It’s a few days into the New Year. How are you doing with you New Year’s Resolutions?
If you are already finding it tough to stick to your new goals, you are not alone. More than half of us break our resolutions before the year is up.
According to “Statistic Brain” (New Year’s Resolution Statistics) only 75% of New Year’s Resolutions are still in place after the first week of January, and by July only about 46% of New Year’s Resolutions have survived.
A few adjustments to your original resolution can make all the difference for success, according to Board Certified Life Coach and author of Christian devotional “Walk With God Today” (www.walkwithgodtodaybook.com) Brian Williams. “There are several keys to long term success in setting and achieving all types of New Year’s goals, including spiritual ones,” says Williams.
Williams has a few tips that can make a big difference in sticking to your New Year’s goals:
1. Make sure you are really ready to change that area of your life. It’s not too late to change your goal if you picked an area you are really not ready to work on yet.
2. Set a goal that is realistic. Make your first step achievable and as you gain momentum, you can increase it.
3. Get accountability and support. Recruit others to partner with you such as a person who is already successful in this area, someone working on the same goal or a professional coach.
4. Make sure to stick with your new goal at least three weeks. It takes about three weeks to start forming a new habit, at which time the new action starts to become easier.
5. Ask God for help and for direction through prayer, especially if your goal is for spiritual growth.
It’s estimated that nearly 50% of American’s set New Year’s resolutions each new calendar year. This practice is not new and can be traced back to Babylonian times as spiritual commitments to God. In modern days these goals have focused more on health, relationships and personal improvement. However, spiritual resolutions are also very common, such as committing to “Pray more, be closer to God, be more spiritual” (according to Wikipedia resources).
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