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Here it is again.

The end of one year, and the beginning of the next.

For some of us, we have been counting down the minutes til this year ended.  Maybe it wasn’t our best.  Maybe we had medical problems, financial problems or relationship problems.

For others, they don’t want to see it end.  They have had the best year in their career, success, marriage or just life in general.

I often think about these two groups of people.  I wonder if people from both groups had made New Year Resolutions or if one group of people did.  I don’t think that New Year Resolutions are bad, I just often wonder if we are setting ourself up for failure.

But really, what is a resolution?

A resolution is a firm decision to do or not to do something.

See I feel that as a new year rolls around, we start thinking about how we or things in our life aren’t good enough.  We start putting expections on ourselves for the New Year with the ways we could be slimmer, buffer, richer, prettier, and more successful.  In reality only 8% of the population who make a New Year Resolution actually achieve it.

That’s not a very good success rate.  I know that when we set our minds to something, we can fulfill it, but why does it have to be just because that’s what everyone else is doing.  Why can we not have that mindset all year long, not just at New Years.  Why can’t we just decide at at any given time to stop smoking,  go to church more, buy less?  Do we really have to be part of the status quo to want to better our life?

And no, I’m not talking about a life filled with more success, more money or more power.  I’m not talking about a life filled with wanting to look better, more fit, more beautiful than last year.

I’m talking about a life filled with more joy, more love and more blessings.  A life filled with less stress, less stuff and less wants.

So instead of a New Year’s Resolution, I have made a commitment to myself for the New Year.

YES, I said commitment, not resolution.  I believe that when we make a commitment to ourself, we feel more obligated to follow through.  We feel a sense of accomplishment in our life.

A commitment is the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc.

A commitment isn’t just something we do because that’s what’s excepted or the norm.

A commitment is being dedicated to make a difference or to be different.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be in the group with the norm.  God didn’t create us to be ordinary; He created us to be extraordinary.  To stand out.  To be leaders, not followers.  To take risks.  To jump when he says jump.  Not sit in the boat and wait for the storm to pass.

My commitment for myself in 2015 is simply this: To be better than I was yesterday.

You might say, “That’s all?”.

Yes, that’s all.

I want to be be a better wife, a better mother, a better homeschool parent, a better friend, a better daughter, a better sister, a better aunt and a better child of Christ than I was yesterday.

I want to give more and receive less.

I want to smile more and cry less.

I want to laugh more and stress less.

In a nutshell, I am making a commitment to live the blessed life that God has created for me to have.  I want to follow him more and leave my wants behinds.  I want to live simplier and not drown in  the ways of the world.

So I ask you right now, Are you setting yourself up for failure?

Or are you willing to make a commitment to you and God to be better than you were yesterday?