Eve of New Year
We’re only hours away from a new year and it’s exciting! We don’t know what’s in store this coming up year! Or do we?Every new year comes with this excitement and expectation, doesn’t it? It’s a great fresh start and opportunity to make some changes and do things differently. And yes, that opportunity is always available, but never more prevalent, than right after Christmas. The resolutions begin.
Last year, I was making my goals and I realized they were very similar to the year before. How does that happen?
I didn’t do enough things differently, to get something different apparently. And maybe I did some things that didn’t work, or didn’t do something that was working long enough…
Habits are particularly tricky. The bullet points and numbers below are in reference to habits, and are only headings from the book, “The Daniel Plan,” which, is a book I highly recommend for reading.
…four of the most common reasons:
- You’ve had your unhealthy habits for a long time, so you’re comfortable with them.
- You identify with your unhealthy habits.
- Your unhealthy habits have a payoff.
- You have an enemy who wants to discourage you.
Five Elements for Lasting Change
- Lasting change requires building your life on the truth.
- Lasting change requires making wise choices
- Lasting change requires new ways of thinking.
- Lasting change requires God’s Spirit in your life.
- Lasting change requires honest community
From “The Daniel Plan,” by Minister Rick Warren, Dr. Daniel Amen, and Dr. Mark Hyman
Human beings constantly want to expand and explore. It’s important for us to go on new adventures, whether that’s actual travel, a new skill (learning an instrument), or going to a new restaurant. When we are not taking on new challenges or expanding we can become B…O…R…E…D and very discontent with life itself.
Comfortable can be great, but it can also be a deadly trap.
There will be the want to expand on one side, and the want to stay comfortable pulling on you from the other side.
As a kid my family would go on summer vacations across country via road, and we didn’t know when we were stopping or staying, and you know what? We weren’t consumed with where, when, and how. We were enjoying the ride, and if something came up like a flat tire, an animal/branch in the road, bad weather, or whatever, we’d handle it, and keep going. A lot of unknown factors were present. We all made it back to KY every time by the way, although there was the close call of me getting left at the gas station. Lol!
Doing new things requires effort, trying again and again, a willingness to not know, and in our googling age, that can be stressful (fear). And for me personally, any change I’ve ever really wanted/needed required God. I’ve worn myself out trying on my own, and I’ve succeeded when asking for His help.
2016 will be different than 2015, and how different is dependent a lot on what I, you, all of us do. Here’s to bravely entering a new year with an open mind to do things we’re hoping to do! God bless you greatly in this new year and always!
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:19
“And I am certain that God, Who began the good work within you, will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” – Philippians 1:6