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Today is the 213th day of 2014. That means we have 152 more days left until 2015. (And a week less than that till Christmas!) Where is the year going?
I love New Year’s Eve, mostly because I love the idea behind New Year’s Resolutions. Every December, I begin to think back on the past year and what I wished I accomplished or what my next step of accomplishment should be. This year I made eight distinct resolutions; half of them will probably make you laugh.
o Marry Heath
o Start www.alyssapadgett.com
o Read the One-Year Bible
o Write 500 words daily
o Work out 30 min at least 4 days a week
o Run half marathon
o Cut out all sweets
o Learn how to do the splits
For most of my resolutions, this isn’t the first time I wrote them down. In fact, I think the first two, the only two I’ve accomplished, are the only new resolutions. Every other resolution has been written time after time with little effort toward success. Let’s be honest, cutting out sweets in my life isn’t really a goal I want to work toward.
I’ve written “read the entire Bible” on my New Year’s Resolutions for years. At least five years. Last year, feeling the weight of multiple failures, I downgraded my goal to then entire New Testament. At the time, it felt like a cop out.
I flipped through the entire New Testament on New Year’s Eve wrote down each book and the number of chapters. If I remember correctly, there are 268 chapters in the New Testament. There are also about 260 weekdays in a year. Note: weekdays. This meant I wouldn’t have to do any work on Saturdays.
So I created a calendar for myself. The Gospels and Acts would take me until summer, but then I could fly through the epistles.
For most of the year, I kept up with my goal. I impressed myself. My goal of reading the entire Bible finally felt like a reachable goal for 2014.
But I bailed just before Revelation. Somewhere between eating pecan pie at Thanksgiving, moving back home to Texas, plus the whole proposal thing, I just didn’t think much about reading. Besides, Revelation just sounded condemning and difficult.
Even though I spent 11 months working toward my goal, I quit. I quit when it was just at my fingertips.
Then January 1st came along and taunted me.
For the millionth time, or so it felt, I wrote on my resolutions: Read the One Year Bible. I didn’t want to be defeated by my goal again, especially since last year I came so close.
Like I said, it’s the 213th day of 2014.
I’m on Day 149 for the One-Year Bible Plan via the Bible app for iPhone.
I may be 64 days behind schedule, but I’m closer now than ever before.
Sometimes there are goals we want to achieve in life that are too big. We know we want to move that far, but it’s too big of a leap.
Last year, I felt cheap downgrading my goal to just reading just the New Testament. At the time, I didn’t feel like it would really bring me any closer to my goal of reading the entire Bible.
But if I hadn’t cut my goal in half, I wouldn’t have the confidence and New Testament knowledge to make it through all 66 books in 365 days. I wouldn’t be only 64 days behind. I’d probably be more like 200 days behind.
As much fun as it is to dream big, sometimes we must act in small steps. We need to cut goals in half and slowly work our way up to where we want to be. Otherwise, we may find ourselves 213 days into the year and no days closer to what we want to achieve.
How are you doing with your resolutions?
