It’s Time For A Really Small New Year’s Resolution

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.”  Zechariah 4:10 NLT

This is the time of year when many of us resolve to do better in the year to come. Then, four weeks into the new year, researchers say, nearly half of us will quietly give up on our resolutions. How will you find a resolution you can live with this year?

First, I have to say: giving up on a New Year’s resolution isn’t always a bad thing. I’m 68 and I’m confident I would give up on any resolution to run a marathon. I’m equally confident my knees would thank me for it!. Why resolve to do something that my body would regret? I could resolve to make another quilt, but I already know I don’t enjoy sitting at the sewing machine. Why resolve to spend hours in an unhappy pursuit? 

Other appealing resolutions can be unwise because they’re ill-defined (“This year I will get fit”), demand more than we’re likely to give (“This year, I will read the Bible cover to cover”), or not fully under our control (“This year I will get engaged” or “This year I will get a good job with more pay”).

It’s very easy to quit an ill-considered resolution, which is why it’s wise to avoid making them. Every broken resolution is a broken promise to yourself. Once you get in the habit of breaking promises to yourself, it becomes very hard to make a meaningful commitment to any personal goal. You lose trust in your own integrity and your own competence. You start to give up. 

What if instead of resolving to accomplish a big thing that might be too much, or an important thing that might not be wise, we resolve to take a small wise step and really finish that one thing?

Obviously, this means choosing well what direction that step is heading toward. What big goal might that step serve? What big love might that step support? Is completing that step within my power? Will that step bring me closer to being the person God made me to be?

Here are some big goals and big loves I’ve considered as I look at small new beginnings in the new year.

Focus more on Jesus. 

People have lots of big strategies for doing this. But we’re aiming to let God rejoice when the work begins. So here are two small beginnings that have brought me great joy.

• Get a set of Bible verse notecards, and set them where you will see them often. Mine are on my kitchen counter, and I change the verse every day or two. That way I “catch” a thought from God to carry with me as I go through the day. It seems to remind me to focus on God’s truth better than all of the Bible memory programs I’ve failed at over the years.
• Try the Game With Minutes, developed by late missionary and literacy pioneer Frank Laubach. In this game, you try to remember Jesus for one second out of every minute. That’s 960 Jesus-directed thoughts if you are awake 16 hours of the day! Laubach never got perfect at the game, but his journals show him growing closer and closer to God as he tried. At one point he said that he found himself thinking more about God and less about work, and still his work was going remarkably well. The literacy method he developed eventually helped more than 60 million people learn to read. Perhaps more important, he discovered that “Now I like God’s presence so much that when for a half hour or so He slips out of mind—as He does many times a day—I feel as though I had deserted Him, and as though I had lost something very precious in my life” (Journals, May 14, 1930).

Commit to do something that you LIKE to do. 

When we do things that bring us joy, we are doing things God designed us to do. That’s not to say that God designed us to have fun all the time … God has, in fact, promised that in this life we “will have many trials and sorrows” (John 16:33 NLT). Still, if we believe that God has, in fact, “wonderfully made” us and gifted us to accomplish His purposes in this world (Ps 139:14; Eph 2:9–10), then we need to rejoice in the person God has made us to be. So resolve to do one thing you WANT to do, not something you think you SHOULD do. The most successful New Year’s resolution of my entire life was: “I like to bake, therefore I will bake … at least a half-dozen biscuits every week.” 

That resolution, being something I liked to do, carried me much further than I’d ever have expected. I quickly gave up on biscuits, because mine were truly terrible. But within two years, I was making wedding cakes. Not just any wedding cakes. A marzipan-encased fruitcake for an Irish bride. An orange cake layered with almond custard for an Italian woman. A spice cake with cider icing for the managers of an orchard. I resolved to grow in a gift that gave me joy, and grow I did. A gift from God became a gift I would give to more than 20 brides over the next decades.

Finish something. Anything. Every day.

Even while God rejoices in small beginnings, he also rejoices to see us complete things. We read in Ecclesiastes: “Finishing is better than starting. Patience is better than pride” (Eccl 7:8 NLT).

So every morning, promise yourself that you will complete three specific things. Write them down. Choose things you can actually accomplish on your own (because other people’s involvement isn’t guaranteed) using resources you already have (because if it’s not already available, you won’t be able to finish). If something you want to do requires things you don’t have on hand, make one of today’s tasks be to acquire the things (or one of the things) you need. Some of my “Three Promises” have included:

• Text my girlfriend DJ about getting together.
• Read for 30 minutes.
• Pick a new recipe to cook this week.
• Get the ingredients to cook my new recipe.
• Cook my new recipe.
• Spend 30 minutes filing paperwork.
• Email Tyler the manuscript he wants to read.
• Wash the bathroom floor.

None of these is a big deal, but it is a big deal to complete the things you’ve committed to do. “God takes no pleasure in fools. Keep all the promises you make … It is better to say nothing than to make a promise and not keep it” (Eccl 5:4–5 NLT). Some days I crammed two of my three tasks into the last minutes before bed, but I got them done. I checked them off and took pride in keeping my promises to myself. 

You might have noticed that some of my promises involve working at a task for just half an hour. You would be amazed at what you can get done in 30 minutes! This practice is called the Pomodoro Technique, and was developed by an Italian grad student struggling to get through all his studies. He’d set a timer for 25 minutes, work until the timer went off, set the timer for a five-minute break, then set the timer for another 25 minutes of work. You can use the timer on your phone or any kind of timer: he called it the Pomodoro Technique because pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato, and that’s what his kitchen timer was shaped like. 

God has “wonderfully made” you, so don’t waste this year trying to make yourself into someone different. Make a small beginning that allows you to enjoy who God has made you to be. Remember that God does not despise any “small beginning” you make this New Year. Take small steps with confidence, relying on God to set the path and trusting that He will see you to a good end.