Hope on the New Year Quest

I have always struggled with consistency. Yet, ironically, every year I do consistently fail at keeping my New Year’s resolutions. Despite my predictable failures, at this time each year I make new goals. Perhaps my failure to is the result of the highly-addicted state I find myself in every January, after weeks of holiday-induced sugar consumption and late nights; not exactly conducive to resolute self-denial. I have found that if I start a new goal in March, it has a much higher chance of success. Nonetheless, if only for the example of determination I show my children, I plan on attempting new goals in the New Year. I hope that by applying some insights gained this year, I may succeed where I have previously failed.

Dr. Peterson gives some enlightening, and somewhat blunt, advice for those of us that cannot seem to achieve our goals, or even be motivated to make them.

Excellent practical advice I highly recommend Length 10:55

We need to “negotiate with ourselves” by deciding who we want to become and setting achievable goals. We have to be realistic and  adaptable. It takes a certain humility to work within our limitations, but only in working within them, can we then expand them.  

“Aim small. You don’t want to shoulder too much to begin with, given your limited talents, tendency to deceive, burden of resentment, and ability to shirk responsibility. Thus, you set the following goal: by the end of the day, I want things in my life to be a tiny bit better than they were this morning.”

Dr. Jordan Peterson

Adapting Failures

One year I decided I was going to wake up at 5 every morning and exercise. Some of my friends do this and I have always admired their tenacity. I really tried, I did it for many weeks. I was miserable and grumpy. From childhood, I have always been a sleeper. As a mom, I wake up a lot earlier than I want, but 5 a.m. pushed me way beyond my capacity. I tried. I failed. This goal required too much of a transformation for me. Now some would say, This is why you should never compare yourself to other people! This will only discourage you and make you feel bad about yourself. To me this viewpoint assumes the path of envy, but we can take a higher road. We can choose to admire the goodness in others and attempt to emulate those qualities that we would like to adopt. However, we need to have the maturity to adapt their successes to our own capacities as well as the realism to see that success is often accompanied by set-backs, for them and for us. When I failed to maintain my 5 a.m. workouts, I made a new goal. Now I work out during my youngest child’s nap. That works for me.

“No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up.”

C.S. Lewis

Once I develop my working-out-everyday muscle perhaps I can make inroads on my need for sleep. Perhaps not. Maybe I must come to terms with my weakness and accept frailty in certain things. If we attempt too much at once we overwork our growing willpower muscle. The important thing is that we start the trek, however small or halting our steps may be.

“It’s the job that’s never started that takes the longest to finish.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

We don’t need to beat ourselves with a stick of our own creation.  When we become our own tyrant, we rebel against our own repression. We need to have patience and realistic expectations for ourselves if we are going to achieve. We need to examine our failures and look for clues. Was this goal unrealistic? Was I unmotivated? Do I need to get rid of some bad habits blocking my path? Making and keeping goals is the path to progression. 

Hope Found on the Quest

Pilgrim’s Progress, English School

What is the point?  Why attempt new goals when the chances are we will fail?  Why would this time be any different?  I admit to having these thoughts after my numerous failures, usually around February 1st.  But the moment we give in to whatever “sorry state” in which we find ourselves, that is the moment hope departs. Without hope there can be no happiness.

“Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We all want to achieve more from life. This is as it should be, as a previous post said, we should “be easy to please, yet hard to satisfy.” Striving to improve gives us hope that things can get better; and acknowledgment of our current blessings gives us hope that our fortunes will continue.   

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. Finish every day and be done with it. … You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. To-morrow is a new day; … begin it well and serenely … It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the rotten yesterdays.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our own imperfections make our path, and that of others, more difficult than it needs to be. We can change. We have the gift of free will; we can choose to overcome habits and practiced reactions. However, change can be difficult. We must be mindful and intentional if we are going to reach our goals. We must have our eyes on the goal, undeterred by the failures of the past, the distractions of today, or worry for the future.

In the book Pilgrim’s Progress, Pilgrim seeks a better life, away from the darkness and hopelessness of his hometown, The City of Destruction. He is warned that his quest will be difficult. Pilgrim must keep his eyes on the Celestial City and follow the path upward. However, when his path becomes too difficult, or he gets distracted from his goal, he leaves the path. The result is always disastrous. Fortunately, as he remains determined and hopeful, he repeatedly returns to the road. Pilgrim is beaten-up from his unnecessary misadventures, but he has learned to appreciate all the more the safety of that arduous path to his goal.

“It is always hard to see the purpose in wilderness wanderings until after they are over.”

John Bunyan (Pilgrim’s Progress)

As parents, if our children see our quest for progression and our ability to remain constant in effort, despite setbacks and failures, they too will set their course for progression.

“This hill, though high, I covet to ascend;

The difficulty will not me offend.

For I perceive the way to life lies here.

Come, pluck up, heart; let’s neither faint nor fear.

Better, though difficult, the right way to go,

Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.”

John Bunyan (Pilgrim’s Progress)

Good luck this New Year in your valiant efforts up the hill.

-Ally