Resolutions
How is everyone doing on their 2023 New Year’s resolutions?!
According to Forbes, 80% of Americans who set out to achieve a New Year’s resolution already quit by February 1st. This is a large percentage of individuals who set out to accomplish something they felt was easily obtainable, but quickly learned that is not the case, therefore, they give up after only 31 days!
Are you truly surprised that over 80% of people quit within the first month? We live in a world that believes success is achieved over night. Culture has made failure and defeat so easy that it is engrained in us to give up on achieving different goals. It is easier to make excuses and watch Netflix than achieve things through hard work.
When we make New Year’s Resolution, we tend to bite off more than we can chew. We look at a very large picture, that will take a lot of time and effort, that generally leads to the 80% of Americans quitting early on. Instead of making a large, big picture resolution, people should break down their resolution into smaller, more obtainable ones that will allow for small victories along the way. Achieving the smaller goals and being able to celebrate these victories help individuals to stay on track and have something to work towards that does not set them up for failure immediately.
New Year’s resolutions can easily be compared to everyday life scenarios. Let’s take writing a book for example. The greatest novels of all time, all started with an idea. The author did not set out to complete the novel in one setting, instead they took their idea and began to form a plan, outline their thoughts, and start to put words into paragraphs forming chapters. A novel is created one word at a time, one small step towards a larger end goal.
Other life scenarios would be taking the first step to get testing completed to better understand fertility issues or seeing a therapist for something going on in your life. The first step can be frightening, but remember that first small step leads to a larger solution. Accepting the fact that small steps need to be taken in order to achieve your own personal goals or God’s goals for you will bring about amazing outcomes in His time.
As sports fans, we love learning about sports heroes and their leadership traits. Previous Pittsburgh Steelers Head Coach Chuck Noll once said, “Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else.”
In the end, do not give up. Setbacks happen and sometimes we have to take a different path, but never give up on a dream! Keep learning, growing and working towards things. Some times what we think is our long term goal is not where we finish as God has a different idea. We would never have gotten to our destination if it was not for the hard work and trusting God in the process.
XOXO
Mark and Megan