Yesterday, we talked about "deciding on the means to take the disorder out of our lives and advancing in perfection" in 2017. Great idea! But how? Father Hogan, in his 1961 book, A Do-it-Yourself Retreat, continues:

"Method:

1. The desire to choose and use the necessary means to order my life and free myself from sin must come from God. So I should pray to the Holy Ghost for light and the desire to follow God's will.

2. Using a projective technique, I place myself in the position of a man who is giving advice to a person whom he does not know but who is asking for help to serve God more perfectly. I then follow the advice I would sincerely give this person.

3. Another way of obtaining objectivity and detachment is to look at the matter from the point of view I shall have at the moment of death. Let me do now what I shall then wish to have done. This should not be a grim, ghoulish affair. The viewpoint of eternity helps to sift out the nonessential and, as St. Thomas More shrewdly observed, 'We can live for the next life and be merry withal.'

4. I offer my resolutions to God. I ask Him to accept them and to give me the courage and strength to keep them."

Anyone who has made an Ignatian retreat will recognize the wisdom of St. Ignatius of Loyola in these ideas. As Father Hogan says, the thought, "What will I wish to have done on my deathbed?" is not meant to be frightening. Motivational speaker Tony Robbins calls it the rocking-chair test - "What will I wish to have done when I'm too old to do anything but sit on a front porch in a rocking chair?"

Instead of drowning in all that we have to do, we must take a little time and think, "What do I really want to accomplish this year?" Some of our goals will be material or physical, but most importantly, we should have a spiritual goal/resolution. A specific one. Not just a vague, "I want to be kinder this year." Break it down into something very specific and doable. 

Ruth Soukup, another motivational speaker, quotes Charles Duhigg in saying that our goals must be - SMART: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-Bound. Maybe in the example of kindness, we could resolve, "I won't go to bed at night until I've performed one act of kindness to someone else - my spouse, my child, my relatives, my friends, a stranger. Each week I will choose one person that I can help, and do something to lighten their load." The Big Picture is still: I will be kinder this year, but it's broken down into something specific and doable.

(One more entry from this book will be posted tomorrow, to help us with our New Year's resolutions...)