New Year’s Evaluation
Photo courtesy of Freepik
It's that time of year again, the time when we make New Year's resolutions that we probably won't keep three weeks into the New Year. Perhaps by the time you read this you will already have "failed" at your goal.
Here's an idea, instead of a New Year's resolution, how about a New Year's evaluation? Before we can make real change in our lives, we need to evaluate ourselves to gain insight into who we are and the kind of change we need. This month, CCCRD will be publishing several blogs to help evaluate your “health” in the following areas:
Spiritual
Emotional
Physical
Nutritional
Financial
To help jumpstart the process, take one week and evaluate everything you do and ask yourself one question about each of your activities: Does what I'm doing right now make me feel alive or dead inside?
Evaluate for Joy
I believe that when we feel joy it is often the joy of the Holy Spirit. Certainly we all must spend time each day, week, or season doing things that make us feel dead inside (paying bills, doing taxes, taking out the trash, etc.). However, there ought to be many things that we do that make us feel joyful and alive, too. Over the years, you may have removed things from your life that gave you pleasure and those things need to be evaluated.
The Big Picture
For example, we often think that if we get financially healthy, we will be less stressed and more joyful. But maybe your finances are in trouble because you're not joyful. If you’ve taken things out of the budget that used to be sources of joy, like spending time out with friends or investing in that hobby or being generous to those in need, it may be thrifty but it’s also cutting you off from things that help you be a better and more joyful person. If that's the case, continuing to change how you spend your money without understanding the place of money in your life may leave you less joyful, which will likely result in you sabotaging your goal and feeling like a failure.
First Steps
Take the first step this month of evaluating and gaining greater insight. After you're done, sit down with a friend, your pastor, or a counselor to move from insight to action in your life. You may find that you will end up focusing on other areas of life than you originally expected.
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”
~ Theodore Roosevelt
