background on New Year's Resolutions

Take the prevalence of New Year’s resolutions. The Wharton professor Katherine Milkman said she found it striking that “at the start of a new year, we feel like we have a clean slate. It’s the ‘fresh ...

Hope remains possible even amid our failures—whether we disappoint God, let down our families, or fall short of our own expectations—because divine compassion operates like an inexhaustible well. Each...

New Year’s Day has long held a special power over our behavior. We turn the page on the calendar, glimpse all those beautiful empty squares, and open a new account book on our lives. But we typically ...

The great pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote up a series of resolutions regaring his personal life and behavior. These resolutions relate to the tongue: 31. Resolved, Never to say anything...

In a sermon on Revelation 21:5-7, which includes the auspicious phrase, “Behold I make all things new”, Eugene Peterson connects and contrasts the experience the energy or mood of the New Year with ou...

Martin Luther, whose actions sparked the Protestant Reformation, recommended a very manageable start to the day. He wrote: In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say: I...

We have been having  epiphanies like suns, all this year long. And now, at its close  when the planets  are shining through frost, light runs like music in the bones,  and the heart ke...

I preached my first sermon at National Community Church on January 14, 1996. The only thing I remember about that message is my opening illustration. I can’t remember the original source, but I think ...

King George V of Britain, who was king during the tumultuous years of World War I, shared a New Year’s card with his friends that featured a drawing of an open gate. Below the image, he included thi...

The monks at a remote monastery deep in the woods followed a rigid vow of silence. Their vow could only be broken once a year—on Christmas—by one monk. That monk could speak only one sentence. One Chr...

In one of his letters, the philosopher and psychologist William James shares a conviction regarding his focus not on big, grand things, but with the small “almost invisible” decisions: I am done wit...

Have you ever heard of "Stein’s Law"? Named after University of Virginia economics professor Herbert Stein, it states: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." Do you...

In this excerpt, musician and author Ginny Owens shares a childhood exercise that only makes specific what all of us as human beings struggle with, the desire for wholeness: I wish you could know my ...

So in the last three years, in order to reorient myself and head back onto the narrow way, I’ve given up social media and/or the internet for Lent. At first it’s agonizing. I’m like a caffeine or nico...

Years ago I heard a motivational speaker encourage his audience to “eat that frog.” … it makes sense in its own way: Stop procrastinating and just do the thing you fear. Once you do that, everything e...

What do you think would make you happier? Take a moment to consider. Might it be . . . A relationship? More flexibility at work? A new job that better provides for you and your family? An extra bedroo...

Some years back, on the Today Show, Maya Angelou was asked, with all that she had accomplished, could there be any more objectives, unfulfilled wishes, for her to pursue? Angelou said, “Oh, my, yes. I...

Our family started watching our Christmas movies early this year. We love Christmas Vacation , Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Home Alone (one and two), Rudolph, and Frosty the Snowman ...

Studying your own failures as well can make them seem less earth-shattering. One researcher suggested in a 2010 article in Nature that people maintain a “CV of failures,” a written list of the things ...

I think most recommendations are bad because they’re one-size-fits-all. “Take more risks.” “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” “Work harder.” The problem is that some people need to take more risks, while...

At start of spring I open a trench in the ground. I put into it the winter’s accumulation of paper, pages I do not want to read. Again, useless words, fragments, errors. And I put into it the contents...

A man sentenced to death obtained a reprieve by assuring the king he would teach his majesty’s horse to fly within the year–on the condition that if he didn’t succeed, he would be put to death at the ...

I came to this resolved principle, that I would preach wholly and altogether sound and wholesome words, without affectation of wit and vanity of eloquence. . . . I . . . have continued in that purpose...

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burn...

I’m not sure that I could have articulated the ground rules for the search for resilience the way I understand them today, but I must have intuited them nevertheless. Some of the basic ideas were thes...

We swim in an ocean of feedback. Each year in the United States alone, every schoolchild will be handed back as many as 300 assignments, papers, and tests. Millions of kids will be assessed as they tr...

A businessman well known for his ruthlessness once announced to writer Mark Twain, “Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mount Sinai and read the 10 Commandments alo...

Worthy goals are generally motivated by something deeper than success. In her conversations with Nobel laureates, [researcher Xiaodong D.] Lin said she has found that “they all have insatiable passion...

It’s human nature to resist change—particularly when it comes in the form of adversity or challenges. But change is inevitable, and developing the trait of resilience helps us not only survive change,...

What do you want for Christmas this year? If you were to ask a typical little boy, he’d probably give you two words: video games. There’s a little boy I know named Brian. For weeks he bugged his paren...