Goals, Resolutions and Becoming a Better Person

The New Year is typically a time when we look at our lives and make resolutions or goals to accomplish more or become better people. This is usually the case with me. I like to review my life quite often to make sure I am heading (or at least trying to head) in the right direction. This desire is the first step in improving ourselves. The next steps involve putting that desire into action.

In a talk by Elder M. Russell Ballard given to Salt Lake area Young Adults in 1981, he states "I am a great believer that what you and I think about will ultimately come to pass. I believe if we think about committing a sin long enough, we will find ourselves entangled in that sin. I believe if we think about what it takes to be successful long enough and if we are willing to discipline ourselves to the principle of success, we will experience success." (Ensign, June 1983)

In the Book of Mormon, Jacob taught this same principle. In Jacob 2:5, he says "But behold, hearken ye unto me, and know that by the help of the all-powerful Creator of heaven and earth I can tell you concerning your thoughts, how that ye are beginning to labor in sin, which sin appeareth very abominable unto me, yea, and abominable unto God." According to Robert L. Millet & Joseph Fielding McConkie, "The sins of the people in Jacob's day were not inadvertent transgressions; they had begun to 'labor in sin' in the sense that sin had become their obsession and their preoccupation." (Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, vol. 2, p.11).

It's interesting that Jacob taught that their thoughts caused them to "labor in sin", because thoughts are the seeds of action. According an anonymous quote:

Sow a Thought, Reap and Action
Sow an Action, Reap a Habit
Sow a Habit, Reap a Character
Sow a Character, Reap a Destiny

The next step in becoming a better person, who we truly want to become – who God knows we can become – is regarding our thoughts; getting rid of negative or sinful thoughts and replacing them with positive or righteous thoughts.

Doing this takes a fair amount of self discipline. We have all been given the gift of moral agency, "to choose liberty and eternal life…or to choose captivity and death" (2 Nephi 2:27). As the above quote suggests, our thoughts become our actions, habits, and character and eventually lead us to a final destination. Righteous thoughts lead to righteous acts and freedom, eventually leading to eternal life. Impure thoughts cause bondage or captivity. The key is that we chose the outcome. Despite what circumstances we are faced with, we can still choose how to react to those circumstances.

In the book Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl writes "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way" (p. 86). Even in the most destitute of circumstances, some chose to react positively to serve and help others.

The next step is to set goals and write them down. While I was serving a mission, we lived by the phrase "Share the Vision". The "vision" could be anything from living a better life, baptism, or accomplishing any goal. The important thing was to share that vision with someone else. I have seen this in our lives as our family sits down at the beginning of the year to make goals and write predictions of things we think will happen during the next year. We write down our goals, put them in a jar (to hopefully be reviewed during the year) and then review them again at the new year to see how we did.

According to Elder Ballard, the next step is to spend our time on things that make a difference. It is pointless to worry about things that are completely out of control. I have seen people become paralyzed with fear because of trivial matters, things that haven't necessarily happened, but could. It's one thing to be prepared for the worst, it's another thing to worry needlessly over what the worst will be. Regarding spending time on things that make a difference, Viktor Frankl said "I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, "homeostasis," i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task." (Man's Search for Meaning, p. 127)

If we are always choosing to improve ourselves, not content with mediocrity or idleness, and consistently keeping our thoughts on positive things, we are setting a formula to truly become better people. I believe this is a worthwhile goal, and something that everyone can do, because let's face it, we can all improve something about ourselves, while at the same time making sure we are positive about the things we have gotten right. So here's to a new year and added enthusiasm to improve ourselves.