Reflecting on the past will help us to foresee the future. As the New Year is coming, have you made a resolution for yourself based on your yearly review?

For most of us, when we see that there is still room for improvement in our bodies and minds, we always want to do something. Many of us will make a New Year’s resolution. Starting from the New Year, we will read Bible and pray every day, exercise regularly, follow the diet plan, stop smoking, spend more time with family, save money, spread the Gospel to family and friends, etc., etc. Disappointingly, a month later, these plans have turned to nothing but dust.

At this point, many people would sigh: Alas, why should I set up New Year's resolutions! Come on, I've made so many New Year's resolutions, but I haven't kept any of them!

Don't be discouraged! Many of us have experienced the falling through of New Year's resolutions. In fact, it’s usually hard for people to keep their New Year's resolutions. A study by the University of Scranton found that only 8% of people manage to keep their New Year's resolutions. HMM... friends, are you among these 8%? To be honest, I've fallen out of the 8 percent many times.

Well, let's think about it today: Why are New Year's resolutions are so hard to keep? Is there a way to tackle this problem?

Psychologists have found that one reason that the New Year resolutions are so hard to keep is that people tend to adopt ambitious resolutions based on the assumption that they will be totally different in the New Year; however, in order to make a change, people need to work hard, and big, difficult goals are hard to achieve without breaking them down into smaller, manageable goals. Many people's New Year's goals are big and vague, and it can even be said that they are too ideal.  But it is difficult to implement these goals in everyday life and work. When people are facing such an unreachable mountain, while on their way to reaching the peak, they quickly lose their confidence, and New Year's resolutions may fail before they even begin.

Friends, what's your New Year's resolution? Have these failed because they are too general and too big? If so, let's try to break down these big goals and make them easier to realize. For example, instead of deciding to "exercising regularly," your goal should be set up as "briskly walk or jog at least 30 minutes, three times a week." If your previous goal was to "spread the Gospel to friends and family," this year you might want to "post one Gospel-related article or message on Moments once a week."

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The first step is the hardest. Once you set your goals, you need to push yourself to make sure you get started. Also, you shouldn’t set yourself such a big goal. It's better to find a goal that will be a "jump away" from what you already have. For example, if you are already able to read your Bible twice a week, aim for three times a week this time. It's easier to succeed, and small steps can spur us on to more difficult goals.

Another reason why New Year's resolutions are so hard to keep is that when we make most of our resolutions, we tend to underestimate how much effort is required, or how difficult things could be. For example, a man who is full after eating, sees a slim friend on the road, and immediately decides to start a diet. A Christian, in the midst of a revival meeting, becomes so excited that he decides to read his Bible and pray for two hours every day. Then, if you decide to lose weight after you eat, you need to stick to it when you are hungry. But won’t it be really difficult to apply the spiritual plan you set up while you are excited when you have to face your day-to-day trivial stuff?

In a psychology study conducted by an American university, graduates were asked to estimate the time they would take to submit their graduation paper. Only 30% of them could finish their paper on time, and most students took twice as long to get their paper done. Moreover, if a project requires the cooperation of different people, the chances of it being delayed are greatly increased. A famous example is the construction of the Sydney Opera House.

In 1959, construction of the Sydney Opera House officially started in Australia. According to the original plan, the budget of the opera house was 7 million Australian dollars, and should be completed in four years. What ultimately happened? The Opera House took 14 years to be built, and opened in October 1973. The total cost was 102 million Australian dollars, 1400% higher than the original budget plan!

This example reminds us not to overestimate our abilities for carrying out our objectives, and to not underestimate the difficulty of the tasks when making plans. It's best to give your plan some flexibility so that you don’t have to be too stressed, which could lead to failure or giving up. Scholars who study personal and business management suggest that once you have a plan in place, multiply the estimated amount of money, effort, and time you'll need by 120%, and for collaborative projects by 150% or even 200% to get a more realistic time estimate for carrying out your goals.

There's another reason why New Year's resolutions are hard to keep -- the act of making them sometimes gets in the way. What does this mean? Have you noticed that some of us are "plan lovers"? We will make a very detailed plan and stick it on the wall first. We feel very fulfilled at that time. And then, that's it.

How did that happen? Why would you even bother to make a plan if you don't want to apply it?

As we discussed earlier, when people see that there is a lot of room for improvement in all aspects of their bodies and souls, they want to make some achievement. This need for improvement gives us a psychological pressure (or motivation) to take some action. But the act of making a plan can make us feel that we have already done something and made some progress. In other words, the process of "planning" has given us a certain level of satisfaction, so we are not motivated to take further actions! If you think about it, is there any trace of this mentality in our stalled projects?

The only way to overcome this mindset is to see that it is urgent to make a change.

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Have you ever noticed that we usually do better with projects that are more urgent? For example, a person who is in a terrible financial situation, and even has problems with food, clothing, housing, and transportation, will have a pressing need to "improve his or her financial situation". And a man who was warned by his doctor that he might have a heart attack or a brain haemorrhage if he didn't lose weight will follow his diet plan seriously. However, important but seemingly non-urgent tasks like prayer, sports, spending time with family, and further education can easily be pushed aside by the daily trivia of work and life.

What to do? The way to tackle this problem is to include consequences for neglecting these things in your New Year's resolutions.

For example, those of us who always fail to complete our Bible study and prayer program might wish to remind ourselves that the results of life are delivered by the heart! But in this busy life, how can we keep our heart pure and holy? It only depends on our relationship with God! As grapes won’t survive if they are taken away from the vine, our spiritual life dies if we cut off our connection with God. Reading the Bible and praying is an important way for us to connect with God. So, are we going stick to our plans even though we need to pay a price, or are we going to let our lives wither away? Comparing these two options, we will be able to persist.

Another reason why New Year's resolutions fail is that for most of us, it's more likely that we are so overwhelmed by our daily to-do list that we don’t even have time to make a plan!

Much research shows that once we consciously prioritize a task, we won’t see anything else, no matter how attractive it might be . So, to make sure our New Year's resolutions don't fall through, we should take some time each day to review them, and be more conscious about putting them into practice each day. But how can we do that?

First of all, we shouldn’t set too many goals, otherwise our brain will not be able to even remember them, or we will be too busy to process them. It's okay to set up one important goal in each area of your life and work. Then, we need to break these annual goals down into monthly goals. And at the beginning of each month, we need to take some time to break our monthly goals down into weekly goals. Each Sunday, take some time to break your weekly goals down into your daily tasks for the coming week. Then, everyday, when we get up in the morning, we will be able to go through our daily goal list in our head before the day starts. It only takes a few minutes, and will help us refocus on our daily goals.

In the past, what's the main reason that you failed to keep your New Year's resolutions? We hope today's sharing can bring you some inspiration.

As another New Year is coming, do you have any new plans? More importantly, what will you do to achieve your goals? If you've kept your New Year's resolutions so far this year, be sure to tell us how you made it. Hopefully, we can learn from each other, and have a better year next year!

Well, that's all for today. Finally, will ask Mr. Cheng Ming-hsien, the mentor of Eler Workplace Ministry, to pray for us -