Habits - A Simply Healthy Life

“So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31, NLT)

I hope you’ve enjoyed walking through this week with me talking about so many areas of our lives in which we can prioritize health. You may be thinking, I do want to be healthier, but I don’t really know how. What we usually want is a magic pill. We want transformation to be quick, easy, and painless. Unfortunately, we all know this is not how the world works.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 says, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things . . . So I do not run aimlessly . . . But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”

This life we’re living takes discipline to live it well. We know we need a level of discipline to achieve our goals, but how can we be disciplined in so many areas at once?

The answer is: goals and habits. That’s how we can create change in our lives that sticks.

Scripture talks about how our character is often built in small, daily acts. It says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Little by little, we are being sanctified and becoming more like Christ. More often than not, those changes happen through the intentional habits we cultivate.

Let’s use a health coaching exercise to get started. When you’re deciding on which small step to take next to change your life, it actually first starts with some dreaming. Imagine you have a magic wand, and your life could look however you want it to. Try to dream in as much detail as possible. Now take inventory of your life, and see where the differences are between your current life and your dream life. While it would be lovely to completely overhaul your life overnight, it typically is a slow process while you focus on one new goal or habit at a time. But how do you choose when you want to do so much? That is up to you! But typically, people choose an area to focus on first that feels either most pressing or most exciting.

Once you’ve decided where you want to focus, you can create your very first SMART goal. SMART stands for: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Your first goal could be something you want to prioritize for a week or a month. Oftentimes, your goals end up becoming habits, or things you do that have become automatic. This is a great step in the process because habits take significantly less brainpower to accomplish by design. Remember, investing in you is always worth it. And when you change your choices, you change your life.