By now, many New Year’s resolutions are wobbling — or have quietly been abandoned altogether.
You can find a parking space at the gym. You can’t find the planner you promised to consult and annotate daily. The good intentions that felt so clear Jan. 1 now feel heavy, discouraging or strangely distant. For some, the familiar inner verdict has arrived: I knew I wouldn’t keep this.
But what if this moment — when our resolutions falter — is not a failure at all? What if it is, instead, an invitation to listen more carefully to God?
We often treat resolutions as tests of willpower or discipline. If we succeed, we congratulate ourselves. If we fail, we assume we lacked resolve. But what if something deeper is at work? Growth in the Christian life is not simply about trying harder; it is about discerning more honestly.
St. Ignatius of Loyola taught that God’s guidance can often be recognized by the fruits it produces in us. He spoke of consolation — movements toward peace, hope, faith, and love — and desolation — movements toward agitation, discouragement, anxiety, or self-contempt.
This matters when we reflect on our resolutions.
A commitment that comes from God may stretch us. It may ask for sacrifice. But it will not crush us. It will not humiliate us. It will not require constant self-reproach to keep it alive. When a resolution repeatedly produces pressure, shame or frantic striving, the problem may not be our discipline. The problem may be that we are pursuing something God did not actually ask of us or pursuing it in a way that does not lead to freedom.
Many of us confuse holiness with intensity. Around the beltway, there is a resounding cry to work harder. We assume that if something is difficult enough, it must be sanctifying. But the Christian life is not meant to be a proving ground. It is a school of love.
This is where a gentle “reboot” can be holy.
Instead of asking, “Why can’t I stick to this?,” we might ask, “What is God showing me through my resistance, fatigue, or discouragement?” Sometimes what feels like failure is actually clarity. A plan that collapses may reveal an attachment that needs loosening, an expectation that needs softening or a season that requires a different kind of faithfulness.
The church reminds us that virtue is formed gradually, through small, repeated acts. Discipline, rightly understood, is not punishment — it is training in freedom. God works patiently, shaping us over time, often far more quietly than our resolutions anticipate.
If your resolutions are unraveling, do not rush to shame or abandon hope. Pause. Pray. Listen.
Ask not only, “What should I do now?” but “Who is God inviting me to become in this moment?” The answer may be simpler, humbler and more life-giving than the plan you originally imagined.
God is not disappointed by your weakness. He is present in it. And often, it is there — when our plans loosen their grip — that his voice becomes easier to hear.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
