building new habits

yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine about good habits. I shared with him the new good habits I have been trying to make and what habits I wanted to start in the future, and he asked me how I start a good habit - what reminds me to do it until it actually becomes a habit.

one great way to help kickstart a new habit is to attach it to an already established one. like when I decided I was always going to wash dishes in the morning if there any in the sink from the night before (yes.... I do let them sit overnight sometimes!). I was already making morning smoothies for us and then to wash the blender you just fill it halfway with hot water and a drop of soap and then run it for about 30 seconds. well I was just dumping the water out when I was done and rinsing and it and on I went. then one day I thought - wait a second. I'm pouring perfectly good soapy water down the drain when I can be using it for these cups sitting here. so I attached a new habit to an existing one and I've been doing it ever since.

another great way to help start a habit that is hard to start is to do it incrementally. I've always wanted to be that person who could get up early in the morning and workout. always! and I've tried and I've tried and I've tried... and every time I have failed. because every time it was a chore and the last thing I wanted to do was a) get up early and b) workout. but I didn't see them as separate. it was a goal I was trying to achieve all at once: get-up-early-and-workout.

but then finally I started getting up at 5:30 as its own habit. I wanted more time for myself - to do Bible study, to read, to make smoothies. so I started that habit as a separate goal to accomplish. and I began to enjoy it - I was getting in some much needed me time. and I was reading the Bible and spending time in prayer. and I got used to it and just did it every morning - joyfully!

then AFTER I was established in an early morning routine and liking it, THEN I added the workout component. and it wasn't just any workout, it was running. something I learned I actually enjoy through working out at crossfit. by separating it into two separate entities it made it easier to make the leap. and I find myself on the nights before my running that I'm excited about getting up the next day!

another thing that helped was seeing the habit as a means to an end. instead of looking at it as the task of running, I was looking at it as the accomplishment of building body endurance. I started a boxing class with my brother - which I LOVE, but I couldn't (still can't) get through a whole session without stopping. so I wanted to build up my body endurance in order to last through a whole class without stopping. my boxing class is tue and thu. so I wanted to do something i could do on mon, wed and fri.

I just happened upon a couch-to-5k program that has you running/walking three days a week, building you up to where you are running more than walking and then eventually running a whole 5k. I thought - how perfect! I enjoy running and want to get better at it, and I can use that to help build endurance for my class. it became my means to an end. and focusing on the result rather than the task has completely changed how I see it and how I feel about it. mindset is a powerful thing.

so... tips to building better habits:
1. attach it to a preexisting habit
2. break it into several new habits and conquer them one at a time
3. develop a results-based mindset

and then don't give up.
4. clear your mind of can't

separate things

one of my girlfriends shared yesterday that her son was very defensive of his friend's church. whenever the subject came up he would defend rather than discuss. and i asked her if she thought he was defending his friend, that maybe he hadn't yet separated his friend from his friend's beliefs.

it got me to thinking about how we see things so simply as children: all the things about my friend combine to make up "my friend." so loving my friend means i love all things about my friend.

but as we mature we can begin to see the complexity of things, the varying facets of them: i can dislike my friend's beliefs and still love my friend. we learn that we can love our friend in spite of what we don't love about them.

there is a separation of things, and that's ok.

do marriages break up because we haven't figured that out yet?

 

i remember in middle school having the hugest crush on my friend's brother because he wanted to be a pastor. i admired and respected him and his passion and that he already knew God's call on his life. but i confused that admiration and respect for a crush. i implied romantical (yes, i said romantical) feelings for him even though i really just wanted to emulate the way he was living his life.

i hadn't learned yet that those were separate things.

respect and admiration for someone doesn't equate to romantical feelings. it can lead to them, but it doesn't have to. they are separate things.

i wonder if that is why many guys and girls have trouble being 'just friends.'

 

'simplify' has been a heart's cry for me since my first visit to uganda. we just own so much stuff! and i wanted to get rid of what i didn't use, didn't need, didn't want...! so with that simplify state of mind, i caught myself one day coveting ______ (fill in the blank with any outfit, kitchen appliance, media device...), and it dawned on me that i didn't have to own something in order to appreciate it - that those are separate things.

i could appreciate the style, design and whimsy of the new volkswagen beetle (convertible, in sunset orange) without having to have it parked in my own garage and having the car payments to go with it.

it was liberating!

 

makes me wonder if there are other 'separate things' i am not seeing because i'm just so used to lumping them all together and expecting a singular result or response. what else have i accepted as the way it is just because that's the way i've thought it's always been?

it makes me want to open my eyes and think and examen.

what else are separate things?

The girl in the turquoise dress

two years ago i visited uganda for the first time. we visited IDP camps in and around gulu before settling in at the village of hope where we taught ESL, Bible stories and songs and got to know some of the most amazing kids ever.

at the camps the children would greet us and sing, perform a small dramatic piece or recite scripture. then our team would introduce ourselves, sing a few songs back for them and then, my favorite part, just get to know the kids while taking pictures or teaching them our songs.

it amazed me that these children, dirty and in ragged clothes, many of them without shoes, could be so joyful, praising and worshipping and genuinely happy to see us. i know many children at home who are bitter complainers, who aren't joyful even in their [embarrassing] abundance. and so this was a shock. and a delight. it was bittersweet.

at the very last camp we visited i spotted her - the girl in the turquoise dress. her smile and sweet shyness drew me in. i don't know what it was about her that captured me above all the rest of the children i had met that day, but i took the image of that girl back to gulu with me. while the rest of my mission team played bananagrams, i sequestered myself in my room to journal about what i had seen, how i was moved, and to of course bawl my eyes out in private.

a little of what i wrote that day...

that girl. the one in the turquoise dress. she seized me. i am drawn into her and want for her - with a kind of desperation - her joy, her childhood, her success. may she know she is special and loved and unique and dear. may she look to You and say, You bless me with your love, You are the giver of life and all things good. it is You and You alone that sends kindness into the world. may she be captured by You, hope-fully devoted to you! give her You, Lord, all of You.

may the VOH kids recognize Your love in our smiles, Your sacrifice and strength in our presence and embrace. may they see You in their presence through our goofy attempts to care and relate. may You and You alone receive the glory, the fame, the accolades.

just a few weeks ago we returned from another amazing trip to the village of hope in uganda. and we took a day to visit what is left of the camps in gulu, to see the children who are still there.

and i saw her.

the girl.

she wasn't wearing a turquoise dress anymore. if she didn't outgrow it, it must have fallen apart. but what she wore was still ragged and she was still dirty, and many of the children still weren't wearing shoes.

she seized me. again.

two years. it had been two years since i'd seen her last and she was still there. TWO YEARS - that i know of! possibly more! every day for the past two years she has woken up in the camps that her acholi people had no choice but to move to, and now they are being forced out of. they are being asked to leave and at some point an eviction notice (aka a burned down hut) will turn them out onto the streets or into the bush.

every day she risks eviction. every day she fetches water and cooks her meals. she may even be the head of her family, bearing the burden of caring for younger siblings, it wouldn't be unusual. every day she walks to school, perhaps with a fear that she will be jumped or raped. every day. for two years.

what must that feel like to a child? because even as an adult it is hard to imagine.

the sun had set while we were at that camp, so we piled into the van and headed back to the village. it was a long ride in the dark - darkness i was thankful for as it concealed the tears of grief from the rest of my team. i couldn't even speak. my heart was surely breaking.

"what's it going to take?" i kept asking. what will it take to get those kids out of the camps and into the village where they will be safe from all of that? where they will have a house mom and aunties to look after them? where they will no longer have to be concerned about their own safety and they can finally be a kid, because that is what they are - kids! children! babies!

so what's it going to take?

the village of hope has already built homes and moved in almost 200 children. and they have two more homes funded, but they cannot move more children in until they have the money to provide for them.

i believe child sponsorship is key to getting those kids out of the camps and into the village. and voh already has a program in place for this - they just need people to give, they need people to sponsor a child.

what's it going to take? something that we already have - we just choose to spend it at kohl's or starbucks or 7-eleven. these kids wake up in the camps every day and we shake our heads and say *tsk tsk, how tragic* and take another drink of our slurpee.

i just can't live an unaffected life anymore. and i hope you can't either.

sponsor a child.

give them something we don't even have to think about in our own lives: a safe, loving home, food, clothing, education and medical attention.

what's it going to take?

maybe it's going to take you.

sponsor a child

 

by the way, the girl? the one in the turquoise dress? ...her name is susan.