By Rev. Walt H. Windley, Senior Director, of Spiritual Care and Grief Services, VIA Health Partners
There’s a winter chill in the air as you pack the last box, stockings safely secure and the garland tenderly wrapped and stored for another eleven months. Everything that was once “twinkly” and bright has been bundled away for the holiday season, leaving behind the sensory reminders of buttery Christmas sugar cookies and roasted chestnuts on an open fire.
As the joy and hope that is so characteristic of this time of year cocoons the warm and fuzzy feelings of your heart and spirit, you find yourself suddenly inundated with the welcomed nagging of a brand-new year. This is going to be your year…a year of surprises, grand adventures, big dreams and resolutions that make it past January 14!!
You grab your new journal, a gift from that distant Aunt who only pops up around the holidays and talks about the beauty of words and writing what you feel. It always entered in one ear and went out the other, yet this is your year…the year where everything will be different!
You open the front cover and channel your sense of enthusiasm as words take to the page, scribing your name with thick and broad strokes indicative of a day long forgotten. And you wait…and you wait…and you wait some more. The intent is ever so clear, and the momentum bridled; however, the disconnect between “want” and “will” might as well be an ocean apart. Have you ever found yourself in this place? You approach the start of a new year with aspirations to make a change…to do something different only to get bogged down in the weightiness of resolutions and the “can I,” “should I,” and “would I” of it all.
Richard Batts, professor at the distinguished Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University, published an article in 2023 exploring the reasoning behind a high degree of failure in New Year’s resolutions. He points to research that suggests more than 23% of all resolutions will be abandoned by the end of the first week of January and about 43% will fall to the wayside by the end of the month. In fact, only 9% of all resolutions, as measured in America, will be realized. Where do we go wrong?
While I have great respect for the plethora of writers who want to inspire my resolutions and spark this inward change, I often approach this time of year with great hesitation and pause. Perhaps, like me, you have read the articles and listened to the gurus, finding their seeds of wisdom and advice begin to bleed together into an endless stream of anecdotal whisps of fitness journeys, improved diets, financial wellbeing and lifestyle changes. While all of these “things” are inherently good and rich and worthy of our time and attention, I would argue that many of us never attach these resolutions or goals to a fixed point of what we value or truly desire for ourselves.
Perhaps we feel the pressure to succumb to some version of ourselves that the world or culture seems to treasure that is really the antithesis of what we believe or own at our core. Yes, we need to seek better physical, spiritual, emotional and mental health. Yes, we need to be aware of how we treat our neighbors and the light we bring into this hurting world. Yes, we need to grow in our awareness of self and our ability to positively impact those around us.
However, dear friends, none of that will make an ounce of a difference unless we truly believe it within the thin and sacred spaces of our own inner being. Without belief, it will be like changing coats in-between seasons; we will quickly shed one to take on another, leaving behind what another wants for us that never truly fit in the first place. Ultimately…we abandon true growth.
Maybe…just maybe we should begin this new year from a place of intentional pause and reflection. What is it that I truly value? What would it look like to turn inward before turning outward? Instead of predicating my resolutions on Forbes “top ten,” what if I start with who I am, who I am growing to be and how God might be using me.
Connecting mission to vision isn’t just a concept for the business world; it can help us align spiritually with where we are going physically. That distant Aunt may be on to something…that journal may get a workout this new year!
