The beginning of a year is traditionally a time for New Year Resolutions, as well as hoping the year will bring improved quality of life or dreading any upcoming adverse challenges.

Whatever happens, we know change is really the only constant. Change can be stressful, whether it is good or bad. We are challenged by the unknown and its uncertainty, and the way we respond will affect our ability to live life successfully and meaningfully. The stress it causes can motivate or immobilize. In my life I have had to work especially hard at not letting it immobilize me.

The main way I fight immobilization is through faith. Though I look back knowing there is proof of God’s presence in my life, and look forward knowing he is already there, I admit the unknown often unduly stresses me out. That is why New Year Resolutions, daily resolutions, are important as they repeatedly remind me of what matters, what my individual priorities need to be.

Am I living my life by my values and beliefs, or am I just talking about them? Am I accomplishing the goals I have been called to complete, or just treading water in the daily drudgery?

Without a doubt I have long renewed the New Year Resolutions of being a devoted and faithful Christian, loving and caring mother, and I was a competent and hardworking employee. I was not, however, establishing well-defined objectives for how to achieve those resolutions. I was not breaking them down, in the words of business management, into SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reasonable, Time-bound. Instead, though I am determined to ‘do better,’ I fret and worry and stress about how to do better, perhaps because I have not clearly defined what that looks like. Aaaand I still do that.

Recently I read somewhere, probably on Facebook, that rather than making new year resolutions, determine your purpose for the year. Considering the suggestion, maybe a list of new year resolutions is putting to much pressure on myself at this point in my life, especially since due to health reasons I had to early retire and accomplishing anything is a major effort.

I use Google calendar to plan each week, and after the day is over, I often delete and reschedule most tasks because I felt too crummy to do anything. When I look back on the week, the days with no tasks completed are glaringly more than the productive ones. Quite frustrating. While this approach has specific objectives, I’m not accomplishing even half of what I plan for the week.

Am I expecting too much of myself or am I not pushing myself hard enough? Further, am I thinking I’m not trying hard enough because I know that in my heart, or do I think that because others may think it. Ultimately, I can only answer this by being honest with myself.

So I have thought about this, wondering if I should abandon the whole new year resolution concept altogether since I’m so ineffective at it. But then I’m reminded of the many success themed idioms, such as Never give up; When the going gets tough, the tough get going; Failure to plan, is planning to fail; To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time; If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.

I do have goals, and I want to attain them, I don’t want to end up somewhere else. In that case, I cannot give up. I must have plans and objectives I can modify as I get better at it, must keep working strategies until I find the ones that work.

Looking back over my life, I have successfully attended college under my own finances, built a professional career while raising, alone, two decent human beings who now have families of their own, and I was active in my church until health stopped me.

During those years I also had successful, smaller goals and plans. I overcame challenges then; I can do it again. So, whether I call it my purpose, resolutions, plans or objectives, I will remain motivated, heading in the direction I know in my heart that I need to go, with the Lord as my guiding companion.