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I read somewhere that December 28^th is the day that most people will begin thinking about their new years resolution.  Little time will be put into the thinking process and many people will end up making the same goal they failed to achieve last year.  Are you one of those people?

Do you make new years resolutions?  I make some from time to time, but am not consistent.  I think my only semi-success was the year I gave up pop, and I started drinking it again the following year, but I did go a full year without it.  I rarely make new years resolutions because it’s my opinion that the reason so many people fail to complete them is because they are not passionate about their goal.  It’s the “thing to do” on January 1^st and so we all make promises that deep down we know we may not keep.  Better to make a goal when you have the passion to make it happen!

That’s why this year I made a Thanksgiving resolution.  In November I was passionate about making something happen in my life and so I decided to spend the next 12 months working on it.  No waiting until New Years, I would start right then. 

Troy and I both felt like we attended a fair amount of church activities last year.  We knew we did not attend everything, but we didn’t think we were too bad either.  The Sunday before Thanksgiving a video was played with pictures of our congregation from the past year.  It was a long video with a lot of pictures and our congregation is not that large.  We were only in one picture.  Not only were we missing from the photos but we didn’t even know what people were smiling about in a good portion of the pictures, because we were not at the activity.  We want to be more involved and see our smiling faces on the big screen next year and so we set a goal. 

The number one reason people fail to achieve their new years resolution is because they set vague goals.  It is a pet peeve of mine when people set goals, but fail to make them SMART goals.  Why set a goal that you are not serious about?  If you are serious then make it easier on yourself by making sure your goal is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound.  This way you will have clearly defined what it is you want to do and will know when it's time to celebrate your success! 

Here is our SMART Thanksgiving goal:

Make time for church!  We will step outside of our previous self imposed boundaries and say yes to church sponsored activities (excluding Sunday morning services, those are a given) at least 10 times in the next year.  When we see our sparkling smiles lighting up the big screen at the end of 2011 we will know that we have been successful in reaching our goal. 

I left the time frame a little open by using the generic “end of 2011” because I don’t know when a video will be shown, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that one will be shown at all.  Even if no video is made next year we can still view our success by seeing our smiling faces on the big screen throughout the year.  There are always several camera's flashing away and there are pictures being shown before every service of recent activities the congregation has done and we are going to be in them this year!  We will no longer be that couple that shows up sometimes on Sunday morning.  People are going to know who we are!

It’s been just over a month since we set our goal and we have attended 2 activities so far!  I have no need to stress over setting a new years resolution Friday night because I am already on the path to success!!