Happy New Year!

I hope you and yours are having a marvelous Monday ringing in 2024!

Are you making any New Year’s Resolutions? As I get older (“wiser,” I mean 😉), I find myself increasingly appreciating the importance of goals, resolutions, challenges, vision boards, and the like. If we’re not regularly, and honestly, taking inventory of our lives and ensuring that our daily habits and routines are serving our greater ideological, philosophical, and spiritual aspirations, then goal-killers like distractions, discouragement, impatience, and ennui will most assuredly creep in and terminate our endeavors.

Whether we conduct these check-ins at the beginning of a new year, at the end of every month, or every other Thursday, I don’t believe it makes much of a difference. What’s key is holding ourselves accountable to what we set out to achieve and thoughtfully adjusting our gameplans rather than abandoning them if and when things get difficult.

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
—Samuel Johnson

Before I think about setting new goals, I like to reflect on and jot down what I’ve accomplished over the past few weeks and months. I’ve heard this referred to as “measuring backward.” This helps me remain aware of what I’m actually doing and prevents automatic, unnoticeable, and largely unproductive behaviors from running away with my time and energy.

Measuring backward allows me to look at the feedback of what’s recently happened in my life and then formulate a plan for moving forward. It also offers me a “pat myself on the back” moment as I record the tasks and goals that I’ve achieved, most of which would otherwise have gone unrecognized.

Taking the time to tip my hat to my prior successes also works as a significant confidence boost. It tells me, “Hey, you’re capable, with God’s help, of reaching your goals. You were made to do hard things, and you can do them!”

There is one caveat to this measuring backward, and that is that your data should come from the recent past. We want short-term feedback, not long-term feedback. The data will be less hazy, and our emotions tied to them more reliable, and therefore helpful.

Here are a few examples of measuring backward from my own life:

Writing: Measure my weekly word count. Did I write 2,000 words last week? I’m going to focus on 2,500 this week.

Publishing: Count the number of manuscripts I had edited last year. Did I have one edited last year? I’m going to focus on publishing it this year and starting edits on another manuscript.

Relationships: How many friends did I reach out to or visit with last week? I’m to focus on texting/calling three friends this week and scheduling one play date for the kids and me.

Weight Gain: Measure my caloric intake. Did I eat 1,800 calories per day last week? I’m going to focus on consuming 2,000 this week.

Measure backward and then improve, bit by bit.

I hope this has been helpful to you as we venture into a new year! I pray your 2024 is filled to the brim with blessings!

Thank you, as always, for your support of my writing!