A New Attitude for a New Year

It’s not a crisis, it’s an opportunity. A friend shared those words with me when discussing what many experience as a mid-life crisis. “It’s not a crisis, it’s an opportunity,” they said. Sometimes the difference between the two is that simple, isn’t it? It’s a change of attitude that changes a lot. It starts by changing us.

What if going into this new year you quit seeing your crises as opportunities? Job challenges? What if they were job opportunities? Relational challenges? What if they are excuses to delve deeper? What if you were to see behind every challenge an opportunity for a new expressions of authenticity and kindness?

This sort of attitude can well be described as creativity. The more I’ve thought about creativity over the years, and trust me, it’s something I think about a lot, the more I’ve come to see it as basically problem solving. But creativity really is more than that in that it embraces problems as opportunities. Creativity is problem solving with a certain kind of attitude. More than problem solving, it’s about managing opportunities — or better — maximizing them.

How are you going to be creative with your new opportunities in this new year? Let’s start by opening ourselves to the possibility that our biggest opportunities will likely come to us disguised as challenges. The difference will be our attitude about them and how we face them. The change will be in our mindset which in turn will govern how we handle them.

Let’s get ready for all the opportunities that are going to come our way in 2025. And let’s remember we won’t face any of them alone.

“For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:13, NLT).