I feel like every year I sit down and write a huge long list of New Year’s resolutions.  Get in shape, stop drinking soda, stop watching tv, read through my Bible, spend less time on social media, eat healthier, and so on, and so on.  However, this huge long list is nearly instantly forgotten.  Come January 15th I’ve stumbled on every one, and so I quit.  If I can’t do it perfectly, I just won’t do it at all.  Which is horrible.  And I beat myself up over it incessantly.  And the fact is, Michael and I live crazy lives. Busy lives.  And any things that are not completely necessary are swept under the rug.  So a long list of complete lifestyle changes aren’t made a priority.

So this year we decided to do something a little different. Instead of coming up with another long list of resolutions that are never actually made, we decided to come up with 12 goals.  One thing to focus on for each month of the year. Instead of overwhelming ourselves with a long list of things to do all year long we decided to split it up into manageable chunks. We sat down and thought of 12 things that will make her life a little bit better and broke up which month to focus on it.

This month we are attempting to start 2017 off right, and are waking up early each morning to have a daily quiet time.  We’ve each chosen a devotional that we are working through.  And we haven’t missed a day!  Usually we would have failed completely and given up by now, but because we’ve chosen just one thing to focus on completely, we are making our resolution happen.  And next month we will add on another thing to focus on, and hopefully continue our daily devotionals as well.

And I’m actually feeling wonderful instead of completely ashamed (like I normally would when I’ve already failed on my resolutions).  So if you are like us and have already failed on your long list of resolutions, try this system out with us.  Hope it works for you as well as it has been working for us.

Happy New Year!

 

*photo taken from @TheAcademyToday & @lottielillian instagram.