lose weight, clean and/or de-clutter our homes, or save more money for a big treat for ourselves. But by the end of the year, or even then first month, we've fallen short of our initial expectations. Whatever your goals are, they take resolution. Resolution simply means...

Resolution simply means a firm decision to do or not to do something.

According to Time, Our top 10 resolutions that we break most often are:

• Lose Weight and Get Fit
• Quit Smoking
• Learn Something New
• Eat Healthier and Diet
• Get Out of Debt and Save Money
• Spend More Time with Family
• Travel to New Places
• Be Less Stressed
• Volunteer

Some of these are on my list, like losing some more weight, toning up and continuing to explore eating even healthier. Others I’ve added are to continue to rid my home environment of toxins and focus more on being in the moment. Did any of those make it onto your lists?

We’ve all made resolutions before…and we’ve all broken them. Life has a way of complicating our well-laid-out plans, which can be detrimental to our resolutions as well as our self-esteem.

Some things I find helpful with accomplishing resolutions are:

• Make lists – Writing down your goals (projects, tasks, etc) and keep it accessible so that you can see it every day.
• Find an accountability partner – that buddy or girl friend who will be honest and motivating when you just don’t feel like it.
• Break down your goals into manageable tasks. List all the actions it will take to complete it, then prioritize them. Doing this keeps things moving in small, doable steps.

I have this mentor who once said this about reaching goals: “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me…But, one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal…” – Philippians 3:12-14

Paul (my mentor) had the right idea. He didn’t want things; he wanted the power of Christ in his life. He knew his “resolution” was about staying on the path. He admits his failures when he says ‘forgetting what is behind” and encourages us to strain “toward what is ahead”. In the verse right before this he says that all he wants is to know Christ and the power that raised him to life and then goes on to say that he knows he hasn’t obtained that yet and he’s far from perfect, but he presses on!

That’s what is needed for our goals, a resolution to press on! That firm decision to do or not do something shouldn’t stop the first time we fail. And we will fail! We are all imperfect, but what makes some people successful and others not, is the decision to press on or to give up. 

Live each day in its entirety. Yesterday is past. Tomorrow is still yet to come. Wake each day giving thanks for another chance. Choose to have a positive attitude. Don’t think of tomorrow and its maybes, or yesterday and its blunders. Instead, think about today and resolve to make the best of what you have in front of you. Press on!

Shazzy Fitness Guest Blogger Mindy Kaye is a Christian Holistic Health Coach, wife, mother and nana. She has 3 blogs: one dedicated to life in general; one for her journey during and after breast cancer; and one called It All Begins with Dirt, which is dedicated to getting back to the basics of growing and eating healthy, organic foods. Follow her on Facebook at Healthy Choices Lifestyles.

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