My New Year’s Resolutions as a Young Christian Woman

Let’s Talk Mindset!

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that historically, I have not been the best at keeping my New Year’s Resolutions. To be honest, I don’t remember any from the past 18 years of my life. If you feel the same way, I have some good news! We are going to try a different approach. This year we will surrender the high expectations for ourselves, and let God be in control! This way, two things happen:

1. We can’t let ourselves down (because we will)
2. We can rely on God to show up (because he will)

Now, let’s start with our mindset for the new year. It will look a little different for everyone, but we’ll start by discussing what has motivated me to change my perspective on resolutions as a young Christian woman.

First, in Colossians 3, Paul names the practices that we should avoid, and in verse 10 he says, “and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” Isn’t it great news that he WANTS us to be like him? Usually, when we think we are the best at something, we want to be the only one. We can see God’s immense humility in his desire for our hearts to look like his.

Using this verse to pray over your life is a great start to a new year, month, or even day! A guest pastor preached about Colossians 3 at our church on New Year’s Eve, and I’m pretty sure that was God’s way of introducing a changed trajectory in my life.

Second, as an avid Pinterest user, my whole feed overflows with lifestyle pins. There are tons of aesthetic gym pictures, healthy meals, and beauty inspiration. Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely some harm in idolizing other people’s lives, however, I simply began to wonder what was stopping me from achieving my goals of being a healthier, Godlier, version of myself. Instead of comparing or doubting myself, I challenged myself.

To do these things effectively, I knew I needed to have the right reasoning behind my “why.” Ultimately, most things we do are temporary with temporary effects. C.T. Studd said it like this, “Only one life ’twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” I know right, total mic drop. An eternal perspective does take some prayer and that is where Colossians 3 comes in!

Finally, I thought of the results in the long run; not only for myself, but for others. Let’s be honest, there are times when I consider things I look for in a future husband, but I have to take a step back. What does my future husband look for in a future wife? I’m sure it’s not someone who barely reads her bible or refuses to work out! What about my future kids? I want to raise them well, but it takes a good mom to do that.

In order to examine the progress that needs to happen, we must examine our hearts NOW. Am I being a good sister, daughter, and friend and what can I change this year? Reflection and quiet time with the Lord allow us to do this.

Let’s Talk Resolutions!

Once we have read Colossians 3, considered our “why,” and examined our hearts, it’s time to write some resolutions! I did this over about a week and just made sure I thought about all of the areas of my life. These are not to tell you how to live your life or to say I am doing them perfectly, they are to inspire you and let you know you’re not doing this alone!

1. Share The Gospel

Jesus’ command to us before ascending to heaven was to “go and make disciples of all nations,” yet I know for a fact I am not doing that. David Platt’s book ‘Radical‘ explains the importance of spreading the gospel. Simply put, we are not obeying unless we are making disciples. However, I also believe I should be so joyful that I’m bursting at the seams to tell others about what Jesus has done. Yet, I let fear, time, and whatever other excuse stop me. Not this year! Who’s in?

2. Be Okay With Being Uncomfortable

I am quite the routine type of girl. I like to do the same thing everyday so that nothing can go wrong. However, for the past six months I have been in a position that requires the exact opposite- random hours and inconsistent routines. Francis Chan gives some abundant wisdom on this topic in his book ‘Forgotten God’: He states, “It is true that God may have called you to be exactly where you are. But it’s absolutely vital to grasp that He didn’t call you there so you could settle in and live out your life in comfort and superficial peace.” Wow, the conviction!

3. Memorize More Scripture

Specifically, 50 verses, but this could change. I never prioritized bible memory until I began to have conversations where I would say something like this, “In John 5 it says… wait no John 15. Actually maybe it’s 1 John 5… anyways there’s this verse-” and it was embarrassing, to say the least! Perhaps you’ve been in the same situation. So, I decided it was about time I took bible memory off the back burner. Psalm 1:2 tells us “Blessed is the man” who delights in and meditates on his law “day and night.” There are so many times in the midst of trial, in a conversation with a non-believer, and others that require memorized scripture. ‘The Christian Habits Podcast’ with Barb Raveling has an excellent episode with Glenna Marshall all about this topic.

4. Take Better Care Of My Body

It’s about time for this one. I have been eating junk, too lazy to work out, and attached to my phone. At dinner with my best friend one night shortly after Christmas, she told me about a sugar-free diet that helped her curb sugar cravings. At the time, sugar was my Roman empire! It’s all I could think about, and I wanted that to end. Then, on December 1st, Jeanine Amapola started the January ‘Happy & Healthy’ Challenge. One of the challenges was no sugar. It was meant to be. I asked another one of my friends to do it with me, and I discovered it was possible. So far, I’ve had more energy to work out, I’ve been eating better, and I don’t crave sugar. You CAN do this!

5. Limit Social Media Scrolling

This one is pretty obvious. Our society has normalized hours of scrolling on social media for “cheap dopamine.” Personally, I think social media is fun and can even help inspire me! However, it becomes a trap when I click on Reels or For You. I find that it distracts me from other (more important) priorities, and subconsciously becomes a priority itself. James 4:7 says “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Resisting the devil in this case means actively choosing a different activity or going into prayer instead of falling into the rabbit hole that is TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, you name it.

6. Put Others First

Selfishly, I often think I am pretty good at putting others first. And when I compare myself to how mean high school girls treat people, maybe I am. But the ONLY person I need to compare myself to is Jesus. The gospels tell us endless stories of Jesus’s selflessness and his very being is the prime example of humility. He even asked God to forgive the men who were beating him to death! When we think about loving others, we jump to the conclusion that complimenting someone is enough. Luke 6:28 says “Bless those who curse you.” So that person who did me wrong, or says nasty things behind my back is the same person I should be on my knees praying for at night. This one is going to take a lot of heart work. I like to pray Psalm 51 over my life, give it a try!

7. Become Financially Wise

There is a difference between being financially wise and financially greedy. My goal is not to make tons of money and be consumed by materialism. In fact, ‘Radical’ made me want to sell all my belongings, I was so convicted. My goal is just to understand the basics because they don’t teach us that in school and I know I need to learn how to budget, save, invest, etc. I like the book I’m currently reading, ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ because the author, Robert T. Kiyosaki, discusses saving money instead of getting it & spending it in one fell swoop. However, the tricky thing about being a Christian is learning to be like Job- satisfied if God stripped everything we have away from us right now.

8. Get Better Sleep

They say the older you get, the worse your sleep quality gets. I can’t be the only 18-year-old girl who knows they are supposed to be getting good sleep at night but just can’t! I have researched tips & tricks for better sleep and what I have found is to regulate your circadian rhythm by eating food at consistent times, seeing sunlight shortly after waking up, avoiding blue light, and turning off overhead lights once the sun goes down. Some of these are just not possible in the swing of things we are in today, so what do we do? I guess 2024 is for us to figure that out!

9. Read More

My best book buddy and I got reading journals for Christmas and had almost the same amount of reads in 2023. We bumped it up by about ten books. There are two reasons I made this a resolution and they have to do with how I split up my goal. I want to read 20 fiction books because reading is my hobby, and it is something I enjoy. I want to read 10 non-fiction books because the right ones always incorporate biblical wisdom and inspire me to grow my relationship with God. Some recent bookish favorites are the app Goodreads, the app Libby, and the ‘Bibliophile Reader’s Journal’ by Jane Mount.

10. Surrender Stress & Trust God!

This one sounds the simplest and I almost didn’t add it, but it takes the most sacrifice and removal of self. Over the past year, I’ve learned that doubt comes from a place of pride. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. The need for control over our lives is a sinful desire that we often let rule over the decision to lay our anxieties at his feet and let God be God. This tenth resolution is a constant battle with our flesh and building the habit is sure to last our whole life!

Let’s Talk Planning!

Not only do we need the right mindset and some good resolutions we’ll also need a practical plan. There are three ways I’m going to implement these resolutions into my life so they become habits.

1. Having a verse of the year. This is my fuel to actually work on myself for the glory of God. My 2024 verse is Luke 10:27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength and with all of your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (ex: Why am I sharing the gospel? I can’t do this. Because God’s word is TRUE and loving him with all of my heart means obeying him even when I don’t want to!)
2. Having a word of the year. My 2024 word of the year is Surrender. I am radically surrendering all worldly things so that I can love God before all else. (ex: I am so excited to gossip with my friends! Hold on, my word of the year is surrender, and talking about someone behind their back is neglecting to surrender, or, leave the judgment up to God.) Also, it is part of my tenth resolution!
3. Breaking down Goals into Habits. At first, ten big resolutions can sound quite intimidating and make us feel like if we mess up once, we are destined for failure. First, let’s surrender that thought and second, let’s break down what following our resolutions, or, goals, looks like in reality. (ex: 3. Memorize More Scripture. Woah I can’t memorize FIFTY verses in 52 weeks! But I can memorize one verse this week.)

And just like that, we are ready to start the year! This blog isn’t even being published until the second week of January because we don’t need to start all of these on the first day of the new year. We can begin to slowly implement new habits and slowly get rid of old ones until we start to notice a change. Remember, the renewal has to come from our hearts first, which requires us to surrender our time to prayer, praise, the word, and other forms of intimacy with God.

What’s your word of the year?