New Year, New You? 

Not So Fast!

It's the start of a new year!

Everything seems so promising and hopeful, doesn't it? This is the time of year for renewed hope. We write down our resolutions and craft our vision boards with glee. "This year, I'm going to be richer, kinder, healthier, better!"

And then at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day, we just magically transform into the people we want to be, right?

You and I wish it were that simple. We all know that just because the year has changed doesn't mean that we too change. However, just because we don't automatically change doesn't mean we can't change. That is what I want to discuss with you today!

Real change—true transformation—is possible! It just takes a single decision to commit to change and a willingness to work smart to create the change we want to see.

We are each the heroes and heroines of our own life stories, right?

Then let's turn the page, start a new chapter, and go on a new transformative adventure! You can make 2026 a wonderful year and so can I. Let's take that challenge together!

What I'm Calling You To Do

I am calling you into an adventure with me this year. I want you to be a person truly transformed—someone who is far stronger and far harder to wreck when life circumstances come crashing down than you are now. I am calling you into a season where you experience the strength that true love, hope, joy, and peace provides and embody it for others. I’m not just praying miracles for you, I’m praying that you are the miracles for others!

I believe that you can achieve your own journey of true productive fruitfulness, and I want to help you do it this year.

How I Will Help

Here's the thing... as I've experienced, transformation can happen overnight, but true transformation usually doesn't.

True transformation usually happens in small steps walked in the right direction with the right cadence. True transformation is what is produced through the practical application of wisdom in a way that helps us adapt to our circumstances with strength and grace.

We just finished an Advent series in December in which I took you through the biblical ideas of true love, joy, hope, and peace. I would like to delve into that wisdom as a foundation for what we do here in this newsletter community this year because I know how well it works to transform lives—including mine. I believe that this is the best way I can help you.

This year, instead of the newsletter focusing on random topics and stories like it did for much of last year, I want the newsletter to take us all on a step-by-step journey of true transformation. Each newsletter will be a step that builds on top of the wisdom of the last. In this way, I believe all of us can take steady steps forward together.

My Commitment To Your Steady Steps

As I've said, each week (usually on Friday), I will publish a newsletter to encourage and help you in your journey through your next heroic steps.

But there is more!

I told you in November that I had a surprise coming for you. It's finally here!

My surprise: a Daily Devotional!

Every day for the next year, I will post a daily devotional on my social media channels. This devotional will be built a different way. I'll include a quote from one of my books dealing with the daily topic. Then I'll give a short discussion on the wisdom associated with the quote and finish with a challenge question and biblical reference for further action. In this way, I hope to help shift your perspective so that you find the strength to meet the challenges of each day. 

Daily and weekly content: this is my commitment to you because I believe in you that much!

What Real Transformation Looks Like

Let me be really, really honest here...

If you are going to make a change this year, you must decide here and now to commit to making that change. Transformation does not happen without work. You have to commit. You have to accept the gift and commit to taking the journey.

This is your moment of decision, and no matter which decision you make, you will never be the same.

If you make the decision to change—to step out into the unknown with a little bit of faith and trust—you will already have more courage than you had a moment ago. That courage will be enough to propel you toward your first step of transformation.

However, if you refuse the call, you will also be irrevocably changed because your heart will be grieved with the decision to stay stuck in the comfort of the status quo and your mind will always wonder what could have been.

A word of caution: those who won't change don't stay the same... they get worse.

The Next Step

Here is our first devotional:

Now then... I have some homework for you today, and this homework is going to involve you honestly assessing yourself and writing it down.

I want you to keep a journal. Grab a notebook and write down your thoughts for the day based on the devotional, then take action on it. Tomorrow, do the same thing.

• At the end of 30 days, you'll start seeing momentum.
• At the end of 60 days, you'll start seeing new habits replace bad ones.
• At the end of 90 days, you'll start seeing real change.
• At the end of the year, you'll be transformed into a completely different person than you are today.

I'm not asking this arbitrarily, guys. I really want you to do this homework. Anything I ask you to do, you get to hold me accountable for because I have to do it first!

I'll greet you again in your email box on Friday, January 9, to discuss our first big step toward transformation.

Until then, take the small daily steps with me and watch what happens!

May we each rewrite our world for the better!

Love,
Alycia Christine