Happy new year guys!

Today is the 15 of January, and according to research, this is the day by which most people have already broken their new year’s resolutions. Can you believe that??? Most people’s new year’s resolutions last 15 days! There’s other research that says the 24th of January, which is slightly better, but still awful.

So…if you’ve already broken your resolutions, I want to tell you that it doesn’t make you a failure, it doesn’t make you a bad person. Maybe you just didn’t plan enough, or you didn’t anticipate a certain setback you’ve experienced, or you haven’t made it compelling enough. Here are 4 tips for getting back on track (You can either watch the below video or carry on reading below):

https://youtu.be/H0iVuhUTddc

1. Regroup

It’s one thing to fall off track, it’s another thing to abandon your resolution and your goal altogether. Giving up on a resolution just because you’ve fallen off track is like smashing your phone just because you’ve dropped it. If you drop your phone you don’t stamp on it and smash it to pieces. You pick it up, because it’s useful. Because it’s something of value.

Your goals and your vision are valuable. If you’ve dropped the ball, pick it up. Regroup. Think about what you’ve done wrong and how you can do better. If it’s a diet goal, are you being too drastic? Are you focused on what you’re not allowed to do rather than the benefits? Let’s say you want to lose ten pounds. Are you focused on all the don’ts?

Don’t eat chocolate.

Don’t have ice cream.

No donuts.

Or are you focused on the goal and getting yourself excited about it? Getting excited about the body you want and the positive improvement in your health that it’ll give you?

2. Remind yourself of your reasons

Why do you want to lose that weight? Why do you want to wake up at 5am? Why did you decide to stop drinking? Why do you want to work harder? Why do you want to read through the whole bible?

How will it change your life, your family’s life, your future?

Hold your reasons in your mind and it will fire you up to act.

3. Refine your vision

You refine your vision by seeing your destination. See where you want to be on December 31st of this year. Engage your imagination. Stop looking at the things that stand in the way, the things that have caused you to already get off track, and look at the endpoint. You go in the direction of what you focus on. What are your looking at? The here and now, or that destination that you want?

A wise person once said, ‘Only those who can see the invisible will achieve the impossible’. And if you’re saying, ‘Hold up, Dayo. I’m not trying to achieve the impossible here. I just want to lose some weight, I just want to stick to my bible reading plan, I just want to be nicer to my kids.’ I hear you. But if you’re not already doing it, it means it’s been impossible for you so far. Maybe you’ve managed to do it in the past, but right now, it’s become impossible. Refine your vision and start looking at the invisible. Talk to yourself and claim the behaviours you want in your life. Tell yourself, ‘I like to drink water and eat healthy food; I work out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; I read my bible every morning; I wake up at five am every day and pursue my priorities; I am a loving and patient parent.’

It may not be true just yet, but guess what? Give it some time and you’ll start moving in that direction. Your behaviour will adjust to match your new beliefs and you’ll begin to move in the direction of that vision that you’ve decided to focus on.

Some people will say that’s being fake, but it isn’t being fake. It’s faith. It’s being like God who calls the things that are not as though they are. That’s Romans 4:17 and it means that God sees the mighty man of valor in Gideon while he’s threshing wheat in secret, hiding from the Midianites. He sees the great king in David while he’s a mere shepherd boy. He sees the mother of a mighty nation in Sarah while she’s still barren. All of these people through whom God worked in Bible times had to have faith and get in alignment with the vision.

The Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4 had just lost her son. He’d died. But she said ‘it is well,’ not ‘he’s dead’, because that was the vision she had about the situation. And things did turn out well in the end.

Refine your vision. Look at the invisible. Things will begin to change.

4. Regular review

Review your resolutions regularly if you want to stay on track. It’s up to you how often you want to review them. For my writing goals, I record how many words I’ve written in a spreadsheet every single day and that’s a kind of review for me that helps me ensure that I’m being productive.

For all my other goals (non-writing ones) I review myself weekly on Sundays. After church my kids go to their grandparents house, me and my husband have a nice meal and hang out, then at some point before I go to the evening service I make some time to review the week and see where I fell short, where I did well, and plan my action points/to-do’s for the coming week.

If you’ve already dropped the ball with your new year resolutions, pick it back up. Dribble it. And determine to slam dunk it by December 31st 🙂 And if you’re still on track well done, keep going and may God prosper all our endeavours.

I’ll have a book update for you soon so watch this space.

God bless.