More Holiness Give Me: a project for the year

So this past sunday during the sacrament I was reading the words to More Holiness Give Me and realized that there are 24 'more' phrases which means that if I were to focus on living and learning more about two of those qualities each month, I'd get through the whole hymn in one year.  I've always loved this hymn and wanted to adopt it as a sort of life motto, and now I have a practical way for actually working on that.  So, as this idea came to me mid-february, I'll report on January's learnings (which conveniently fit in with the more's of the first line even though this project hadn't even been conceived at that point):

January: More holiness give me, more strivings within

Thankfully new year's resolutions fit in perfectly with 'more strivings within'.  This was the first year I can recall where I set my ridiculously long list of resolutions for myself but was TRULY OKAY inside with the fact that I WOULD/WILL fall short of my goals and that's okay because that's what it takes to make change.  Over the years I've had to fight my perfectionism and have learned a lot about what progress and perfection really mean and how the process of making and attaining goals really works.  You shoot for the moon and still rejoice when you fall among the stars (or regrettably sometimes fall all the way back to earth which is often the case in my life) and then you pick yourself up, pat yourself on the back for the progress you made, and try again.

One of my goals was to read the BoM through every month with a different topic to focus on.  This roughly equates to 17 pages a day which seemed reasonable and my topic for January was change (how to make changes that last, changing my nature/heart, etc).  This goal was inspired by my brother in his missionary zeal and was most definitely shooting for the moon if not beyond as I've always struggled keeping regular, daily habits (especially scriptures.  Feast or famine is often the case in my life with this, or cleaning my apartment hehe...but I digress).  Anyway, long story short: I didn't do it.  BUT, I pushed myself well into Alma reading straight through and really studied my scriptures (versus simply reading) on a regular basis more than I have in a long while.  And it was great.  I felt a difference in my life and even though I fell short of my goal, it felt good to have made that progress and I'm looking forward to trying again.  My reading in January definitely did not make me a completely 'holy person', but it definitely added more holiness to my life and that's what this project is all about.  As for the strivings within, I've spent a lot of time thinking about who I want to be, what I want to be doing with my time, etc. and I've pushed myself to start a lot of 'firsts' already this year (which may have to be another post so this one doesn't get too ridiculously long).  It's been a great year so far and I'm looking forward to seeing where this 'project' takes me over the course of 2013.