Our Purpose

Welcome to our Healthy Habits forum, sponsored by Relishing Motherhood. We are kicking off our New for 2009 Challenge on January 12th. Leave a comment to join us.

And special thanks to our contributing bloggers, whose profiles and links appear in the sidebar.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Goal Setting and Inner Strength

I'm sorry I forgot about posting last week! I got really sick again, and didn't post anywhere at all for quite a while.

I'm enjoying reading the other posts, and since I homeschool my children Michal's post last night was inspiring. I've been thinking a lot about Aubrey's post on having joy in the journey, and that led me to some thoughts of my own.

There's so much that requires our attention these days, that I don't know about you, but I feel drained well before the end of each day. I'm doing my best to simplify my life right now, but there are always things we have in our lives that our out of our control and can be a drain on our inner reserves. There are many things we can do to fill up our "gas tanks", so to speak, and some are more lasting than others.

It can take a lot of strength to haul out the exercise equipment or reach for the scriptures when we really would rather curl up in bed with a box of chocolate and a fluffy novel, but which one will help fill our tanks and give us more of that inner strength we so desperately need? Not that there's anything wrong with reading for just pure pleasure, or with chocolate for that matter! But for me, they alone don't build that inner contentedness that I need to handle the stresses of day-to-day life. Sometimes we have to push ourselves to get the reward, and then enjoy a bit of fluffy relaxation.

I have noticed a big difference now that reading my scriptures has become a habit. I find myself drawing a lot of comfort from the words. Every day is different, sometimes I just go through the motions and sometimes I really take a lot from what I've read. Still, it's great to feel the satisfaction of having accomplished at least one thing I've told myself I was going to, and that helps with developing that inner strength.

Have any of you felt these sort of changes in the past weeks? I'm so thankful for all of you and it really helps to know you are out there, striving for the same things. You all get extra brownie points! (Just don't eat too many of them! :D )

3 comments:

Michal said...

rebecca,
like you, some days i get more out of my exercise or scripture study than others. still, even on the days when i feel like i am just going through the motions, i am feeding my habit. other days i am energized by my exercise and enriched and enlightened by my scripture study. and without developing these habits, those days would be fewer and farther between. i'm so glad that other people were interested in participating in this challenge because i need this kind of commitment to push me.

TheQueen@TerrorsInTiaras said...

It's been a rough week, and the inner strength I gain from my scripture study is about the only thing that has kept me going. Great post. You are right, it feels good to do something you said you would--in more ways than one.

Ice Cream said...

I am so looking forward to tackling my scriptures this week. It is a habit I have never really had but I know that whenever I try again it benefits my life so much. When I was reading them as part of my healthy holidays goal I was finally able to quite a bad TV addiction that was really taking over my life.