What’s Wrong with Your New Year’s Resolution

Have you done it yet? Have you decided to abandon your New Year’s resolution? A New York Post article by Shireen Khalil entitled “New Year’s resolutions last exactly this long,” indicated that before the first month of the year has ended, most people would have given up on their New Year’s resolutions.

 

The article cited a study conducted by the University of Scranton that determined around eighty (80) percent of people failed to keep their New Year’s resolutions and only eight (8) percent achieve their New Year’s goals. However, before you decide to nix the practice of making New Year’s resolutions altogether and throw out the baby with the bath water so to speak, it would be more productive to examine the reason why so many resolutions fail. This I believe is attributed to commitment. As stated by Vince Lombardi, “Most people fail not because of a lack of desire but because of a lack of commitment.”

 

Psalms 37:5 declares, “Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust him, and he will help you.” Commitment is defined as “the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc.” It requires action. However, most people tend to confuse commitment with interest. It is this confusion that produces a decade worth of failed New Year’s resolutions, and results in a life filled with unfinished assignments and unfulfilled dreams. In the words of Kenneth Blanchard, “When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when it’s convenient. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.” Consequently, we must realize that it is commitment that drives the vehicle of success not plans.

 

Commitment encompasses hard work, determination, and perseverance even through adversity. It allows us to flourish in life even if our growth is similar to a Chinese Bamboo Tree. You see although the Chinese Bamboo Tree requires good soil, water and sunshine for growth like any other plant, it is different from other plants in that it takes five (5) years before evidence of its growth can be seen. However, after those five years, this tree will grow to eighty (80) feet in just six weeks. If the sower of a Chinese Bamboo Tree is not committed to its growth, he/she would stop watering and nourishing the plant after a week when no evidence of even a sprout is seen above ground, or after a month when there is still no results, then yet even after one to four years when there is still no evidence of growth. Similarly, we often become frustrated and discouraged when results are not immediate, but commitment allows us to remain faithful to the process until we bear the expected fruit of our labor. As so eloquently stated by Jim Rohn, “Motivation is what gets you started. Commitment is what keeps you going.” Moreover, Paul urges us in Galatian 6:9, “So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”

 

2020 is publicized as a year of vision. However, vision is not enough. Do you want to be among that eight (8) percent that finds success in 2020? Commit!