Lose a few pounds. Read more. Pray more. Go to church more. Make my quiet times more meaningful. Eat healthier. These are just a few of the things I’ve resolved to do over the past few years. However, this New Year, I have decided I will not be making any resolutions.

I will not be making resolutions, because I will be setting goals. Goals that I will not wait until New Year’s to act upon.

We should work to better ourselves right now. We’re not promised tomorrow, we only have right now. Why are we waiting until New Years to go to the gym? Why are we waiting until New Years to pray more or to read more? Why are we waiting?

If we truly want to make change happen, the first step is to create achievable goals.

For instance, if you want to eat healthier, you could start by saying “today, I’m going to cut all sodas, and next week, I’ll cut out most sweets.” We must make our goals ones that we can actually obtain, not ones that are impossible.

Or if you want to read your Bible more, you could start by reading a few verses today and each week add a few more until you eventually work your way up to in depth study.

We must then understand that we will fail on our journey to achieving our goals. We will eat that cupcake when we probably shouldn’t, we’ll skip a day (or week) of quiet time because life got crazy.

The important thing is that we are constantly trying to improve ourselves and we aren’t waiting around for New Year's to make that happen.