Don’t Make a New Year’s Resolution to Quit Porn in 2023. Do this Instead.

If you want to conquer pornography in 2023, don’t rely on a resolution that you make at the start of the New Year. New Year’s resolutions don’t work. Studies show that the success rate among those who make New Year’s resolutions is low. For one thing, many resolutions are too lofty and unrealistic, leading to disappointment and frustration. But the main reason to avoid making a New Year’s resolution to quit porn is that old sins are difficult to break. Resolutions focus on short-term goals, rather than long-term success. Here’s what to do instead.

1. Install porn-blocking software on all of your electronic devices, including your desktop computer, laptop, tablet and phone, at home and at work and everywhere else.
2. Install accountability software on all of your electronic devices. This software emails screenshots of your online activity to your accountability partner.
3. Get an accountability partner. Find a brother in the Lord whom you trust, ideally someone who has victory in this area, then check in daily or weekly to discuss your success on your journey to sexual purity.
4. Devote the first hour of each day to the Lord. Before you check your phone or do anything else, open your Bible, and let God talk to you. Read at least one chapter daily, working your way through one book of the Bible at a time. Then close your eyes, and talk to God.
5. Keep a daily devotional journal. After your daily Bible reading, pick out one verse, or one thought, that impressed you in the passage. Write your thoughts in your journal. Look for a promise to claim, a sin to avoid, an example to follow, or a command to obey.
6. Throw away your smartphone. If you know that the primary way you fall to sexual temptation is your phone, replace it with a dumbphone that offers neither direct nor indirect access to the internet, and is useful for talking and texting only.
7. Memorize 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
8. Keep short accounts with God. If you sin sexually, confess your sin immediately. Ask God to forgive you based on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Don’t carry your regret and shame forward into tomorrow. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).