“Happy New Year”
I love the new year. I love new beginnings. I love setting new goals for the new year and making resolutions to reach them. According to StatisticBrain.com[1] The top resolutions made are
| 1 | Lose Weight / Healthier Eating | 21.4% |
| 2 | Life / Self Improvements | 12.3% |
| 3 | Better Financial Decisions | 8.5% |
| 4 | Quit Smoking | 7.1% |
| 5 | Do more exciting things | 6.3% |
| 6 | Spend More Time with Family / Close Friends | 6.2% |
| 7 | Work out more often | 5.5% |
| 8 | Learn something new on my own | 5.3% |
| 9 | Do more good deeds for others | 5.2% |
| 10 | Find the love of my life | 4.3 |
| 11 | Find a better job | 4.1% |
| 12 | Stop being a Raider fan | 13.8% |
Ok, I added the last one, that category is actually “other.” I find it interesting that only about 9% of people who make resolutions actually attain success with the resolution.
| Percent of Americans who usually make New Year’s Resolutions | 41 % |
| Percent of Americans who infrequently make New Year’s Resolutions | 17 % |
| Percent of Americans who absolutely never make New Year’s Resolutions | 42 % |
| Percent of people who felt they were successful in achieving their resolution | 9.2 % |
| Percent who have infrequent success | 48.4% |
| Percent who never succeed and fail on their resolution each year | 42.4% |
| People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions |
I believe resolutions have POTENTIAL for greatness. Goals are important in attaining success in any resolution. Every resolution needs a process. Every goal needs incremental steps. No resolution can be accomplished without the PROCESS. Committing to a goal is great. But, if the goal is committed to but there is not a clear process of how to achieve that goal, well, a 9% success rate is actually surprisingly high. In that case, it’s more luck than anything I suppose. However, when one takes a goal and puts a step by step process to it, they are much more likely to achieve your goal. According to mindtools.com[2] you need to set goals to be successful in life, but you also need well defined steps to help you accomplish those goals.
As a Pastor, I know many people make a resolution to read the Bible in a year. Using this as an example; There are 1,188 chapters in the Bible. If someone were to resolve to read all 1,188 then they need a clear plan to get them there. And, there are a number of ways they can do this. If you take 1,188 and divide it by 365 you will see that you get 3.25 chapters per day. If someone were to read about 3 chapters a day they would read the entire Bible in a year. Reading about 3 chapters a day is a plan and a step by step process to complete the goal of reading the entire Bible. Whether it’s a spiritual goal or a physical goal or any other goal, it must have a clear step by step process and even smaller goals within the bigger goal to be realistically accomplished.
In our new series, Re-Wired I will be talking about the different areas of our lives and how we can be changed for the better in the areas of our spiritual, relational, emotional, financial, vocational, and other areas of our lives. But, it takes more than a resolution, it takes a step by step plan to get you there. Thankfully, the Bible has laid it out for us. God’s Word doesn’t just tell us, “Get better!” It shows us how on a step by step basis we can grow in each of the areas God has called us to grow. I hope you’ll join us as we kick off the series on January 7. If you can’t be here in person, join us online, live every Sunday at 8:00am, 9:30am, 11:00am. If you miss a message, you can always grab them on our app or on our website at www.7sd.org.
Join me, in Resolving to Change in 2018! With Jesus at the helm of your life, this year will be different!
[1] https://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/
