It’s January 2025, a new year, when many people make resolutions, plan and set goals, or decide on a word, phrase, or verse for the year.
(Most people set aspirational goals, such as getting fit, losing weight, or reading their Bible more. But I have seen–and been amused by–the reverse: resolutions like sit on the couch more, eat more sugar, gain weight, read less, and watch more TV.)
I haven’t set myself a “word of the year” for the last couple of years. This may be because in the years when I have done so, I have done a spectacularly fabulous job of forgetting the word by the end of January …
Which is entirely normal.
January is known as the month when people do “good” things, like sign up for a gym membership, attend religiously for the first month or so, then gradually attend less and less until they don’t go at all.
Our pastor reminded us of this tendency in early December, and invited us to change up our New Year’s resolutions and start them in December instead. Why? Because December is the beginning of the liturgical year, and because it might be easier to get a new habit to stick if we start while we’re still at work, not on our summer holidays.
(Yes, Christmas and New Year are summer holidays in Australia and New Zealand. Schools and offices are closed, and many of us take our main holiday during these summer months.)
While I liked the idea, December is always a busy month and I didn’t get time to sit back and consider what I may or may not want to achieve in 2025.
I have just finished reading an advance review copy of Home by Lydia Sohn, a United Methodist minister from California. I’m still musing over my review, but one thing struck me was her distinction between goals and values:
Prioritizing a value over a goal is more effective in helping use create the lives we want, because we don’t feel like it’s … a rule being forced on us from the outside.
Which is why we often fail to meet our goals: because they are extrinsically motivated, not internally. They are what we think other people want us to achieve, rather than things we want to do for ourselves.
Values are different:
Living based on values is more sustainable and motivating because it allows us to slip naturally into our authentic selves rather than force us into a mold crafted by others.
“Sustainable” has become a buzzword over the last few years. It started out with a macro meaning: we need to reduce, reuse and recycle to ensure the sustainability of the planet. But in the last few years, I’ve seen it move into the workplace and into our everyday lives with a micro meaning: living our lives in a way that we don’t burn out.
I have been overcommitted in the past, and have been close to (or perhaps at) that burnout stage, where I haven’t had time to sit back and reflect on life–on the good and the bad, what needs to change and what can stay the same.
This summer holiday gave me the time I needed to reflect:
What do I want to do in 2025?
What does God want me to do?
Over the last two years, I have fallen behind in some things, such as regular blogging, uploading my book reviews to Amazon and other social media sites, and sending my author newsletter regularly. My life wasn’t sustainable.
Rather than beating myself up for what I haven’t done, I am focusing on the year ahead. I am not trying to do everything, and especially not trying to do everything at once. I need to move at a pace I can maintain and sustain.
(And I am helped by the fact I have few external commitments aside from a full-time job.)
Australian author Juliette Duncan’s 30 December 2024 newsletter spoke to me. She quoted Philippians 3:13-14:
I have read these verses any number of times, but have never considered them in the context of the New Year.
Juliette talked about consciously letting go of the past and choosing not to be held captive by regret or complacency. Instead, release our failures and our successes to God, and focus on what lies ahead.
I suspect that is one key to sustainability: focus on what we can do (change the future) rather than what we can’t do (change the past).
The NIV Verse of the Day for 31 December quoted Isaiah 43:18-19 to express a similar sentiment:
The challenge is to do the right thing … which I was reminded of when reading Smile for Me by Jan Thompson this week. Byron, the hero, is a workaholic who lives by his lists. He is reminded of Proverbs 16:9, which I like best in the Message translation:
So I think I have finally landed on my word for 2025:
Maintain
It’s a variation on sustainability. It means choosing a life I can maintain and sustain. It means choosing JOMO over FOMO (the Joy of Missing Out rather than Fear of Missing Out).
It means not committing myself to more than I can reasonably achieve in a day or a week. It means taking a Sabbath rest (not using Sunday as catch-up day). It means taking time to go for a walk and appreciate the beauty of creation.
It means leaving myself sufficient margin after ticking off the items on my to-do list so that I can relax and spend quality time with family, friends, and God.
