Create Healthy Habits

“Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit. You are what you repeatedly do.”
—Shaquille ONeal

Many very talented people got to be that way with hard work and lots of practice. Ask anyone who teaches a musical instrument about learning and they will tell you that the most important thing is to practice. Some of the greatest talents in the world, including those who invented things we take for granted, spent abundant time and repeated tries at becoming the best or finally inventing that thing they sought after.

We don’t become great at anything if we don’t spend time with it. We also don’t have good relationships with our families, friends, or partners if we don’t nurture those relationships.

Becoming what we want to become doesn’t just happen to us; we create it by making it a habit. Those of us who work out regularly know the importance of the routine and we don’t like to skip working out on our scheduled days because it’s easy to skip again if we skip once. Making something a habit causes us to be able to continue to do it, even when we’d rather do a hundred other things.

Being a kind and gentle person can be attained with practice. Learning patience may be achieved when we repeatedly work at being patient when confronted with certain situations. Being punctual rather than late all the time can become a good habit to have. Eating right and skipping certain foods or bad eating habits can become routine.

It’s all about doing the things that get us where we want to be. If we want to lose weight, we have to do certain things to attain that. Maybe we want to stop having bad relationships and we need to break our old patterns and form new ones; this takes practice.

Habits can be healthy or unhealthy. It’s better to repeatedly do the healthy things in life than those that are bad for us. Once we replace the bad patterns with good ones we find we don’t have much time for the bad.

Whatever you do you become; make your rituals things that help rather than hurt.

Positive Self-Talk

“If you had a friend who talked to you like you sometimes talk to yourself, would you continue to hang around with that person?”
—Rob Bremer

Most of us have likely battled with our self-worth over the course of our lives. And we are usually very hard on ourselves when it comes to our past mistakes or current standing in life. Some of us may have things we’ve done that we cannot forgive ourselves for, or maybe we struggled with those things for years before we did let go. We also have daily smaller things that we deal harshly with ourselves over. During times of self-doubt and struggle we usually talk to ourselves unlike we would to any other person and it’s not pretty.

What we believe about ourselves we become. What we believe about who we are guides what we say to ourselves. Finding positive things about who and what we are and praising ourselves can only be a good thing. We don’t do it out of conceit, we do it until we believe it; we do it until we can love ourselves.

Sometimes we have to fake it; we may even have to struggle in the beginning to find something positive to praise ourselves for. At the start of our journey it’s difficult. But it becomes easier as we find one thing then another and another. We build our self-worth brick by brick, thing by thing, especially at those times when we have hit bottom and we are climbing out until one day we discover that we not only dug our way out, we are standing tall and strong. It’s well worth the work once we find enough about ourselves that we are truly able to love who we are.

The gifts that follow our discovery are immeasurable. Because we love ourselves we are able to love others and that love flows back to us. Life becomes a new creature with the peace and joy we have never known. And even when pain and difficulties are upon us, we have wisdom and serenity from our newfound realization. And it started with simply talking ourselves up instead of down.

We become what we think we are.

Expecting Perfection

“People throw away what they could have by insisting on perfection, which they cannot have, and looking for it where they will never find it.”
—Edith Schaeffer

Amazingly enough as much as we know there is nothing perfect in this world, we often go about our lives as if things should be perfect. We tend to find the imperfect things in jobs, relationships, families, ourselves and in other situations, and overlook the wonderful things that are available in these areas.

By thinking of the imperfections we often “throw out the baby with the bathwater.” We have a problem at work and think we must have a new job. Or we encounter some obstacles in a relationship and our first response is to get out of it. Perhaps we make a mistake and think that it would be better just to give up on ever trying.

But life is full of imperfection. And loving life and those we share this journey with is what’s important. Always seeking perfection will result in being miserable. Seeking love, laughter, joy, and opportunities to share those gifts we do possess are what makes life happy.

We don’t have to expect ourselves to be perfect any more than we expect that from others. If we can learn to laugh at our imperfections we will also stop expecting others to fit into some pre-determined mold that we have designed in our heads for how they should be. When we do this and allow freedom within us and also for those in our lives, we find reality which itself contains all the joy and love we need.

Always looking for what’s wrong will help us find just that, but learning to appreciate the differences in people, places, and things from what we perceive to be perfection, will help us to embrace life instead of finding fault with it. When we want sunshine and it rains, we adjust our plans; when someone can’t love us as we expect, we love them anyway and seek what we need elsewhere; when we encounter difficulties we use them as tools to grow.

Remember that just as we can’t expect ourselves to be perfect, we cannot expect others to be that way either. Live and let live ought to be our motto when dealing with those we encounter on the path of our journey.

Expecting perfection only brings disappointment.

Feeling Pain

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”
—William Faulkner

None of us wants to feel emotional pain. We don’t set out to find it, we avoid it when possible. And we hope to never experience it when we care about someone.

However, pain comes with truly living. We can avoid most pain if we avoid relationships, but not being involved with people, being reclusive, only means that we aren’t truly living our lives. It would be easier to just never experience pain, but without going to places where that occurs also means that we won’t experience joy either.

Living a full life involves the whole gamut of emotions, the good with the bad, joy with pain. We limit ourselves when we don’t allow ourselves to take the risk of love because we fear the pain that so often comes with that.

We can look back over our lives and examine the times when we were hurt. We may have thought at that time that we would never live through it because we hurt so deeply. We may have planned to never allow ourselves to be exposed to pain like that again. Yet we find that we are drawn to love even with the knowledge that we can end up in pain.

It’s certainly a scary process. It’s one in which we would rather shut down and wall ourselves off many times rather than experience the vulnerability that living life fully offers us. And we never know how others will react when we become involved with them. They may shut down and shut us out with no warning signs leaving us to feel the sting of pain abruptly and with full force.

But to live in fear of the pain that can come with loving may also lead us directly to the pain. Our fears can become reality simply by letting them consume us until we shut the other person out. It might be simpler to remember that we will live even if we get hurt and stop expecting the pain to arrive, since we may think our way into it.

Living life fully brings pain and joy.

Knowing the Answers

“If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.”
—Win Borden

Everything we do in life involves a certain amount of risk and it’s very rare, if it happens at all, that we know for certain that what we are doing is the right thing.

Starting or leaving a job; beginning a love relationship or ending one; making a move across the country or staying in our comfort zone at home; or going back to college are just a few of the big decisions we face in life, but there are numerous smaller choices we must make every day.

What happens if we make a decision and it turns out to be “wrong” for us? Most likely we have learned something from it. And if we were careful in moving forward with our decision it’s unlikely that it’s going to be impossible to recover from it. What’s important is not moving into any big change too suddenly unless it’s thrust upon us by nature. We must take our time and go through each process with as much knowledge as we can ascertain.

Maybe the event in question is something that God put before us because it’s time for us to move on from where we are. Perhaps we can’t really grow anymore where we are and need to broaden our horizons. And it might be the lesson we learn is to be happy and content with what we’ve got by staying right in or where we are at the moment because sometimes we just don’t realize how good what we have is.

We just don’t always know what the right choice is. What we need to do is pray about the big decisions, the small ones, and every one in between. Our answers will come as they should if we allow ourselves to hear them. The answer is probably already there just waiting on us to find it.

To grow is to continue to step out of our comfort zones.

Controlling Outcomes

“I do believe that when we face challenges in life that are far beyond our own power, it’s an opportunity to build on our faith, inner strength, and courage. I’ve learned that how we face challenges plays a big role in the outcome of them.”
—Sasha Azevedo

Rarely in the journey of life do we absolutely peg the outcome of particular paths and challenges that we face. We may desire things to turn out in one way and have the opposite happen, or things might turn out much better than we could have ever imagined they would.

Often when we are in the midst of something big in our lives we start projecting; thinking thoughts about the future. “What ifs” can drive us crazy if we allow ourselves to get out into tomorrow. We can start obsessing about the craziest things that might happen.

What does happen when we so desperately want to know the outcome is that we miss the journey. And as is often said, “It’s the journey, not the destination.” There’s a whole lot of life going on right this moment that we are absolutely going to miss out on if we are fretting about tomorrow, next week, next year, or our whole lifetime.

Turning the outcome of a thing over to our Higher Power helps us to let go of it and enjoy the moment. We really can’t control outcomes much. We can put our energy into something and give it our all, but we don’t have the final say in what will happen.

It’s very easy to get caught up in the “what ifs” and lose sight of the now. Usually the “what ifs” are not very pleasant because they are fear-based feelings. Turning the outcome over to God gives us more ability to let the “what ifs” go and turns our thinking into positive thoughts instead. And who knows, positive thinking might be better for the outcome than the negativity that comes with fearful “what ifs.”

Live the moment and leave the outcome to God.

Character Shows Itself

“Every man has three characters: that which he shows, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.”
—Alphonse Karr

No matter how much we might try to convince others of how good of a person we are, it’s our actions that speak most loudly. If we do what we say we will do we become trusted by others. If we fail to do what we say often enough we show that we have no character and nobody believes us.

There are times when we have legitimate reasons for not doing a thing, but when it’s a habit to not do what we say we will do, that’s when it becomes a problem because nobody believes us.

Are we kind to those who are unkind to us? Do we talk badly about others when they aren’t around just to put them down and build ourselves up? There’s a difference in venting and getting our feelings out and just downright gossip.

The words we speak about others and the things we do in our lives are huge character giveaways. It really doesn’t do any good to gossip about what we see as defects of character in others. Those are their issues. Our issues are to be true to our word and to be positive in our actions.

Character requires that we keep our word; that we say what we mean, and mean what we say. Those with great character are honest and trustworthy. When someone asks for their help, they know that they can count on that person to do what they promise.

Those who don’t have much character may think they are fooling others, and they may for a while, but it doesn’t take long for a person’s true character to show.

Examining our character from time to time is a good idea to keep us on track.

Living Life Fully Today

“Look to this day for it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course lie all the realities and truths of existence; the bliss of growth, the splendor of action, the glory of power. For yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, but today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.”
—Ancient Sanskrit Proverb

So much of our lives are spent looking into the future or past that we forget to live this day to its fullest. Each day offers us many opportunities that can be easily missed out on if we are too focused either on the past or the future.

Some days are meant for great things; a scurry of activities, large spurts of growth, a new risk taken, or some other great feat. Other days are simply days where we are just being who we are, where life is moving along and we are giving what we have to give, accepting what is presented to us, simply fulfilling that place in the world where we are supposed to be for that day or moment.

We all have times where we suffer great pain and on the flip side of that hopefully we all experience times of joy. The range of all of these emotions is what makes us human. If we look at each day as we are in it, we can see the beauty of our own growth or that of someone we love; we can experience what comes along in our lives as it happens and not miss anything.

But when we live in the past or future we aren’t really living because the moment is where we are and we must be present in that moment to really get it.

Often we want to know the answer to something, especially how a situation will turn out, but we can only know what we know in the day we currently occupy. It’s too easy to lose out on this day when we are focused on any other time. The past cannot be changed and the future is yet to occur, but today is where we are and where we ought to be present.

Look to this day for it is life, the very life of life.

Open Up and Feel

“Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.”
—Mother Teresa

For a lot of people being open and honest with others is one of the most difficult things imaginable because of the vulnerability. Some of us were told that who we were was not OK and we believed it. And others may have done things that were not OK and are ashamed or full of guilt.

But we are past those things now. To be whole we must be able to open up and let who we are shine to the world. Whatever pain we have buried deep inside needs to be felt and released. We do this by being honest with ourselves first and sometimes we need to talk about it with someone else.

During this time of healing we may feel extremely vulnerable, but once we move through our issues that cause us pain, we will begin to feel stronger and will come out of it with growth and a renewed spirit. As long as we hold onto the garbage we will continue to feel sick and lonely.

We each have our own gifts and talents that were given to us in order for us to use them. We can’t offer our talents if we keep ourselves hidden behind an imaginary shield because we have shame or guilt.

If we can’t be honest and open with friends or family we may need to seek help from a therapist or member of the clergy, or we may work through these issues within a Twelve Step program. The important thing is that we work through the issues so that we can live our lives to the fullest.

Most of us are truly capable of so much more than we know. Those of us who have been honest and open and have grown through our issues are testaments to the before and after lives of those who were suffering and now feel whole. We aren’t without problems or pain, but we have become stronger and better able to cope with things as they come our way. And we don’t have all of the baggage that we had before either.

Open your heart to healing and you will become whole.

Persevering Through Trials

“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise”
—Oscar Wilde

Trials and suffering are often the way we learn and grow. Sometimes when something is really difficult and we seem to be trying to swim against the tide it probably means that we aren’t supposed to have that thing. Trials and suffering is not the same thing as hard work.

Getting a college degree or beyond is difficult at times during the process, but we don’t give up over that type of difficulty. The trials and suffering that may be telling us to give up and let go are of a different sort. They probably involve people and situations out of our control and may be things that we will never be able to conquer. And maybe that’s because we never were supposed to.

And if the trial isn’t teaching us to let go of whatever it is, then there’s some other lesson in it. The Big Book of AA teaches that nothing happens by mistake, and if we believe that then we get in the midst of trials and tribulations for a reason. Sometimes the lessons from things are our lessons and sometimes we are the teacher.

If we find ourselves in what seems to be a losing battle with a person or situation, we can take some time to really examine what is happening and try our best to determine if it’s time to let go or fight harder for whatever it is.

Seeing trials as opportunities helps us move past the pain involved.