Habits
Habits
When my schedule got upended 7 months ago, I started realizing there was a drastic difference between what my habits WERE and what I WANTED them to be. Ooof. Ever been there?
You may think that you don’t have routines…but you do. We ALL have habitual routines - either by design or by default. What are the patterns I fall into? Those are my habits.
Choose Life-Giving Habits
Yeah, but how? I don’t even know where to start!
Here’s a question to ask yourself…
WHO is it that I want to be?
But really…consider WHO you want to be and let that inform what you DO about it. So go ahead…write it down. What kind of person do you want to be? And you don’t have to go all huge vision board on this. You can narrow it down to a specific area of life. And then consider these two questions…
When have I felt at my best? What were the habits and patterns I had going on then?
What habits and patterns do I currently have that are destructive or at least sideline me some?
So here you go…by way of specific personal life example…
I’ve had life punch me a few times in the past year. In the middle of it, I got kinda bummed out. Like REALLY bummed out. Understandable. And Fair. In the middle of it all, I felt my normal joyful self slipping away.
WHO: Who do I want to be? I want to be a fun-loving woman who is a joy to live with and be friends with.
ASSESS: I had defaulted to a habit of complaining. It wasn’t always outloud (for which my husband is grateful), though it sometimes was (bless his heart). The thought patterns led to a scarcity mindset and honestly a victim mentality in a way. In the past, I learned that a habitual discipline of gratitude had gotten me out of dark places before.
What am I going to do about it?
Something had to change.
For change to actually happen…
I have to STOP destructive habits and START productive ones.
I need to eliminate triggers to destructive habits.
I need to make productive habits EASY to accomplish…start small enough that I am 8/10 confident that I can do this!
And it’s probably easiest if I only work on one thing at a time. Once it becomes a new habit, I can move to the next thing.
DO: So I told my husband that it wasn’t his job to remind me, but that at bedtime we needed say what we were thankful for that day and why. I wanted him to be a part of this because it’s always easier with someone else (yay for accountability). I chose bedtime because it is already a natural rhythm in life since we go to bed at the same time as each other. Building the disciple of gratitude and joy would come from the habit of rehearsing thankfulness and also stating why we were thankful. (If you haven’t added that little piece of saying “why”, try it and learn how much of a game changer it is!)
What habits do you have- by default or design?
How can you create habitual routines upon waking and at bedtime to bookend your day well?
A couple habits I'm still working on are (in case this helps you):
gratitude...naming what I'm thankful for outloud and WHY at the end of each day
not scrolling through my phone in the morning until after I've got my mind right with God
getting up from my work and kissing Josh when he gets home from work...like a REAL one
moving my body somehow 5 of 7 days a week