Don’t Forget the Old Goals in the New 2015

By Casey Herringshaw

Happy New Year!

It’s filling all the corners of the internet. Greetings from friends and people you bump into at the grocery store. It’s clogging our social media and reminding us that this is truly a new year.

I can’t believe how fast 2014 has gone. Those who said that the older you get the faster time flies, weren’t lying as I always thought they might have been. But 2015 is here. This much has proven true. Have you entered the Carol or Genesis awards yet? If you haven’t, you really should. Let this year be the year you don’t procrastinate on your entry submission and keep the coordinators (aka: myself and Pam) from hyperventilating over the details.

Have you laid out your goals? Picked your One Word? Set the New Year’s resolution?

Can I encourage you to do one thing with your new year?

Pursue your dreams.

Finish your goals.

Complete what you started.

We think: New Year, how awesome! Let’s start something new.

But what if instead of starting something new that-let’s be honest here-we most likely won’t finish in 2015 before May rolls around, we finished what we have already started.

Are you putting off the edits? What is holding you back? Insecurity? Fear?

Are you waiting to finish that book until the “right time”? I’ll be brutally honest: that time is never going to show up unless you carve it from the granite that is your schedule.

Are you holding off entering the contest because you’re afraid that your book isn’t good enough to make it to the finals? I’ll ask you this: what if it is?

You don’t learn unless you put your best foot forward. And sometimes that best yes is simply hitting “enter”.

New Years aren’t just an opportunity for the freshness of new projects; it’s also the perfect opportunity to take a fresh start on something you’ve been dragging your feet about.

Never has motivation run so clear and straight as it does in the New Year.

What about motivation for this thing you’ve come to dread you say? Thirty minutes a day on a project you loathe or simply tolerate will get you far if you concentrate only on that project for the sole thirty minutes. And you’re done. Move on to something you love or want to work with.

Provide yourself with rewards. A cookie, a chapter of the book you are dying to finish, an extra five minutes in a warm, soothing bath, an escape to your favorite coffee shop to people watch.

None of these things require money, but are things we often deprive ourselves of enjoying. Use this as fuel.

Old projects don’t have to take a back seat in priority to the projects you really want to work on, or vice versa. All you need is the determination to make this project happen.

See, New Years are fresh, beautiful opportunities. Yes, dream of the new idea, the next project, but don’t let the joy of starting something new, let you forget the thing you loved and couldn’t wait to start last year.

This could be the year that dream comes closer to coming true.

Casey Herringshaw is a homeschool graduate and has been writing since high school. She is a rural Eastern Oregon transplant into a metropolis of Denver. Casey is a member of ACFW and their Carol Awards Coordinator. You can connect with her through her personal blog, Writing for Christ.