How to Make Powerful Christian Resolutions for the New Year (29 examples & FREEBIES)

The time has come to start thinking about the New Year – 2023! The New Year is a time we can reflect on the past year and think about how we can make the next one even better. Many people (41% of Americans) do this by setting resolutions in an effort to become a better version of themselves or improve their lifestyle in some way. You may have heard (or used yourself) many of these common New Year’s resolutions:

Eat healthier
Lose weight
Spend less/save more money
Focus on more “me time”
Read more books
Stop an unhealthy habit or start a healthy one

Sparkly words "New Year's Resolutions" surrounded by shiny star confetti and generic resolutions written on pieces of paper.

There’s nothing wrong with these kinds of resolutions (and some of these can work as Christ-centered resolutions) but as Christians, we should make an effort to spend most of our valuable and limited resources doing things that honor God and show His love to the people around us.

Not only that, sanctification, which is, in part, becoming more like Christ, requires consistent growth. Setting New Year’s resolutions that focus on Jesus and His commands and will for our lives can help us come closer to becoming the holy beings God has called us to be.

Let’s take a look at some examples of what a Christian’s New Year’s resolutions might look like.

Contents

Examples of New Year’s Resolutions for Christians

Christian New Year's resolutions should focus on things that help us honor God with our lives and make us more like Jesus. Click To Tweet

Here are a few examples that do just these things!

General Christian Resolutions

Pray daily
Read God’s word daily

Be a better steward
Give more
Focus on cultivating the fruit of the Spirit
Go to church regularly
Rest more
Find things to be grateful for every day
Focus on God’s will rather than your own
Speak life
Study the Bible
Praise the Lord in every circumstance
Focus on your race, not anybody else’s theirs
Glorify God with your body
Be humble
Memorize scripture
Try fasting

Family-focused Christian Resolutions

Talk to your kids about God and Jesus regularly

“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
Deuteronomy 6:6-7

Read/study the Bible as a family often
Go to church as a family every Sunday
Pray with your spouse and/or kids more

Married couple praying over an open Bible.

Serve as a family
Be a more present mom/dad/spouse

Business-focused Christian Resolutions

Be a more Godly leader
Make your business/job more about serving people and less about the bottom line

Community-focused Christian Resolutions

Love others more/better
Build your village
Serve
Do more random acts of kindness

Woman talking to a homeless woman eating a meal in a restaurant.

Now that we’ve looked at some examples, let’s walk through the steps necessary to write personalized Christian resolutions for the New Year.

How to Make Your Own Christian New Year’s Resolutions

If you’re tired of reading yet another one of my wordy blog posts and you want to jump right in to writing your own resolutions, check out our handy-dandy worksheet that will walk you through the process.

Free downloadable Christian Resolutions worksheet and habit tracker! — Click image for the free downloads!

If you love my wordy posts and want to get the detailed instructions on how to do this, by all means, keep reading!

Step 1 – Evaluate Your Values and Search Your Heart

Beginning this process by examining your priorities and values will help you set resolutions that have a deeper meaning to you. When your New Year resolutions are more in line with your values, you are much more likely to stick to them, thereby avoiding the dreaded feeling of failure that comes when New Year’s resolutions are abandoned before January even comes to a close, as many are.

Maybe the things that are important to you include an intimate relationship with God. Or perhaps you value knowledge and want to learn more about why you believe what you believe.

Also, make sure you are approaching this process with an attitude of humility and servitude. Christian New Year’s resolutions ought to flow from a heart full of love for God and others. Ask God to reveal to you any areas where you could use a little help with this. These could be hints at things you might want to focus your resolutions on.

For example, if you find that an area of weakness for you is loving others well, you could create a resolution that might help you with prioritizing people. Or if you find that an attitude of resentment has you yelling at your kids too often for your liking (not speaking from personal experience, or anything), you could create a resolution that might help you overcome feelings of bitterness towards them.

When your New Year's resolutions are in line with your values, you are more likely to stick to them, so start crafting your resolutions by identifying your values. Click To Tweet

And don’t forget to pray for God’s guidance throughout this process, too! If you move forward with something that you know is God’s plan, you will move forward with more confidence and commitment. Plus, if God wills it, it will be successful!

Once you have a good idea of the values and attitudes you’d like to focus on, move on to step 2!

Step 2 – Identify 1 or 2 Major Goals for the New Year

Now use the values and attitudes you identified in step 1 to make a list of general goals for the new year. At this point, be pretty general. We’ll hone in on pinpointing specific action steps for your resolutions in a bit.

The words "My goals" written on a notepad, which is sitting on a desk surrounded by pretty desk accessories.

For example, maybe you want to work on your relationship with God or build a community of like-minded believers around you. Or perhaps you want to be able to defend your faith more convincingly or demonstrate a more accepting and loving attitude to your kids.

Once you have your major goals in place, make your way to step 3.

Step 3 – Determine What it Will Take to Reach Your Goals

Now that you know your priorities and values and your general goals, think about what you need to do in order for you to meet your goals. Don’t forget to pray for God’s wisdom; He will often give us ideas we wouldn’t have thought of if we just ask!

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
James 1:5

Continuing with some of our previous examples…

If you want to grow closer to God, reading God’s word and praying should be on your resolutions list.

If you want to work on building relationships with the people around you, getting together with those people regularly should be on your resolutions list.

If you want to stop interacting negatively with your kids so much, you might want to work on having positive interactions more often.

If you want to learn to defend your faith, learning about spiritual warfare and apologetics might be good things to consider.

Get the picture? Great! When you have some ideas about how you can approach your goals, get moving to step 4!

Step 4 – Create Detailed Resolutions

Now it’s time to formulate your detailed Christian resolutions! Yay!

Close-up of the words "New Year's Resolutions" written on a piece of notebook paper.

Think about your broad goals and what practical steps it will take to meet them. You want your resolutions to be specific and detailed so that it is clear what you need to do to work towards your goals. You’ll want to include:

Action words that say exactly what you will or won’t do
Commitment words (“I will” or “I must”)
Specific time amounts and/or frequencies
How you will measure or track your progress

Continuing with our examples, here is what clear, detailed resolutions might look like.

“To grow closer to God I will read the Bible for 15 minutes each morning and spend time in prayer before I get out of bed every morning and before I go to sleep every night. I will know I am making progress by my overall mood and love shown towards others.”

“In the discipline and training of our kids, I will focus more on what they do right and what I love about them than what they do wrong and what I don’t like about them. I will model for them how to be kind and humble and loving. The emergence of a more peaceful family life will show that I am making progress in this area.”

“I will spend 30 minutes every day learning about why I believe what I believe so that I can defend my faith and lead others to Christ effectively. I will do this by reading books before bed or blog posts during lunch, and/or listening to podcasts on my way to and from work about spiritual warfare and apologetics. I will track my progress with a habit tracker on my phone or on paper. I will know I’m learning if I can more confidently have conversations with people about my beliefs.” Side note: if you’re a mom (or even if you’re not), and you want to know more about apologetics, start here!

Pinterest pin containing the steps to create Christian resolutions for the new year with brief explanations of each.

Tips to Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Stick

Many New Year’s resolutions fail within the first month. Use these tips to be successful at making lasting changes to your lifestyle that could change the world!

Allow God to be a Part of the Process

God wants to be a part of your life! He delights in being part of it, actually. So let Him! Ask Him to show you where you need to grow to become the person He needs you to be to do the work He wants you to do.

“Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust Him, and He will help you.”
Psalms 37:5 (NLT)

Woman with arms raised praising God outside at sunrise.

And don’t forget to praise Him for any headway you make on your resolutions! Remember, it is for His glory we set these resolutions, not our own, and success belongs to Him working in us, not anything we could do on our own.

Start Small

“Setting small, attainable goals throughout the year, instead of a singular, overwhelming goal on January 1 can help you reach whatever it is you strive for,” says psychologist Lynn Bufka, PhD. “Remember, it is not the extent of the change that matters, but rather the act of recognizing that lifestyle change is important and working toward it, one step at a time.”

So instead of committing to read the Bible for 30 minutes every day, maybe start with 10 or 15 minutes instead.

Be Realistic

According to a 2014 study, the most common reason people gave up on their resolutions was that they had set unrealistic goals. Make sure you have the time, energy, money, etc. to meet your goals. If you don’t, scale back your goals to a realistic level to increase your chances of success.

Focus

Focus on one goal at a time. In the same study, 1 in 10 people said that setting too many goals was the reason for their failure.

Recruit a Partner

Two women sitting by a campfire talking.

Accountability is key if you want to grow. See if a friend wants to work on the same thing you do, and help each other stick to the plan. Or simply tell someone about your resolution and have them check in with you every week or two to see how it’s going.

Keep Track of Your Progress

The aforementioned 2014 survey showed that 33% of people failed to stick to their resolutions because they didn’t keep track of their progress. Don’t join them! Use our free (totally free!) habit tracker to keep track of your progress!

Give Yourself Grace

Remember, you’re not perfect, and nobody expects you to be! If you miss a day of reading the Bible, pick it back up tomorrow. If you didn’t have time for your weekly coffee date with that person you’re growing a relationship with, set next week’s up and don’t miss it. You only fail if you stop trying!

Examine Your Heart

Do frequent heart checks to make sure you’re still approaching your goals for the right reasons. If you find yourself growing weary or harboring bad thoughts or feelings about your resolution, consider making some tweaks or taking a break. God desires us to have the right attitude more than he desires us to reach a goal.

Christian New Year’s Resolutions Wrap-up

I don’t usually set New Year’s resolutions because the typical ones seem so shallow and pointless. However, writing this post has helped me see how the right resolutions can help us become more like Jesus, so I’m planning to set some for the coming year.

I’m resolving to make time for people and deepen my relationships (I just finished Jennie Allen’s “Find Your People” Bible study) and grow in my understanding of and closeness to God and His word (one of the best resources I’ve found for this is the BEMA podcast).

What New Year’s resolutions do you plan on setting, fellow follower of Jesus? Comment below, and let us know!