"Improvement demands a commitment to grow long after the mood in which it was made has passed."

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2013-10-08) from his book, Sometimes You Win--Sometimes You Learn:Life's Greatest Lessons Are Gained from Our Losses (p. 80). Center Street. Kindle Edition.

Another good lesson to learn at the beginning of 2014. What improvement in your life have you made a commitment to strive to do here at the beginning? This is a great time to make those commitments but it isn’t the time that we do them. That is down the road.

I made a commitment at the beginning of 2013 to learn more about how Jesus responded to life by making a commitment to read the four Gospels 13 times in 2013. I am now finishing Luke and will go on to John. With that I will have read the four Gospels 13 times. Now I didn’t do that in one month. It took me read 4 – 5 chapters every day for a year.

The fact that I didn’t finish the task in 2013 means I let down along the way. I had great enthusiasm in January along the way that mood that I had felt at the beginning slowly gave way a constant temptation to stop. That is why a commitment is needed. But I didn’t stop and next week I will finish the task.

Now I am making a new commitment in different areas to improve myself in 2014. And again the enthusiasm will lesson and the commitment will need to take over.

Speaker Peter Lowe once told John, “The most common trait I have found in successful people is that they conquered the temptation to give up.” The successful completion of any task must be started but the success comes when we don’t stop even when that is the easiest thing to do.

So what about you? What personal improvement is the enthusiasm of a New Year challenging you to do?

Remember, “Improvement demands a commitment to grow long after the mood in which it was made has passed.”

So what is it and have you made a commitment to do it?

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