According to research by the Journal of Clinical Psychology there’s a 64% percent chance that if you made a New Year’s Resolution you’ve broken it by now.
Step away from the chocolate cake and no one gets hurt.
If you are feeling smug right now you must be among the Righteous 36%. You are bravely soldiering on through gritted teeth in the face of extreme temptation to eat the cookie, or skip the gym, or miss the daily Bible reading. If that is you, don’t get too proud. The future is not looking good. Forbes.com says that just 8% of New Year’s resolutions are intact on December 31st. EIGHT PERCENT!
Most people don’t get anywhere near December before breaking their New Year’s resolutions. Strava, the social network for athletes, looked at the activity logs of their 31 million global customers and discovered there is a fateful day on the calendar when motivation begins to falter. It is January 12. Yup. That soon. January 12 – the day I happen to be writing this article.
On January 12 beds seem a bit cozier than usual, doughnuts are tastier than normal, and the number of people who deny themselves and take up their treadmills plummets. So, Strava has started calling January 12th “Quitters' Day”.
Just twelve days of the new you, and you’re back to the old one. Why so soon? Well, Forbes puts it down to people setting unrealistic goals. They shoot for the moon and inevitably fall short. No doubt that’s true, but I think there’s another, simpler reason, and it’s this: It’s hard to be converted – to convert from smoker to non-smoker, from non-Bible reader to Bible enthusiast, from driver who shouts rude words at other road-users to driver who blesses those who bust a move on them. From Saul, a zealot on a mission to kill Christians to Paul, the writer of First Corinthians 13.
Actually, I say ‘being converted’ is hard; but it’s remaining converted that is difficult. It only takes a second to convert from a person who does not exercise to a person who goes to the gym. It’s living as a person who goes to the gym that is so challenging. Conversion may happen in a moment, but it is the years that follow that show how deep, how wide, and how full that conversion is.
Some prefer to think of conversion as a process that begins in your head with a decision to follow Christ, but then takes time to fall those few inches to your heart. This conversion can be so slow and gradual that it never reaches a person’s mouth, or their ‘texting thumbs’, or their wallets.
Whether you are standing firm in your New Year’s resolution, or if you’ve fallen, or if you didn’t even bother making one – be at peace. Today is a new day, and it’s a day of grace. May you persist in living converted.