New Year’s is a bad time to do a good thing.

Statistically speaking, that is.  88% of resolutions fail.

Your good intentions have a much better chance of sticking through the new year if you resolve to start today versus a few days from now.

A resolution isn’t so much about stopping a bad thing or starting a good thing. A resolution is a reasoned act, a state of mind, an informed decision which ties itself to no time or place or predicates itself upon no white-knuckled act.

Simply, if you reason yourself into a good enough conclusion, the dissonance you experience when your decision is first tested should produce such discomfort that siding with any decision other than the one best reasoned will make you crazy in the head.

Resolutions begin there and succeed there.

So maybe the best use of the next few days would be to do your research about what you’d like to achieve, begin, stop or otherwise resolve to do.  Write down good arguments for your goal and even the lame arguments against it.  The juxtaposition of the “for and against” list will help you see the empty reasons you’ve been believing that have kept you from making this resolution sooner.

Then, when you’ve completed that list, make a separate list that tangibly describes what you imagine your life to be like having achieved your goal (i.e. $200/month  savings from not buying cigarettes, fitting into your favorite jeans again, a richer spiritual life from morning scripture reading.)

Statitistically speaking, today is the best day to make a meaningful resolve for a better life.

For that matter, isn’t any day?

LMSM,

Don