Oh yes you can!

“People become really quite remarkable when they start
thinking that they can do things. When they believe in
themselves, they have the first secret of success."
— Norman Vincent Peale

Happy New Year! How are those resolutions? Last blog I talked about the one thing you need to keep them -- self discipline. Self discipline: a cringe-worthy term indeed! But why is it we so often have trouble with that? For many of us, it may be that we fail before we even start! How? By not believing that we can actually accomplish what we set out to achieve. Check out this popular and funny New Year's Quote by Mark Twain: "New Year's Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."  Twain, playing on the saying about the road there is paved with good intentions, kind of sums up what usually happens to our resolutions. But maybe that's because we go into it assuming yet another failure.

To accomplish anything we must first believe we can. Does it guarantee success? Not necessarily, the belief that we can do something usually needs to be followed by real action steps and sometimes even painful choices. However, not to fully believe we can accomplish a goal—or a New Year’s resolution—will pretty much guarantee a failure. And here’s the thing: while others can definitely encourage us, it comes down to an absolute resolve in our own minds and a decision that what we seek to accomplish MUST happen. We have to look at our obstacles “straight in the eye”—and realize that often they are bigger in our own heads than they are in reality.

Finally, get prayed up.  I once heard Bishop TD Jakes say, "don't tell God how big your problem is, tell your problem how big your God its." 

This IS your year and you CAN do it!