The Only New Year’s Resolution You Need

Hey there, friends. Welcome to the first episode of 2023. How are things going for you so far in the new year? Seriously? Are you someone who likes to take on New Year's resolutions? Are you someone that thinks it's just another year, just another day? No big deal. Why would I even think about it?

I'm somewhere in between. I'm a driven person. I love setting goals for myself. I'm very competitive with myself. I want to be achieving and succeeding but oddly enough, I shy away from New Year's resolutions. 

I think there is a lot of pressure wrapped up in New Year's resolutions. I think people give too much credit to the New Year. It's always been a weird concept for me, because it's like, why now? Like, why not any other month of the year? Why not any other time? I think any day is as good a day as any to start anything, anything worth improving yourself. 

But there's always this odd feeling around New Year's resolutions, and especially because I don't believe people are making them for themselves. They are not making the choice. They are not choosing the goal for themselves. I believe a lot of times people are pressured into choosing one and feel comfortable in following the crowd. 

What is everyone choosing? Well, you're either gonna choose to work out, because what's marketed towards us over the Holiday season. We are supposedly gorging ourselves on food, so when January comes around, it is time to lose any excess weight. So what better time to shove down our throats that we need to change our bodies than right in January? So the fitness industry really has marketed towards your insecurities around any food choices that you had made over the holiday season.

And here's the thing, it's a season, right? You are allowed to enjoy yourself. You are allowed to step out of a normal exercise and eating routine, or whatever your normal lifestyle is around food. You are allowed to change. You are allowed to have those times in the year where you are just enjoying life and spending time with family. Every culture uses food to gather with one another to celebrate, so it's very bizarre, in my mind, because it's like, it's marketed to us to bake all these things and have all this fun. And then once January rolls around, bam, guilt trip. OK, now it's time. Now it's time to basically shame and feel guilty for those decisions you made about what you ate and how little, or how much you moved your body in November and December. 

Basically, where I'm going with this is I want people to stop saying, “New Year, new me”, and I want people to start saying, “New Year, time to be me”. The truth is, you don't need to change yourself. You don’t need to change your soul. Nothing is wrong with you. You were created the way you are. God created you the way you are for a reason. 

Here’s what happened. You were born. God created you the way you are with your special gifts and your special talents and all your uniqueness. And as you were growing up as a child, you started taking in outside influences and depending on your personality, you perceived those outside influences in such a way that formed your beliefs. Outside influences helped shape your beliefs and the expectations you had on yourself, and how you were to fit into this world. 

You then went through adolescence that way, and you go through your teenage years and your early 20s and then it's like you get to your 30s and you're thinking, holy cow, I've been spending so much of my life being someone that I was not called to be. The New Year's resolution that we all need to have is to have that personal development, that growth, allowing ourselves time to reconnect with who we are as a person. Because you can't just say, I wanna start a business. I wanna write that book. I want to start this exercise routine. I want to travel the world. I wanna do all these things, if it's not who you are. 

Who are you? There is nothing wrong with wanting growth. I love personal development. I love growth. I think that is one of the most important things we can do in our lives, because I believe through personal development is how we reconnect to our souls. We reconnect to who God created us to be in this world. But we can't do that if we’re constantly chasing the comparison, and we're constantly chasing how we think we could fit in and how we're going to be accepted. If I do X, Y &Z, then this group of people will accept me for who I am. Or, once I have the perfect body, then I can love myself and maybe other people will too.

There's all this messed up stuff we start at. We start at the wrong end of things. We start focusing on what others want and how we think we need to be, and how we think we will be enough in this world. When the truth is, we are already enough. We just have to have the faith that is the truth.

This idea has been weighing on me really hard lately. This time of year, honestly, is my least favorite time of the year for a number of reasons. I live in a place where it feels like it’s winter six months out of the year. We don't have four seasons. So it is white and cold many months of the year. I am a person who thrives in the sunshine. I love color and flowers and green trees and grass and vegetation around me. That is who I am. And it gets hard this time of year, and I think it's really easy to lose sight and just try to grasp on to the thing that we think that's gonna make us happy. And I think people choose New Year's resolutions often, because it's a distraction. Because it's something else to focus on, rather than focusing on themselves and who they really are, and aligning themselves and aligning themselves with this world. 

I've tried to change my body to be what I thought it needed to be, to be accepted. That was my form of a New Year's resolution. It wasn't over the new year. That happened over the summer time. But I just really wish people would stop and ask themselves why they are choosing what they are choosing to do. I wish people would choose themselves. I wish they would choose to be who they are, not who they want, who they think other people want them to be.

It's scary, because when we don't feel like we're enough, we feel like we can't take on the world and feel like we're not made for the world. But that's the beauty in it, because your strength does not come from you. Your strength comes from God. You need to lean on God.

David did not beat Goliath because he did it on his own strength. God used David to show how he can work through people, how He works miracles, how it is God that is in control. God can use tiny, little David to take down a giant like Goliath. And then Moses was too afraid to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. He was too afraid and rightfully so. Can you imagine? Guess who did it through him? God. Moses had strength through God. Moses was not alone. God used Moses to part the Red Sea so the Israelites could run to freedom. And then once the Egyptians were in the Red Sea…crash!..the waves collided, drowning the enemy.

God can’t use you for your purpose in this world if you refuse to be you. If you refuse to be you, He cannot use you for what you were created to do. There is nothing wrong with you. You do not need to say “New Year, New me”. Say, “New Year. It's time to be me”.

What is something that would align with who you are? Slow down and ask yourself. There will be hard days. When you choose to be your true self it can be hard. The world can be a ruthless place. But God will always be with you. You need to ask Him for help. You need to have the faith that He will stand by your side. Just as He did with Moses. Just as He did with David. 

And good grief, the story of Esther is a prime example of having the courage to be yourself. Esther had to convince the King not to commit genocide of the Jews. She was the Queen and she had to tell the King that his right hand man, Haman, had this evil plan. And in doing so, Esther had to reveal her identity, that she was an Israelite. Her head could’ve been on the chopping block because of it. But man did she show courage. She was herself. She didn't try to fit in to save herself.

So if you thought this was gonna be a lighthearted episode on New Year's resolutions, I apologize. But that’s how my heart is. That’s how I work. And I'm not going to change myself. I'm going to be me.

Anytime I feel myself slipping to try to conform to this world, to fit in, to be liked, I'm gonna ask myself, is this God’s will? Do I feel God pulling me this way? What does God say? Does He say this is me? Once you slow down and ask yourself those little questions, you will have the answer. 

Friend, I hope this gave you a new insight. A different way to think about New Year's resolutions, because some of you may have made New Year's resolutions and were about halfway through January, and you could be thinking already, oh my gosh, how am I gonna keep this up? There is no way. And I'm not saying it doesn't require hard work. 

What I'm saying is, it takes the inner wisdom of knowing if it's something worth fighting for. If it's aligned with who you are. I want you to stop and ask yourself that, because so often we choose the wrong goal or we choose the wrong path for ourselves. We can make decisions that take us in the opposite direction of who we are. And then when it doesn't go so well, we point fingers and say, “See, you're a failure”, and that's not the truth. The truth is, it’s just proof. It's just showing you an opportunity for something else. That what you chose prior is not the answer. And more than likely, it's showing you that's not who you are. 

So who are you? Who were you made to be? Stop hiding behind New Year's resolutions. Stop using them as distractions and as ways to place absurd expectations on yourself. Be kind to yourself. And choose you.

It’s a new year, it's time to be you. Say that to yourself, over and over again. Alright. I will talk to you next week.