No doubt, New Year resolution has been a regular phenomenon and an integral aspect of activities to herald the dawn of a new year. It has become a norm for people to see the eve of a new year as a veritable platform to take a retrospect of their socio-economic, political, spiritual, academic and inter-personal activities of the preceding year, introspect into how to live and what to achieve in the future.
The beginning of every year is time to also make new promise(s), and dream new dream of life. It is a time to mend broken relationship, soothe frayed nerves and also chart a progressive course of action.
For many, the resolution provides a premise for a new beginning, a paradigm shift from the old unfavourable order and a marked departure from the ugly incidences that characterised the preceding year.
To others, it is a period of stock taking, sober reflection and articulating plans for the year.
However, while both schools of thought have valid reasons towards their perspective on resolution, New Year resolutions are far beyond mere wishes which anybody has the liberty to make even unguidedly. Resolutions will translate to exercise in futility if reasonable commitment is not made to convert such verbal expressions into a concrete reality. There is need for those who make resolutions to also muster the commensurate will to walk the talk. The apparent lack of will-power explains why some people are caught in the web of the litany of repetition. Such people say the same thing every year because previous goal was not met.
It is pertinent to state that according to Isaac Newton’s Law of Motion, everything is at a state of rest until something makes it to move.
Therefore, motion is the response of matter to force. Consequently, even resolution which may be described as a mental picture is at a state of ‘rest’. Resolution must be made to ‘move’. The person that made the resolution has the capacity to make it move or work. The reason is not far-fetched. Resolution is a function of thought. And, according to Emerson, thought is the ancestor and seat of action. It is the soul of the act.
This simply implies that every thought or idea whether positive or negative, has a possibility of being fulfilled.
I agree, therefore with Napoleon Hill, in one of his bestselling books, Think And Grow Rich, that whatever the human mind conceives, it can achieve. In my considered view the human mind is the most critical asset for human development. Little wonder, the Book of Books – the Bible – says “As a man thinks in his heart so he is”. Nobody grows above the dictate of his or her mindset. Every Creation of man is a function of an effective and progressive mindset.
Conversely, resolutions are like dreams, phantoms and attempts to build castles in the air, if goals are not set, to drive such resolution. Goal setting and resolution making must be an inseparable pair, going hand-in-glove and pari passu.
Hellen Keller, a woman who became blind few months after her birth as a result of wrong eye medication, understood that success in life is essentially a function of goal setting and vision. When Keller was asked what would be the worst thing that would happen to a person, she did not mince words nor give a deep thought to volunteer an answer. Her response identifies the bane of failure of many dreams, resolutions and aspirations.
What was the answer? To have ‘sight without vision’, Keller said is the worst thing that would happen to a person.
Lack of vision’ to drive resolution, to my dispassionate mind, is a cause of dashed hopes and failed plans.
Without saying a new thing, vision is a mental picture of a preferred destination birthed by passion. But vision cannot stand alone. It needs passion also to work effectively. Vision and passion, like goal setting and resolution, are also an inseparable pair, like the snail and its shell. Separate them, each will languish for want of the other.
Vision without passion is a truncated journey of life. Passion drives vision and goal setting. Where there is a vision and well-articulated goal setting without a commensurate passion, such goal or resolution cannot work.
It is not gainsaying the fact that resolutions are functions of decision; however, the effectiveness of decision is measured by its implementation. So many decisions made at the verge of a new year were not enforced or carried out.
Then of what use are resolutions if they are not implemented. Resolutions are litmus test of integrity. A person who says what he cannot keep or said what he never meant has a dent on credibility.
Without losing sight of the fact that there are circumstances beyond human control so much so that if and when a promise or decision is made concerning a matter, it is outside the power of a man to achieve such plan, resolutions are not pies that are meant to be broken contrary to what argument lesser minds advance to justify their inability to achieve target and fulfill promise.
Consequently, to achieve resolution, plan or goal for the year, the God factor comes to play in this area, knowing that humans are limited in capacity to actualise their goals without God. Jesus rightly said “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15). Correspondingly, Paul writing to the Phillipians’ Church said: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
The summary of it is that while Resolutions, Vision, Goal setting are germane and essential ingredients for success, making reasonable commitments to make them happen through faith in Jesus and due diligence are absolutely necessary tools to drive a fulfilled resolution.
Nothing happens unless you or a superior being make it to happen. Life has never been fair to anybody, people get out of life what they want to get.
The year 2022 has just begun, it is still fresh and promising but only those who know what they want to achieve and pursue it, the odds notwithstanding, will count their blessing at the end.
Methinks that everyone that has made a resolution is an enlightened mind who knows what the implications are; in relation to social responsibility, individual development and God, let those, therefore, make efforts to achieve them.
Eleven months from now, every one that has made a resolution will stand in the court of conscience to answer for themselves, if they actually achieved their goal. “How time flies”, they say. Therefore, the time to act is now. There is no tomorrow but today. Today well lived, makes a better tomorrow; a tomorrow to be reckoned with.

By: Igbiki Benibo