A few years ago, I followed an online influencer for a while who commonly told her followers:
“You are in charge of your life.”
Over and over, she talked about how we choose how we respond to our circumstances. That we have control over our futures. That life doesn’t have to “happen to us,” in fact, she would ask “what if life is happening for us?”
For that season, she inspired and encouraged me to take some steps I needed to take in my life. Only, it wasn’t long before I realized that her words were only half the story. They were only half the equation that ends up equalling a life. As much agency we do have over our lives,
There is so much we can’t control.
(An obvious statement as we’re in the midst of a pandemic.)
As encouraging as self help gurus are, the truth is there is more to how we respond to the difficult things in our lives than simply choice. In fact for many of us, our choices aren’t that simple. All of us have pasts that are currently dictating how we view both ourselves and the world. We have unhealed wounds that continue to make us doubt ourselves and our ability to overcome the obstacles in front of us. We all know there are things we should be doing or changing about our lives, only
We’re deeply lacking motivation right now.
We’re still grieving what we’ve lost this year. We’re longing for real, mask-less interactions with people. And many of us feel so stuck in survival mode that it feels almost impossible to begin to form or rebuild the healthy routines we need. The habits that will better carry us through this difficult season.
As much as we have pressing in on us, we can still hope for change.
Today however, I want to share that as much as we have pressing in on us, we can still hope for change. There is still motivation to be found, as well as doable tweaks to our current, every day routines—that can bring us more energy and life each day. Only, we have to start small.
Our hope of change doesn’t lie in someone waving a magic wand over our lives. It doesn’t even rest in a vaccine (whenever it gets here). Rather it lies in each of us taking small steps each day toward what we know to be good and true. To choose health at times over comfort. To choose love and courage, over hate and fear.
Our hope of change doesn’t lie in someone waving a magic wand over our lives.
If your routine has been off for months now, and you’re struggling to find motivation, here are three tiny steps to help us free ourselves from the 2020 rut we’re in. If possible, grab a notebook, open your calendar app, and spend twenty minutes taking your first steps toward change.
Name What Matters
Who do you love? What do you love? What do you long to do? What are the dreams you had that 2020 crushed? Rather than look at these things as losses, it is time to discover what is still living. To pray and ask—what can be resurrected? This is where we find our motivation. Not in what fruit we can harvest today, but rather in what seeds can we plant for tomorrow.
Name What is Off
Step back and look at your schedule for the upcoming week. Where does your routine feel muddled? Where does it feel like too much? What is missing from your daily life? What do you need to let go or say no to, to free you to be more in line with what matters most to you?
Schedule Small Steps
Here is where this gets real. Here is where we decide to take steps that are so small they may seem insignificant, but ones I promise will propel us toward the bigger changes we hope to make in the future. Ask, what can you add to your schedule each day this week that will give to your life instead of take away? It could be ten minutes to pray, a fifteen minute walk, or getting to bed thirty minutes earlier. What moments of connection can you schedule with loved ones? I’ve been making more time to FaceTime my family, and it’s made a huge difference in this social distancing time. Pick one or three ways you can take a small step this week to build in what you’re missing in your life right now.
Stay tuned for more on this, but in the meantime—
What is holding you back from taking these small steps?
Where are you feeling discouraged on your journey?
Who do you need to talk to about these things?
Feeling a little adrift in this strange, new normal of being at home? Sign up for my email list and get your free copy of my Social Distancing Survival Guide: Everyday Routines. Sign up here.
