We are one week into the New Year. This is the time of year that we tend to reflect on the previous year and evaluate our lives. We look at the events that happened and how they affected us. We laugh at moments of joy and grieve the moments of pain and sorrow. We look at our relationships. We look at our health. Our finances. Our careers. Our goals. Our dreams. Our habits. This is the time of year where we identify what is working for us and what needs to change. That’s a resolution right? That’s what we do! The ball drops at midnight and we look for areas in our life where the ball has dropped. We resolve to change, and we go on with the start of the new year.

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Often times this is the progression of that first week, does this sound familiar?

1. We get excited. We go all in. We visualize how much better our life will be when x,y, or z happen


2. We implement many new habits simultaneously that are foreign to our normal routine


3. We burn out – it was too much at once


4. We give up, or stop being intentional with our goal until it fizzles into nothing


5. We go back to our resting normal until next year. Sure maybe we made some progress but we fell short and feel like we’ve failed

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To clarify, I’m not saying everyone fails. When the process of personal growth clicks, and it’s done in a healthy productive way, it sticks! The problem is the process of growth doesn’t feel natural and if we don’t know HOW to grow, we probably won’t do it successfully.



Have you ever gardened? I’m one of those people that likes to try new things. I also tend to give up when those new things aren’t as easy as I thought they would be. A few years ago I decided to start gardening. As with all new things I started researching the best way to garden. I will oftentimes research things into the ground. In this example, I quite literally researched the topic of gardening INTO the ground. Seek wisdom right?! I went way to big that first year! My grandma came over (wise counsel!) and helped me set a good foundation. I remember being so proud after that first hard day of preparing the soil and planting the seeds. The next day I woke up and had a full harvest of juicy red tomatoes, green beans, rosemary, and squash! Can you believe it?! Man, gardening is the best! How fitting for our culture that LOVES instant gratification!



Wait WHAT?! Just kidding! I quickly discovered that the idea of gardening was rewarding, the process of gardening was hard… and not just at first! The weeds got away from me. I wasn’t disciplined enough to go out every day and do the work of pulling the weeds. I decided I kind of hated gardening. Nope, to hard. I’m over it. I had some measly crops come up between the weeds and honestly didn’t even pick some of the fruit. I did the initial work of the process, half assed the rest and wasted the harvest. The fruit of my labor was lackluster, and not even Luke wanted my sorry tomatoes.



I’m sorry to swear! I really don’t swear often, but I have to admit that my husband sometimes calls me the Queen of the half ass. I’m just being honest! There’s just not another way to explain it. One of the reasons for this is that I take on too many things at once. I’m a big picture kind of person. I regularly and unintentionally spread myself too thin. The truth of the matter, the scientific TRUTH is that we are not designed to multitask. Neuroscience shows that while we may think we are multitasking, we are actually ‘switch tasking’ which means the brain is changing focus rapidly. This oftentimes results in reduced productivity and efficiency. You can read more about that here. The point being, I can do a lot of things… but I can only do a couple things WELL.



How does this relate to personal growth and the new year? You may have several areas in your life you want to improve, or several dreams you want to chase down. This is not to say that you should just choose one forever and ever amen. Instead, recognize the season you’re in and focus on the one that makes the most sense for right now with the time and resources you have. When you make progress in one area and feel comfortable moving on, go to the next thing. Use wisdom and re-evaluate. This is a life process.

There are many admirable resolutions, dreams or habits that we could discuss in greater detail over the next 9 weeks. I’m choosing to focus in on nine key values that I believe will provide the most amount of transformation in your life. Nine key components to a life of fulfillment. I believe that cultivating these first will lead to success in other areas. What are they?

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Love

Joy

Peace

Patience

Kindness

Goodness

Faithfulness

Gentleness

Self Control

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Many of you will recognize these as the Fruit of the Spirit as described in Galatians 5:22-23.

In this series, we’ll focus on one of these characteristics per week and I will be tieing every post back to scripture and quoting authors and resources that have impacted my life. We will also look at practical ways that you can grow in these areas. This is not to say that we will master each of these in the course of 9 weeks, cultivating these fully (and not in the pitiful way of my garden example above), will take a lifetime!

I’ve chosen to focus on these areas because when we grow in these and become more like Jesus, it affects the people around us. Even if you don’t have the same belief system as I do, can you recognize how gr