Beginning

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33 (NIV)

I am not sure about you, but I just love the New Year. To me it feels like hitting the reset button on everything that has happened and beginning afresh. When you really think about it we reset our clocks (although this occurs daily), our calendars (2013 calendars are useless now), and even ourselves (Developing new habits in terms of New Year’s Resolutions). Maybe last year you had made a commitment to a New Year’s resolution, hopefully you were able to stick with it and accomplish your goal. If you were able to keep with it, then Congratulations, don’t forget to keep making adjustments in order to make yourself better this year. If you were not able to stick with your resolution, Charles Duhigg, in his book The Power of Habits: Why We Do What We Do In Life, has some suggestions to help you make, keep, and sustain new habits. I will summarize them below:

1.       Make it an action and not a goal. Rather than saying I am going to lose 15 pounds (Goal), restate your goal as an action that you can take such as I am going to get up at 5 am and run a mile every weekday. By doing so, we change the way in which we approach our resolution as a current obligation as opposed to a future objective.

2.       Create cues and rewards. To every habit there are 3 cues: Start and go to autopilot- actions/behavior taken- reward. Many people forget to reward themselves. By incorporating a reward after the desired behavior is performed, it will help to positively reinforce that habit. The same is true when trying to break a habit with the introduction of a consequence.

3.       Anticipate obstacles. If your action is to run every morning, but you have a hard time getting out of bed, place the alarm clock at an inconvenient location where you need to get out of bed. You can also purchase an alarm clock that stores your cash and, after a minute of buzzing, it will proceed to shred your cash if you do not get up and shut the alarm off.

4.       Acknowledge setbacks. Relapses are not bad and should be expected. If you slip one day, don’t get bogged down by that failure, start again. As the saying goes, Life happens.

5.       Finally, focus on one resolution at a time. Don’t stretch yourself too thin by trying to change everything about you at once. Focus on one habit, reinforce it, and then move on the next. You will have much more success that way.

Regardless of your goals for this 2014, let’s not lose sight of God and His plan for us. Don’t misunderstand me; I think it is important that we continuously look for areas of improvement. However, let us not get wrapped up in ourselves so that we lose sight of the true work that we are called to do. Additionally, let us not get wrapped up in the good we are accomplishing and think that we are doing it on our own and be overcome with pride and self-glorification. All glory and honor is to our God, and it is when we seek Him first that we will be given the peace that surpasses all understanding and experience a joy without measure.

WOD: (Happy New Year! Now do this!)
For time:
95 pound Back squat, 50 reps
50 GHD Sit-ups
75 pound Back squat, 50 reps
50 Back extensions
55 pound Back squat, 50 reps
50 GHD Sit-ups