Aren’t you tired of doing the same things and ending up in the same place? Trust me it can be maddeningly frustrating.  But I realize that the reason we make the same resolutions every year is because we are unaware of the abundance of God. There is more grace waiting to unfold in your life but you have to be aware of it and receive it. There are more people, circumstances coming into your life and you might miss out if you stick to the same dysfunctional relationships in your life and keep playing out the same drama.

Let go of people and circumstances that don’t honor you. How do you know that something isn’t honoring you? If you feel like you have to fight for it, if it makes you feel diminished and obviously if it makes you unhappy. Believe me this year you shouldn’t let ugliness and dysfunction waste your energy. There is more to life than the things you know right now and you have to be willing to go after them.

So before you make the same limited resolutions, first take your time and make a clear plan; this is a statement of clear intention about what you desire to experience.  You need to take an in-depth and honest look at where you are and make an accurate assessment of how you got there. Then you can start thinking about where you want to go and how you are going to get there and how you will maintain it.

You will need to have a positive mindset about your plan; if you don’t believe in it then don’t even waste your time.  Success begins in the mind, and if you go in with a defeatist attitude you’ll surely come up short. Just think of what you could accomplish if you had the belief that you would succeed. You don’t need to be completely assured of success, it’s good to have a bit of a possibility of failure or it wouldn’t be interesting. Just go into it with the confidence that there’s a high chance of success for you.

There are so many things that you can think about, so many ideas you can come up with. It’s fascinating to think about just how much you can think about. Love, health, money, career, entertainment, it’s all buzzing around your head and shaping the sort of life you’re living. With so much to think about it becomes clear that you have to pick and choose your thoughts. You can’t think about everything all at once or you’ll fry your brain. You become what you think about most of the time, so be sure to keep your thoughts on what you want. This year think big, think happy, think freedom.