The New Year is off and running. If you’re like a lot of people you had new habits and resolutions that you were wanting to do this year that may or may not be going so well. The good news I have for you is that it’s never too late to get started in making changes in your life and those changes don’t have to be life-altering to make a difference.

Let me give you a personal example.

Last year I decided I needed to lose weight and get in shape. I also thought that the best way for me to stay motivated to do that was to run a half-marathon. When I made this decision I was doing nothing athletic. The closest thing to a sport that I was doing was playing men’s slow-pitch softball, which is about as athletic as walking from the couch to the refridgerator to get piece of cake. Going from running 0 miles to 13.1 miles didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it took me five months of training to get there.

Not everyone will be able to run 13.1 miles, but you don’t have to do somthing that big to make a big differnce in your life. Another personal example is where I’ve chosen to park my Jeep when I get to the office. I decided last year that I should always park a little bit further from the entrance so that I walk just a little bit further every day. It’s not that much further, just 90 feet from where I would normally park. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but let’s add it up.

90 feet extra walked
x2 round-trip (180 feet total)
x3 leaving and coming back each day (540 feet)
x5 days a week (2700 feet OR half-mile)

Basically, I’m making myself walk an extra half mile every week simply by parking just a little bit further away from the entrance every day.

From a spiritual sense you can do the same thing. If you’ve wanted to read the Bible more, but you’re not reading it at all right now, don’t fool yourself by thinking you’ll read the Bible for an hour every day. Start with just 3 minutes. Then make it 5. Then before you know it you’ll be reading 15-20 minutes a day.

Make a change today, however small it might seem, and you’ll be amazed at how far you’ve gone when you look back later this year.