Planning for the New Year
by Tom Sneed
From The Reminder, January 2, 2011
It's that time again. Advertising brochures are filled with exercise equipment. Companies are taking inventory and checking the profit and loss sheet. TV is filled with commercials for the diet factories. Resolutions are being made. People are planning and pledging for the new year. Below are five suggestions to help you make the new year the best one ever.
1. Accomplish something. Set your goal to achieve something in the year to come. It is fine to plan some grand achievement, some great new contribution to the world, but don't forget to include the ordinary. Mothers who change innumerable diapers, teenagers who take out the garbage each week and students who finish the semester are achievers. If you add some additional accomplishment beyond the ordinary, you have excelled. Make the world a better place because you are in it. Phillips Brooks, a famous preacher, said, "To find his place and fill it is success for a man."
2. Be as good as you can be. It is no shame not to be outstanding or a genius, but it is a shame to live far below our potential. If you are capable of teaching a class, learning more or being a leader, live up to your potential. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."
3. Be content. Our society has more material possessions and comforts than any society that has ever gone before. Are we any happier? Paul says in Philippians 4:12 that he has learned the secret of being content. Make it your goal to learn and practice the art of contentment in the year to come. In 1 Timothy 6:6 we are told that godliness with contentment is great gain. There is no more profitable possession than the attitude of contentment. A man recently told me that his salary was $50,000 a year. He said, "I think I am pleased with that." I remarked that if he could not be happy with that amount he would never be content with his salary.
4. Grow spiritually as well as mentally, physically and financially. It is a great pleasure to be around those who succeed in their business and professional life. I like to go to the student recreational center and just associate with people who are in good physical condition. It is a tragedy when people make great achievements in these areas and their spiritual life can only be described as mediocre at best. John wrote to his friend. "Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well" (3 John 1:2). Would you be willing to prosper in other areas in the same degree that you prosper spiritually?
5. Set a goal to be better at the end of the year than at the beginning. Write yourself a letter containing your goals and put it in your sock drawer. Get it out and read it occasionally during the year. Make a pledge to your family to improve. Carry 3 x 5 cards in your pocket or purse with your goals written on them. Make it a point to grow during the year. Every business takes inventory occasionally to see what is there and what is missing. Do the same in your life to see if you are making any progress.
What has been described as the testimony of a simple but sincere woman reads this way. "I ain't what I oughter be; and I ain't what I'm gonna be; but I sure ain't what I was!" May everyone be able to say this at year's end.
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