Intro

New Year’s Resolutions are coming - whether we like it or not!  New Year’s Resolutions are so much a part of the conversation this time of year that they are impossible to avoid.  Maybe you have a couple you are ready to start or maybe you have avoided dealing with them at all.  Maybe you don’t believe in them - or you want to, but you know better.  After all, experience teaches us that New Year’s Resolutions often last only about a week or two and then we kind of lose our resolve!

My Thoughts

Change is hard, even at times of obvious transition like the new year.  One of the factors that contributes to change being hard is that while we often want the new, we haven’t really dealt with the old.  Another way to think about this is that if we don’t identify the real issue correctly, we will come up with plans that only address the surface and those plans will not be sustainable because they don’t deal with the real problem. 

Here is an obvious example:

New Year’s Resolution: I am going to eat better in the new year.

Problem(the old): I eat too much junk food.

Reason: I will be healthier and have more energy.

Nothing wrong with this.  But what if the problem is not that you eat too much junk food?  What if the real and deeper issue is that you take a lot of emotional comfort from food?  If you don’t have an honest encounter with this truth and don’t come up with a better plan for emotional comfort to replace what you are getting from junk food, those Flamin’ Hot Cheetos are going to be irresistible in about a week!

This dynamic is true for all the New Year’s Resolutions you may come up with.  Time online? Exercise? Relationships? Reading more? Being nicer to your siblings?

Conclusion

As you finish up this new year, take some time to really assess the “old” that you are trying to move away from and make sure your New Year’s Resolutions are addressing the real issues.  This is hard work, but the changes you make will be more effective and satisfying if you work on “Out with the Old” before getting after “In with the New!” (Which we will talk about next week!)

Happy New Year!