“Through success and failure I have learned a bit about New Year’s resolutions and want to share a tip— a two-part tip. It’s a simple but important one: Resolve them prayerfully and plan them carefully. This, I think, is a key to successful resolutions.”

Tis the season to begin to consider those annual New Year’s resolutions. ’Tis the season to first evaluate whether such resolutions are a good idea or a bad one.

Speaking personally, I am a believer in New Year’s resolutions. I believe our lives benefit when we take time to think, evaluate, and dream a little, to consider how we are doing and how we have been living, and to compare it to how we want and ought to live. The dawn of a new year gives us a fresh opportunity and a helpful context to create resolutions and to put them into action. I do not make resolutions every year, but often I do. I think this is one of those years.

Through success and failure I have learned a bit about New Year’s resolutions and want to share a tip— a two-part tip. It’s a simple but important one: Resolve them prayerfully and plan them carefully. This, I think, is a key to successful resolutions.

Resolve them prayerfully. December 31 is not the ideal time to come up with a list of resolutions, because the impulsive ones rarely stick. The best resolutions are the ones that come through thought and planning. Actually, the best ones are the ones you pray about. Instead of procrastinating until the very end of the year, begin to think and pray now about a bad habit you would like to break and new virtuous habit you would like to begin in its place. Or think and pray of a character trait you would like to emphasize or an activity you would like to begin. Speak to other people about these things. Take the whole process seriously and approach it deliberately. If a resolution is worth making, surely it’s worth praying about. Resolve prayerfully, not impulsively.

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