Doomsayers: Resolutions Fizzle by February
January 4, 2013
“I am going to exercise on the treadmill five days a week, while holding one of the 75 books I will read this year in one hand, and a carrot stick in the other.”
Sound familiar?
How many of us participated in the New Year ritual of making resolutions as an attempt to start anew and make positive changes in our lives? Or how many of us have resolved not to resolve? Whatever camp you find yourself in, many people, especially psychologists, view making resolutions as an almost pointless exercise. We make them, then we break them (usually by February), and then we become more discouraged than we were before we resolved to lose weight, get out of debt, exercise more, or start a better relationship with someone.
The “stick-to-it” success rate is rather glum. Supposedly, less than one-fourth of people manage to stick to their resolutions. The reason for the lack of success is apparently following “self-help” advice that suggests if we want to lose weight we should post a picture of a model on our fridge or we should visualize ourselves as thin. Achieving change by suppressing cravings, visualizing success or “thinness”, or by sheer willpower alone is apparently the wrong way to go about making change that endures.
However, those who are able to keep their resolutions seemed to adhere to the strategy of finding someone to help them remain accountable, breaking up their goals into smaller steps and then celebrating success along the way. One very successful strategy was for people to make and focus on one resolution at a time and treat occasional failures as just temporary setbacks.
So that’s what Cammy and I are attempting to do during the month of January. We are focusing on praising God anew for thirty-one days by reading the book, “31 Days of Praise” (http://wordsofworth.com/2012/12/28/31-days-of-praise/) and being prompted as to how many ways we can praise our Heavenly Father. Just in these first four days of 2013, we have been reminded to praise God for being our strong shelter, our all sufficient provision in times of stress, danger, and yes, even “fiscal cliffs”.
We are focusing on one goal, in community with you, during the month of January which is before February when most resolutions fizzle. So the chances are in our favor to be successful in praising Him! And if you think about it, the month will surely end before we could ever possibly come to the end of our reasons for praising Him.
Please join us and add a comment below as to how you are praising Him.
“…let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.”
Hebrews 13:15