As we approach the dog days of summer, it is a good time for some self-evaluation. Momentum slows in the middle of the year. The excitement of a fresh start has worn off, and the end is still too far away for us to anticipate the thrill of crossing the finishing line. It can be easy to lose focus.
Broken Resolutions
Too often, the goals we set in the beginning of the year fade by the second or third month. January gives us the hope of a fresh start. We plan to do better, then February comes and we fall back into the cycle of the previous year. By springtime we are exactly where we were last year, maybe even further from where we wanted to be.
Proverbs 17:24 says, “The eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.” Some people are dreamers. Their eyes are set “on the ends of the earth”—on unrealistic dreams beyond them—and, as a result, they never get anywhere.
It would be better not to make resolutions than to make them every year, only to find that you were unable to keep them. Understandably, resolutions will not always come to fruition, but many of us fail to keep even one of them. It can get frustrating, but what can be done?
Visualize
If they are going to help us, eventually resolutions have to be transformed into goals. This was the finding of a study published in the February 2008 edition of Fast Company. Two psychologists told college students they had to write a paper about how they spent Christmas Eve. The catch was that they had to submit the paper by December 26. As it turned out, only a third of the students got around to submitting a paper.
The psychologists repeated the assignment with a second group of students, but this time they were required to note exactly when and where they intended to write the report (for example, “in my dad’s office on Christmas morning before everyone wakes up”). This act of visualization made a big difference: 75 percent of the students in the second group turned in the report.
Most people never visualize themselves from resolution to realization. That is why they fail to grow and set the same goals year after year. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.”
Jesus said, “My mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Lk. 8:21). It is not enough for us to sit in pews and hear God’s word. At some point the words must be transformed into actions. If you think God is pleased with mere hearing, you deceive yourself (Jas. 1:22).
Maybe you made a resolution at the first of the year but haven’t visualized how you will bring the resolution to fruition. Or maybe you quit making resolutions a long time ago out of frustration from never fulfilling them. Plan your progress. See yourself doing God’s word. Then those resolutions will move to realization.