Life Is Unexpected: New Year Goals, Reflections, Resolutions

Cold New Year Unexpected Life — Life is Unexpected, It Comes in Seasons (Photo by A. Laflamme)

Think back to your life one year ago. Did you make New Year’s resolutions last year? Did you keep them? The reality is that unless you were extremely intentional and disciplined about a practice, there are very few things that you did every day in 2024.

Life is unexpected, it comes in seasons. Maybe our goals and expectations should match.

Life Changes

Life is full of change and unexpected twists. Even though I know it is coming every week, it seems like even the weekends are surprising to me. You get into the swing of the week by Wednesday, then Friday afternoon hits and life feels different.

Even in the time of phone reminders and digital calendars, it is still difficult to keep regular routines. Even with podcasts that feed you exactly what you need each day (I.e. Bible in a Year, Catechism in a Year, etc.) it is still difficult to hit play every day.

I have a spreadsheet where I have tried to track goals like this (I am on day 240 of Bible in a Year and 270 of the Catechism) but I’ve learned to find it interesting rather than sad that I can’t keep up habits like I used to.

The most consistent I have ever been with any habit was when I was a single missionary living a well planned and relatively free life. I made a video that year where I combined one second of video each day for a year. However, even then I had days where I had to fill in with general photos because I neglected to take a video on some days.

Going Forward with Unexpected

So what does this mean?

Should I not try for resolutions because they never work? Well, I do know people who have successfully accomplished their resolutions. Maybe that’s not me but I know it’s possible.

For me, I almost see the new year as a warm up for Lent to come. I can try out some spiritual and prayer resolutions and then see if I can hit them. Then I can modify my goals when Lent rolls around.

Seasonal Living

It is a cold and icy afternoon here in Kansas as I reflect now. Just as this weather won’t be the same in a few months, neither will I.

To account for these changes, another way to address the issue of resolutions, is to set shorter timeline goals.

Last year I had no clue that I would be moving again so soon. I had no clue what work, family life, or anything would look like today. So instead of making goals for all of 2025, maybe I want to set my sights on this week, this month, or this couple of months instead.

Reflecting on 2024

So last year I had a goal of 50 articles on here.

I didn’t make that happen. Yet, I feel like I had to let go of that goal in order to address what unexpected events life through at us this year.

I can see that I still had an eventful year and did some things I can be happy about even though a year ago I had different ideas for my written output.

2025 Goals

This year, I still hope to write more. I still hope to reflect on the world around me in Formed by a Flame. However, I am going to try to have less structure and see what I can do by just doing it because I want to, as opposed to meeting some arbitrary goal that I have set.

Similar to my relationship with God, I don’t want to pray because I have to pray X amount of time each day, but rather because I want to have a relationship with Him.

Who knows, maybe this strategy will actually result in higher quantities due to desire and acting out of love.