43. Ditch Your Resolutions: Do This Instead!

What if New Year’s resolutions are actually keeping you from something better?

In this episode of Courageous Retirement, Vona Johnson shares why she stopped chasing resolutions—and started listening for God’s direction instead. Rather than creating long lists of goals that fade by February, she embraces a simple but powerful practice: choosing a “Word of the Year” rooted in prayer and Scripture.

Vona reflects on how resolutions can unintentionally distract us from seeking God’s Kingdom and discovering His unique purpose for this season of life. With honesty and encouragement, she opens up about her own journey—including the challenge from her coach to stop playing small and speak directly to the people she feels called to serve: those at or near retirement.

Admitting how uncomfortable that has been, Vona invites listeners into the process with her. She asks for your help—to engage, respond, and walk alongside her—so together you can navigate this transition with courage, clarity, and faith.

Whether you’re approaching retirement, stepping into a new chapter, or simply longing for more meaning, this episode will help you refocus your heart, quiet the noise, and take intentional steps toward the life God is calling you to live.

It’s not about doing more. It’s about listening better.

Episode Highlights:

• Why traditional resolutions often leave us frustrated
• The power of choosing a faith-centered Word of the Year
• How to seek God’s purpose instead of self-made plans
• A personal coaching challenge Vona is working through right now
• An invitation to connect—so she can help you, and you can help her
• Embracing your “second calling” with courage and hope

Scripture Quoted:

"Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need."  Luke 12:31

 "...don’t worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time." Matthew 10:19

2 Peter 1:1-15 

Email to set up a time to chat: vona@vonajohnson.com

Thank you for stopping by today! Remember to Engage Your Faith and Live Your More as you reap the benefits of Courageous Retirement!

To watch the video, check out my YouTube Channel!

Learn more about the show, author Vona Johnson, and more at vonajohnson.com!

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Transcript

0:05

I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't make resolutions anymore. I did years ago, but honestly I got tired of being a failure every year. I would start them and then I would get to the point where I was like, uh, yeah, that's too hard. I don't have time. There are always excuses not to meet those resolutions. And then I realized that. I don't think that that's what God wants of us. Anyway, I'm gonna explain that in this episode and then I'm gonna tell you what I think God wants us to do instead, and then I hope you'll stay to the end because I'm going to make you an invitation to join me on an opportunity to really find out what it is that God might be asking you to do next.

Speaker: 0:47

Do you fear? What lies beyond retirement? What if it's a gateway to a life filled with purpose, meaning, and adventure rather than an end? Discover peace and fulfillment as you boldly enter this new chapter in Courageous Retirement, a Christian podcast. I'm your host, author, and coach Vona Johnson. Let's get started.

1:06

New Year's resolutions. I don't know what yours looks like, but I did a little bit of research and the top five resolutions that people make these days are exercise more to eat healthier, to spend less money, or to save more money. To be happier. I don't know how you measure that or to read more, create a hobby, study up on something learn more. Now, I don't know about you, but those things are sometimes hard to do because we do have busy lives. One of the things that I started doing along the way was instead of doing resolutions, I started doing a Word of the year. And I have done confidence. Integrity, freedom, just definitions that I've pulled from scripture that helped me stay focused on what I thought God was calling me to in that particular year. And I'm still working on mine for this year, but right now I feel like it's trust and just fully trust God in, the work and the, the challenges that, that he's calling me to this year. So it, that might be something you might wanna look at. Um, but I truly do encourage you to ditch your resolutions right now, and here's why. I believe that resolutions are things that are created by Satan to pull us away and distract us from our real purpose. When you think about it in Luke 12, verse 31, Jesus said, seek the kingdom of God above all else and he will give you everything you need. Now, if we are focused on losing weight, exercising more, reading, more books or whatever, we aren't really able to seek the kingdom of God first, are we? But if we truly are. Seeking him out. He will give us time to read more books. He will help us to lose weight because sometimes I think the stress that we add on our lives by trying to do it yourself and make things better are really just taking away from what he really wants us to do. So I encourage you to just really think about that Luke 12 verse. Of course, I'm trying through this podcast to help you have the courage to do what God's calling you to do. Even though I've been retired for nine years in this last week, I've realized that I've done a lot of different things and truly have been attempting to seek God first. But what's come up for me is I'm not sure that I've really allowed myself to step cross the line of the things that make me uncomfortable. I feel like I'll do the things that, that I really enjoy, but there are some things that. Are hard for me and asking for help is one of them. Asking people to do things for me are really difficult, and the other thing that's always been difficult for me is to speak up when I'm not really sure that I'm, I know what I'm talking about and I talk about that in my book, A different View. And I talk about how, you know, I can come across as being really confident, but that's because I know that I know. And I hired a coach to help me with the marketing of my books and my programs and things like that, and. He's asking me to do some things that are uncomfortable for me. He's asking me to have conversations with people to ask them what their experiences are as they contemplate or, or experiencing retirement. Uh, and then he wants to help me write some languaging that will, will be enticing to folks and. I realized this morning as I was praying to God about it, and it was like, Lord, do I really have to, I don't wanna do that. It's hard. And what came up for me was the words that I have said to myself so many times, and I'd forgotten about it, but I see it in past relationships that I've had where, what if I get it wrong? What if I say the wrong words? What if I lead somebody down the wrong path? What if? What if? What if? What if? And those doubts, those fear of judgment come up and keep me from doing what I really believe God has called me to do. You know, it's kind of laughable when you think about the fact that I wrote a book. Called equipped for more, but now get this. It's the 10 essential habits to stop your doubts and fear of judgment so you can boldly live your faith. So you see, even when we know what to do sometimes. We are subconscious, Satan, I don't know where it comes from always, and I don't know that it matters where it come from, but I think it's helpful to know that there are times when we are going to prevent ourselves one way or another from doing exactly what God is calling us to do. And that's what I love about hiring my coach, Andrew, is that he is basically what I do for folks. He's holding up a mirror for me to see where. I might be falling short of fulfilling the purpose that God has for me. And I'm just really grateful for him to do that. And even though I'm walking through some difficult times, I mean the things he's asking me to do are hard. They're challenging. But I also know that I've prayed about it and I know that God brought him into my life. And so part of what I'm asking you to do is to think about where are you holding back? Where is God asking you to take a step and it's hard and you're not really sure that you wanna cross that line? Yeah. So what I wanna challenge you with is, as Andrew asked me to get on some phone calls and talk to people about where their doubts and fears about retirement. And you know, I came up with the, oh my gosh, but what if I get it wrong? Then the Holy Spirit led me to this verse this morning, and I know this verse, I've quoted it before, but I hadn't thought about it in this context, but this morning he led me to Matthew 10, verse 19. Don't worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time for it is not you who will be speaking. It will be the spirit of your father speaking through you. Wow, that's powerful, and it's such a huge reminder that I am not walking this walk alone and that I don't have to worry about getting it wrong. Yeah. I might say the wrong word, but, there's forgiveness for that. We can't, we don't have to be perfect in this world. In fact, I love the fact that then God brought me to, in both two different devotions this morning, brought me to Second Peter, chapter one, verses one through 15, two different devotions. One pointed out in the first verse in this letter from Simon Peter, a Slave, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I am writing to you. Who share the same precious faith we have. Think about that we have the same faith that the apostles have. We have the same Holy Spirit guiding us that guided them. So why do we fear? Why do we hold back? We've got the Holy Spirit in us. So in the rest of the verses, in that second Peter chapter one goes on to, just to help us understand how we can grow in faith, and I just wanna share this with you from starting on verse five. In the view of all of this, make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence and moral excellence with knowledge and knowledge with self-control. And self-control with patient endurance and patient endurance with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love for everyone, which ironically, my coach that I just was talking about, pointed out in a post today where he talked about truly the work that we do in sales and everything else, the basis of that is the love that we have for everyone. So, um, the Holy Spirit's really working on me, and, and I know that he's, he's trying to work on you too. But I do wanna challenge you that if you are ready. To take a deep breath and to find out where he might be leading you in this season. Whether you're in retirement or you're thinking about retirement, or you're still full bore in your career, he might be leading you to step into an area that's a little bit uncomfortable. And I just wanna challenge you to, first of all be in the word. The, the living word of God will give us everything we need. Sometimes the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the Word. Sometimes he'll answer us as we pray to him because that's another thing that we should be doing continuously. And sometimes he'll speak to us through other people like me hiring Andrew to help me through this path. The third thing that we so often neglect to do is to find quiet space in our lives. To listen to the Holy Spirit, to see what he's saying to us and to, to take the action that he calls us to, because you see. We all want the abundance that God promises us and we want that peace that passes all understanding. But sometimes we're not willing to put forth the effort that we know we need to get through study of the Bible and to prayer and then to take action. We need to do more than just grow in our knowledge. We have to be able to lead a godly life. I love how in the footnote of my, new living translation, it says, our faith must go beyond what we believe. It must become a dynamic part of all we do, resulting in good fruit and spiritual maturity. Salvation does not depend on good deeds. Let me say that again. Salvation does not depend on good deeds. But it results in good deeds. A person who claims to be saved while remaining unchanged, does not understand faith or what God has done for him or her. And then it goes on in another footnote to say, if you're not working to develop the qualities listed. You know, the knowledge, the self-control, the patient endurance, the godliness. If we're not working on developing those skills, we may indeed not fully belong to Christ. That's a scary thought. So I just beg you to think about what does your life say about your faith? Are you taking action? Are you demonstrating love to others? It looks different for everybody. You can't look at what I'm doing and say, well, I'll never be able to do that, because God's not asking you to do that., he's asking you to do something different. I have a good friend who is a prayer warrior and she's amazing at it, and she too doubts whether her prayers are effective. Other people that I know are teachers and there are people who work with people who are sick and the elderly. I mean, it takes all those various different skills and abilities and talents to make our wonderful world what it is. So just encouragement today. To really think about where God's asking you to take your next step. Again, whether you're in retirement, you're thinking about retirement, or you're not even close to that, just think about what it is he's asking you right where you are today. If you are thinking about retirement or in it and not really sure that you're on the path he called you to, I would love to sit down and visit with you and have a short conversation. Again, it's gonna help me. To do better in the marketing. It's gonna help Andrew to help me market better. I'm not trying to make a sales pitch to you. I'm trying to find out what I might not know about somebody that's at that stage. Because remember, it's been almost 10 years since I took that step away from a career and into my second calling, so. I am just thank you for sticking with me today to rethink the whole idea about resolutions and whether or not God is calling you into something deeper than those surface things that we can do that might really be distracting us from our true calling in life. Thank you so much for stopping by today. If you are interested in having that conversation, you email me at vona@vonajohnson.com. Remember, VONA is VONA, only one N or you can DM me on LinkedIn or, or Facebook or wherever you know how to get ahold of me. We'll figure it out. But anyway, I would love to have that short conversation with you. Let me help you as you help me, and together we can walk this journey of fulfilling our second calling. God bless you. I pray that as you walk in or through your courageous retirement, that you will always, always engage your faith, finish well and live your more. God bless.