It’s that time of year when we tend to fall into one of two types.

The first, the over zealous resolution setter who signs up for the gym, the slimming club, the hypnosis classes, and spends a fortune on trainers and supplements. The second, the ‘why bother?’ defeatist who makes the same resolution each year never managing to get past the first month. According to an article in The Economic Times which gives six reasons why New Year’s Resolutions fail, ranging from a lack of planning to self doubt, only 16% manage to achieve their resolution .

Whilst accountability and preparedness may be key to achieving any kind of goal, New Year’s Resolutions aren’t simply healthy goals. The whole ‘New Year, New You’ vibe sends a message that you are not enough as you are. Often the setting of a resolution is a challenge to myself to be a better person, because this version of me is failing. When we then set ourselves unobtainable goals and break our New Year’s Resolutions within weeks or even days, the sense of failure becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

New Year’s Resolutions aren’t restricted to the worlds of health and fitness either, we come across them in our spiritual lives too. How many Christians challenge themselves to read the whole of the Bible within a year but get stuck somewhere after Noah and the Ark and give up altogether when they discover the amount of rules regarding mildew in the third book of the Bible? Or set unrealistic goals about getting up an hour earlier each day to spend in silent prayer when they are extrovert night owls?

Wanting to be healthier or more devoted in prayer are not bad things, until they begin to make us feel worthless or broken. New Year’s Resolutions don’t work because they force us to focus on the negative, so what can help us to be the best versions of ourselves? What can we do as we enter into 2023 to help us draw closer to the image of God in which we have been created?

Firstly, we need to begin with love. Always, in everything we do as spiritual people, as followers of Jesus, we need to begin with love, and not judgement, even (maybe especially) when we are considering our own lives.

Secondly, let’s remember that New Year’s Resolutions are not Biblical. Repentance, however, is, and there are times such as Rosh Hashanah and Lent when people of faith seek to make amends, receive forgiveness, and turn their backs on any offensive behaviour.

So what do we do if we want to turn our backs on offensive behaviour, if we want to improve our prayer life, or even create a more physically healthy lifestyle, if New Year’s Resolutions can’t help us?

Creating a Rule or Rhythm of Life helps us to focus on what is important to us and how we might attain it. Such rules are the foundations of monastic life, with St Benedict’s perhaps being the most famous. There are communities that we can join as lay people with rules and rhythms to be signed up to, but it is not a pre-requisite to creating a rule or rhythm that fits the lifestyles we already have. Benedict’s Rule begins with the word ‘listen’, and any rule or rhythm that will work for you in the long term must begin with a time of listening to yourself. If you are seeking to lose weight because the world tells you that you should be a dress size smaller, then you are starting from the wrong place, a place of judgement.

Instead, spend some time listening to your own heart, spend time listening to the God who truly loves you. Perhaps instead of guilting yourself into cutting things out of your life, be loved into identifying and increasing the blessings until there is no room left for those things you would usually seek to eradicate with New Year’s Resolutions.

There are of course books and online articles a plenty on how to create a Rule or Rhythm of Life, but these can feel somewhat alien and anonymous. A Spiritual Director can guide you as you listen and create your own rule or rhythm, and can hold you accountable by gently challenging you and being your cheerleader month after month. A workshop event can set you off on your own journey of self-discovery and give you the tools you need to create a bespoke pattern.

So here comes the plug!

This New Year I am hosting two Petite Retreats with guided meditations and workshops focussing on creating bespoke Rules (Rhythms) of Life. Join me Wednesday 11th January from 6.30pm via zoom, or Friday 13th January from 9.30am at The Lopcombe Quiet Garden in Hampshire. As a Spiritual Director I am also available for one to one sessions via zoom or in person. I would love to spend time with you, prayerfully helping you to bring out the best, the blessed, in you.

Click here to book your place on A New Normal Online or here for A New Normal at The Lopcombe Quiet Garden.