I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions. I have never really made them, and the few I’ve made, I’ve never succeeded. So today, I’m not going to invite you to make any. Instead, I want to share an experience that made my heart feel hopeful about the future instead of guilty about past failures.
Feeling all excited about the children not being in school this next week, I hopped onto the internet and found a goal-setting printable for the Church’s new Children and Youth program (which is an AMAZING program by the way). However, when I printed it out I wasn’t looking at it very carefully when I did so and after giving it to my 10 year old, he brought it back to me with questions. On the right hand side of the page were the 4 categories to set goals in (Spiritual, Social, Physical, and Intellectual). But on the left hand side were these words: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly. My son asked me what was meant by these three words. Since I hadn’t read the website where I printed off the page from, I didn’t know what the intended purpose was. So I just blurted out that he should write down what would happen if he did his goals for only one day, then for an entire week, and then for an entire month.
His responses were amazing. He wrote down that if he only did one day of his goals, he wouldn’t be much better off than when he started. He continued writing that if he did his goals for each day of the week, then he would be better than before and he would begin to make these goals into good habits. If he did his goals for an entire month, then he wrote that he would be a different person.
A different person.
When we choose to do the small and simple things over time, we become different people. The prophet Alma taught his son Helaman that “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass” (Alma 37:6).
I invite you to take some time this week to prayerfully find out if there are any small and simple things that you can do that will bring you closer to your loving Heavenly Father and your Savior, Jesus Christ. I know that as we make small beneficial changes, with consistency, we will have great eternal results.
-Sister Blair, Bonnyview Ward
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