Being that it is again the end of one year and the beginning of the next, I have been giving some thought to New Year's Resolutions. A few years ago I decided to quit making resolutions because I would develop this awesome list, devoting the next few hours / days / weeks to meeting those resolutions, only to fall off the resolution wagon just a few weeks into the new year. And I was left just feeling bad about myself that I had failed yet again. Major logic flaw.
I didn't give up resolutions all together, as for the past few years on my birthday I develop a list of things that I would like to do, learn, improve, or dismiss in the next year of my life. My list is a more a set of goals for the year, some more "bucket list esque" than others. I write them in my journal (one of my yearly resolutions that I have yet to master) and then look back on them periodically throughout the year.
This year I have resolved to return to New Year's Resolutions in addition to my birthday resolutions. But with a healthier perspective at play. I have been thinking a lot about how President Hinckley would end each session of general conference advising us to individually take what we had learned and be a little better. We cannot change the past. If I fall of the wagon one day then I just get back on it the next. No need to get all fatalistic and dramatic about it and stuff (although that tends to be in my nature ;) ). It is not the end if I don't master something right away or implement a goal perfectly all the time. I think the adversary wants us to believe that we cannot measure up, that we are in the end failures, and that mediocrity and complacency are just fine. That if we can't be perfect immediately then why bother at all. But that is simply not true. I will not fall prey to that lie anymore.
So I have resolved to be a little better, a little kinder, a little more forgiving, a little more slow to anger, a little smarter, a little less judgmental, and to refocus my sights on the goals I made on my birthday. If I slip up or slow down or get stuck in a rut I resolve to make a change as quickly as possible. I resolve to revisit my goals on a quarterly basis to check in and make course corrections as necessary. That is what this life is all about anyway. Striving to stay on course and making the necessary to corrections to improve our clarity, remain on track or return when we have lost sight.
Welcome 2014.
