586 The Extraordinary Secret to NY Resolutions

KEY SCRIPTURE. Psalm 65:11 

Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.

RELEVANCE

Well, we're at that time of the year that changes everyone's life through a New Year's resolution. But what is a resolution? 

In our context, a resolution is "a firm decision to do or not to do something." I like that definition, don't you?

The trouble is that our resolutions are always that firm, are they? We get to the two-week mark, and what we firmly resolved to do is beginning to unravel.

What we determined is necessary, even vital, yet that importance doesn't seem to transfer to the engine room, does it? We run out of resolve.

What was so important on New Year's Day—what was going to revolutionise us, that crucial factor that will change our lives for the better forever swiftly falls from its dias. That life-changing daily agreement with ourselves is now at two-day intervals and dropping to three until our initial zest falls back to a simple sentence on a page—square one!

Why do we make NYRs every year only to find that we're rolling the same ones out the next year and the year after that?  

The problem lies in the 'magic bullet' of our expectations. We want problems answered long before the time it takes. 

When I first worked for Telstra, I was on a Pit & Pipe gang. We dug trenches with a pick and shovel. All we could pull out of the trench at one time was a shovel full. So, if someone wanted a trench of X length, and the ground was made of X, then it took so many days to dig. If it were shorter or longer, it would take less or more days. It was a simple formula that is as applicable now as it ever was.  So why can't we apply that principle to our resolutions? 

The thing is, are we seizing the opportunity or simply studying it? The secret of travelling a journey (which is what a NYR is) is to allow yourself a sensible time to get there. We make resolutions because something isn't working that we know could work. But our expectations fall short of the timeframes. 

In his book, The Slight Edge, Jeff Olson explains the secret through the natural progression of farming, where you Plant, Cultivate, and Harvest. The trouble is that we want to go from Planting straight to Harvesting without too much of the boring stuff in between—the Cultivation. In cultivation, the farmer rarely sees much change, but he has faith in the process. Therefore, he routinely continues his mundane work without fail, day in and day out.

This mundane day-to-day aspect is where we fail. We give up because we don't see fruit on a daily basis. We expect the fruit of our labours far too early—from Plant- Harvest. We've seen too many ads that tell us that miracles can happen in 30 days; just pay the money. We pay, and the results don't come in the timeframe, so we give up.

We have to get our heads around the cultivation, the time when we see no change but continue through faith, believing in the process. It works for others; it'll work for you.

If we can't hack the continual mundane part of the NYR, e.g. going to the gym and dieting every day without fail, focusing on the main thing at work and not getting distracted. Olson described it as the Slight Edge because the changes that come from each daily activity are so slight that we hardly notice them. But they are the important part.

He says that simple, productive actions, repeated consistently over time, bring the harvest. Conversely, simple errors in judgment (e.g., not doing them), repeated consistently over time, produce nothing, and we again become despondent.

According to Olson, the formula that will give you the slight edge over what you have failed in before is to stop making the simple minute-by-minute errors in judgment but keep repeating those simple, productive actions over time, and the fruit will come. Your NYR will finally be ready for harvest.

Happy New Year.

 PRAYER