Every New Year’s Day, people make New Year’s resolutions that they’d like to accomplish before the year ends. Sadly, for most of us, the very same resolutions are usually forgotten even faster than they were created. What is it that makes us lose our focus and will to try to reach and/or exceed our goals? I believe it’s as simple as scattering our energies on accomplishing them all simultaneously instead of fixating on one resolution at a time.
After identifying your most pressing resolution, dedicate all of your time, energy, and focus on that one alone. Be stubbornly persistent and insistent that nothing and no one will deter or detract you from its completion. After planting the seed of your intention and focus deep within your mind’s fertile soil, cultivate all of your efforts on the one resolution you want most. Put the entire energy of everything you have and everything you are into one resolution at a time.
In my own life, I’ve come to understand that in order to move forward, the journey is made easier when I tackle one resolution at a time. Trying to take on all of my resolutions at once doesn’t work for me, and I’m sure it doesn’t work for most of us either. Usually, during the first two to three months of a New Year, or a new decade for that matter, gym and weight loss memberships tend to surge to capacity, only to level off drastically in the following months. Whatever category your resolutions are, (i.e. financial, spiritual, religious or personal, etc.) your odds of achieving them increase when deciding to pursue them one at a time.
So, for this year, right now in this moment, choose what’s most important to you, formulate a plan of attack, and go after it with all of your might. Resolve anew–great gains are never made trying to do everything at once, but much can be accomplished in a year when you methodically work through one resolution at a time.
Charles R. Butts Jr. 