Promises vs Resolutions - 5 Things to Do in the New Year

It’s another year in the books! Maybe it’s been a great year, or maybe it’s one you want to turn the page on and move forward. Regardless, we learn from the past, but we don’t live on the past. Life hands us lemons many days of the year, but that doesn’t mean we have to suck on them. Life is about assessing, reflecting, and resolving. And with a New Year, we often make New Year’s Resolutions to live out big plans and big goals. Only to find ourselves failing our own New Year’s Resolutions by January 31st! I know, because I’ve been there. I’m going to lose weight, I’m going to eat healthier… yadda yadda yadda! Big fail again. We have all done that (or at least most of us have)!

But for 2020, instead of a resolution, try making a promise to yourself. A promise to ourselves is really no different than a resolution, as both are a declaration of a decision to do a particular thing, or to behave a certain way. The difference is, a promise affects our brain in a much bigger way than a resolution.

A promise binds your mindset and emotional resolve to a greater level, which pushes us internally in a much greater way than any resolution ever will. Promises vs. Resolutions, promises win every time! How many promises have you kept, vs. how many resolutions have you kept!? Let’s make promises instead!

5 Promises to Make (and Keep) in 2020

1. Heal from the past.

We all have past trauma, losses, or skeletons we want to move on from. They can be virtually impossible to move past, and we often never forget. But we can forgive ourselves, allowing our souls to heal so we can move forward. We all have stories we wouldn’t want read out loud, but no progress in life success will occur if we read them over and over in our mind. Allow your mind to heal, forgive, and move forward.

2. Restore or Grow Relationships.

The health of all your relationships will dictate many of your outcomes, successes, and failures. If you can resolve ones that need resolved, and build new healthy ones, you will have better relationships in life, business, and at home. Most often times it is our own anger that controls us and destroys relationships. Human connection and human relationships are extremely important for our health, and are the only thing that have the potential to stir the human soul and take us to places we have never been. Whether you are building or restoring a relationship, be authentic. Authenticity produces relationships. Relationships build trust. And trust builds loyalty.

3. Reject the Bad.

There are things in our life we know are bad. There may be things in our life we don’t know are bad for us yet. Today, there is bad at our fingertips and staring back at us most every day. We may have a bad situation about to occur, or your kids may have a bad friend or situation about to arise. Maybe we are angry and about to say something bad. Bad things yield toxic results. Bad is stronger than good, so we have to exercise our “bad” excising muscle so we can be strong enough to reject and separate from the bad.

4. Leave Behind People that Don’t Help you Grow.

There are people that are on your team, and people that are not on your team. Your team is based on what you want for yourself in your life. Your life is simply a “dash” on your tombstone, but how do you want your “dash story” to be told. Establish your “why” or your purpose, analyze your current team, and maybe you need to make some trades or need to sign a free agent or two. Maybe one of your all-stars is full of drama, selfish, manipulative, and life sucking. Maybe one of your all-stars steals all your energy, and never helps refuel your tank. Or maybe they are flame-throwers that blow up small camping fires into full fledged forest fires. Know your personal desired culture, understand your core values, and find people that fit your purpose and where you want to go and ask them to help push you there. You are an average of the 7 people you spend the most time with. Are those 7 people multiplying or dividing your “why”? Are the adding to your God-given value and the achievement of the best version of you possible or are they subtracting from that equation!?

5. Grow Your Relationship with God.

I may have accepted God into my life in 1983 at the First Baptist Church in Leoti, KS, but I didn’t fully submit myself to God until life came knocking at my door and my family’s door several, several times. Committing your life to God is easy, but fully submitting your life to God often only occurs when you find yourself on your knees in the depths of the lowest valleys, begging for him to show the way, or begging for mercy, or begging for him to give you hope when you have none. Submission means you accept and yield to a greater force or to the will of another person. The younger version of me thought I could force through anything, but it requires those deep valleys with no breath left to realize the greater force of God and his will, to have the humility and resolve to leave all things at his feet. For 2020, promise to grow your relationship with our God, who controls everything!

Make your promises. Your promises will be kept, and they will always keep you! Cheers to 2020, and your best year yet! It’s up to you!