Editor’s Note: Being at a family member’s house who happens to live on a different timezone means, you will wake up on your timezone. That’s just how it is. And when you attempt to be quiet because you are the only one awake, every sound will be amplified 10 times over.

Goals vs. Resolutions

Another day I will try reflecting on 2015, but right now is not the time it seems. Throughout life we all from time to time will say, “This year will be different.” This year I resolve to do this…” “My New Year’s resolution is…” In previous years, I have tried instead to create goals, not resolutions. Resolutions are so empty and often lack true commitment. Here is how Google defines Resolution:

Resolutions seems like the kind of thing you can only make at the beginning of the year, while that isn’t true, tradition has made it seem that way. With goals, you can and must make a plan if you want any kind of success. I attended a health webinar once where the speaker said we should plan for what we want to accomplish. It immediately seemed like something with a project plan and due dates. What if we take those resolutions and do the same thing?

As someone argued in a meme I saw, why wait until a New Year, why not start Monday. Since New Year’s Day is on a Friday this year, I will start Monday.

Health Goals

This year I have to get healthier or I will die. Maybe not this year, but how much damage can you do to your body and it fully recover? As you get older, your recovery time takes longer and longer and if you are too close on some health issue, you stay there and eventually go over the line if you don’t change. I eat too much and not enough of the things that are truly good for me. So eventually I will probably develop things like diabetes and high blood pressure, things that perhaps right now are hopefully still preventable if I make the necessary changes in my life. I got a Fitbit Charge HR for Christmas. While I wouldn’t use a defibrillator on someone based on Fitbit’s heart rate tracking,  it has shown me my resting heart rate is probably higher than it should be from carrying the extra weight my body has.

Faith Goals

I am sure some would say, I should have put these before health and they are right and I thought of them first thing this morning but the health goals have weighed on my mind a lot lately along with my faith goals. I want to pray more. Often, deliberately, thanking the Lord for all of the many blessings in my life. I have so many blessings in my life and while I know there are struggles I will face this year, I want to face them “prayed up” and with the moments and issues of the day in the Lord’s hands. I will have so many decisions to make in the coming year, big ones, with people depending on me. I want to make the right decisions. I need to rely on the Lord to be sure I make those right decisions.

I want to be a lot less selfish. I feel I was selfish in 2015. I didn’t give as often. I didn’t share as often. I wanted too many material things when all along I had the things I needed. There is a big difference between want and need. As I have talked about before, we have to realize we have the things we need and that is the most important thing. God provides what we need. Wants are often selfish and empty things. I appreciate the things I have. God has been good to me though nothing I have done or could ever do has earned the grace God have given me. Things done is love can never be selfish. This year I will love more

Goals

So I just have to make my project plans for these goals. And for my Faith goals, I must live my faith more than I speak of my faith. I have to make plans and not resolutions. Hopefully these are goals I will stick with. If I do, my 2016 will be the best year of my life. Happy 2016!