Reality Check: Are You Doing What You Said You'd Do?

• • “What did you do this past week to apply what we talked about last time?” As soon as my Bible study friend asked me this question on one of our last FaceTime chats, I felt like the guilty kid in class who always has good intentions but never actually finishes their homework. Because, while I always want to implement what I’m learning, I rarely actually do. We have a great discussion, I feel convicted and motivated, and then I promptly move on to the next thing and often don’t think about it again… until we meet the following week to move along through our study, and Karina holds me accountable. Can you relate? Do you have grand plans and hopes and then promptly fall back into old habits and forget to implement anything new? It’s far, far easier to talk about change than to put it into practice; yet, we don’t need to be victims to our own lack of implementation motivation. After chatting with Karina this past week, a couple of tangible solutions became clear, and I think these can apply to anything we’re trying to change or start in our lives:

1. Make it simple. Don’t try to reinvent your whole daily routine; just pick one thing at a time. If you try to change your wake-up time, start reading a book for ten minutes every day, do your chores on a better schedule, and pick up running… you’ll probably not succeed at any of those things. If you pick the one with the most immediate positive impact on your life in this season, take 4-6 weeks to adjust to it, and then start stacking another habit on top of it, you’ll likely be amazed at how much you can change.
2. Make it visible. If you want to start running in the morning, don’t keep your running shoes in the closet. If you want to start applying what you learn in Bible study, don’t write it in a notebook and immediately tuck it away on your bookshelf. Set a reminder on your phone, slap a sticky note on the fridge, or keep your planner on your kitchen table. If you want to make something happen, make it impossible to ignore. While we’re on the topic of personal aims and holding ourselves accountable, I’m sharing a template I’ve used the last several years for a mid-year check-in on my yearly reflection + vision (https://miriamrosah.substack.com/p/a-better-way-for-the-new-year-than) practice. Whether you follow a similar practice of setting aims and visions for the year, or you have resolutions or some type of goals, I think you’ll find these few simple questions are helpful in getting back on track or making necessary adjustments. 6-Month Check-InFirst, read over your vision for the year. Don’t judge yourself if you come across things you’ve failed to implement; just read over it and re-familiarize yourself with who you aimed to become by the end of the year. Then, journal or reflect on the following questions:
3. What have I done well so far? Note the areas you’ve succeeded so far in your initial aims. What’s been valuable about those changes (or continuations)?
4. What are the visions that are no longer realistic / no longer important to me? Sometimes the goals we set turn out to not make much sense as our lives change. If that’s the case for some of yours, you can simply disregard them and move on. Just be sure to be honest with yourself, and don’t throw something out just because it’s hard.
5. What are the gaps to fill: goals or aims I’ve set that I’ve not made enough progress towards? Again, don’t judge yourself. Take stock of the gaps and focus on what you can control: what’s ahead. How will you fill those gaps in the next six months? Do you need to change something in your daily routine or re-prioritize certain things? Yes, the year is half over, but also, the year is only half over! After Bible study this week, I dug out a little whiteboard I used to have up on the wall in my old apartment. Rather than letting myself have the same conversation week after week about how I failed to apply our study to my daily life, I’m putting up the whiteboard so I can write my main takeaway each week and have a visual reminder of what I’m working towards. I know I’ll fail to write it down some weeks, and even some weeks I write it down I will fail to do anything differently in my day-to-day life; but, all we can do is take the one next step towards who we’re aiming to be, right? We don’t have to do it all at once, and we don’t have to do it alone. Share Journal Prompt of the Week What goals or practices have you been aiming towards this year? Have you fallen off track? What can you do to make the goal or task simple and visible? P.S. Thank you for all the love on the audio version last time—based on the poll results, you’ll be seeing more of those down the line:) Leave a comment