Resolutions Worth Keeping: Speak Well

...Our failure to keep resolutions, I’ve been arguing all along, doesn’t change the fact that nearly everyone makes and needs new resolutions. There is nearly a universal recognition that our lives are not perfect, that there are things we can improve, that there are goals we’d like to reach. In fact, we generally have a name for folks who think they have arrived at perfection, who think they have it all figured out, who think it’s their job to change everybody else, that they are God’s gift to the world- preachers. No really, we’d call that person delusional or narcissistic. These are folks that are so out of touch with their life that they can’t see room for growth and goals, or they are so in love with themselves that they think there’s no need to change and grow.

But for the rest of us, all of us who need resolve to grow and reach goals in life- for our families, our work, our hobbies, our golf game, whatever- are there any practical ways to beat the odds of failure? According to Richard Koestner, the odds aren’t in our favor (depressing, I know). Koestner, a researcher at McGill University who specializes in goal-setting and self-regulation, told CTV that people almost can't help but fail to keep resolutions because of three things:

Read the rest of the sermon here.