new year’s victories.

Happy New Year, friends!

Rather than write a blog post about my New Year’s resolutions, I thought I’d start off 2023 by talking about a few things that are going well. This post is serving another purpose too.

I read 106 books in 2022, which is actually less than normal for me. I’m fine with it, because I never like to set a reading goal (and I read two monster books last year: The Iliad and The Odyssey). However, this year I’m challenged to do something a little different: I want to be more reflective with what I read. I want to slow down and take time to process my books, let them soak in a bit. Especially non-fiction, but even fiction and history.

Lately I worry that my voracious reading can turn me into a consumer of books rather than an absorber and apply-er of books. So I’m working to spend a few moments several times a week journaling about what I’m reading. I’ve also copied a few lines from some of my favorite classics of last year — The Iliad, The Odyssey, Treasure Island, and A Christmas Carol — that I want to memorize. It feels like the perfect way to keep enjoying the beauty of the writing.

So I may actually end up reading fewer books in 2023.

But now, on to what’s working.

I sort of got into a new momentum the last half of the year, and it’s helped me make some good changes in my life. It’s interesting to experience for myself that James Clear is right in his book Atomic Habits: Good habits have a domino effect (conversely, bad habits do too).

My first good habit was to join a gym back in July.

I started attending three group training classes a week, and within a month, realized that my eating habits needed to change so I’d have the energy and stamina for weight-training. So I met with a friend who helped me with a very simple, sustainable food reset filled with lots more protein, veggies, and complex-carbs.

My gym membership has given me the gifts of better health, self-confidence, energy, stress relief, community, and better food habits. But the most surprising gift is that it’s given me the gift of not having to make decisions. Who knew how much I was craving a space where I could simply be told what to do for 45 minutes, three times a week? I love that about EQ Fitness. I love not being the one in charge. I’m not the mom, the teacher, the pastor’s wife. I’m just another member who’s there to follow the workout our trainer leads us through. It’s like a little vacation for my mind. Yes, I’m thinking, and yes, it’s hard work, but it’s different kind of thinking, different work. I’m forced to be utterly present, focusing only on my form and the exercise I’m doing.

And although I read the book Atomic Habits several months after joining EQ, that’s one of Clear’s big points: the more we can ingrain the right choices we want to make as habits, the smoother our lives will be. Otherwise our default habits will be the path of least resistance: screens, mindless busyness, people-pleasing, eating junk food, etc.

I grew tired of always trying to fight against the grain of my default habits to do the “right” thing, whether it be eat a salad for lunch, or turn my phone on airplane mode, and then feeling ashamed when I failed.

So after my fitness victory, I decided to look for other ways to make the things I wanted to do easier, and to eliminate more daily decisions from my life.

Here are some examples:

I deleted my Instagram account and have stayed off social media (with the occasional checking in of David’s FB for memes that make me laugh, yep, I’m a millennial mom). It took away the battle to not waste time scrolling and comparing my life to other people’s.

I switch my phone to airplane mode by 9:00 pm and don’t turn it off until after I read my Bible and pray the next morning.

On Sunday after the early service at church, I come home and start laundry. Later in the afternoon, I meal-plan and get the house ready for the coming week (we currently take Saturday as a day of rest). I roast a pan or two of veggies and make a grain for our weekday lunch grain bowls (recipe coming in a separate post). To do all of this on Sundays, I realized I need to not cook dinner Sunday evening or I else get super grouchy. So Sunday is an evening we order take-out or make grilled cheese.

Every Monday morning I get the big kids started on school and take Noah to Publix to buy groceries (previously I’d been shopping Friday afternoon or Saturday which is a misery since the stores where I shop are packed at that time).

See? No decisions necessary. It’s just what I do.

Look at me! It’s January 8th and I’ve already hit so many resolutions.

Okay, I’d like to say that I did a lot of work in 2022. Continuing with therapy (both alone and with David). Accountability. Prayer. Reading really good books and then implementing the suggestions. So I guess in a way I’m really just living my fulfilled 2022 goals. But it feels amazing to start the year off like this, amazing to start habits that actually stick. It may be the best I’ve ever felt at the beginning of a new year.

I already mentioned Atomic Habits, so here are three other books I read recently that are helping me a whole lot:

 

The Best of You, by Alison Cook. A friend recommended her podcast when our marital counseling ended and I was looking for something to continue guiding me to do the work of healing and wholeness. I liked the content so much that I ordered her latest book and it’s fantastic.

Habits of the Household, by Justin Whitmel Earley. I don’t remember how I stumbled upon this one — probably through Amazon recommendations or one of the TGC booklists, but if you enjoyed Atomic Habits, it is the perfect practical next step for implementing it in your family life. Actually even if you didn’t read Atomic Habits, I highly recommend this book. Along with Raising Emotionally Strong Boys, it’s my favorite parenting book.

Essentialism, by Greg McKeown (I’m four chapters in but it’s resonating with a lot I’ve been learning lately)

 

As a result of all this reading, here are two other habits we’ve begun just now, in January:

1. Thanks to Habits of the Household, David and I implemented Wednesday night date night. One less decision we need to make. Should we take a date this month or not? Yes! Every Wednesday!

Now we do have to decide what to do for our date, but that feels easy because we have a default: send all the kids to their rooms at 7:00, make a fun drink, and do something together. Chat. Play a game. Cuddle on the couch and watch a documentary. That’s it!

Why oh why did it take us 19 years to figure this out? We were way over-thinking the thing, making it more complicated than it needed to be. Thank you, Justin Earley, for saving us from ourselves. Now date night is fun and low-key, rather than filled with all sorts of expectations because we got dressed and found downtown parking and paid money for food and won’t have time/money to go out again for several weeks at least. The pressure’s off: if this date night wasn’t spectacular, there’s always next week.

Can I tell you something that makes Wednesday date night extra nice? That’s Judah and Amie’s night to cook dinner. Another routine I implemented last year. They’ve been doing it all semester, and it’s amazing. Okay, true, it is some variety of Mexican food every single time, but it’s homemade! And by this point I can be completely absent from the kitchen while they cook.

2. The second change I’ve made in January is subscribing the kids and I to Sarah McKenzie’s Read-Aloud Revival Premium. That answered the problem of: “How do I find joy in homeschooling again?” It’s been quite a year. I’m tired. The kids are tired. I just missed the old, simple days of cuddling on the sofa, reading, and laughing.

So first I signed up for Read-Aloud Revival’s Christmas school, which the three younger kids and I did in December during our break from co-op and absolutely loved. We studied a couple books — a picture book and a chapter book. Watched some video lessons to learn about the art and the author. Did a nature study lesson on reindeer. Made a craft or two and baked something. It was simple and restful and everything was planned for me. If a suggested activity required buying supplies, I skipped it.

So I decided to continue on for the winter because winter is my hardest time with homeschool (and with life in general).

We call our Read-Aloud Revival time of day “Book Club” and we do it on the three mornings a week that we don’t have co-op. I’ve streamlined that daily process by declaring, “We all start math by 8:15 with a piece of gum. Then after math, we’ll sit on the sofa and start Book Club.” It’s the perfect motivation. After those two things, the rest of the morning has been flowing.

There’s a mom’s book club as part of the Premium membership and that’s why I started the book Essentialism. It reminds me a lot of Atomic Habits and it’s great food for thought.

Anyway.

I’m giving you lots of examples not because your life needs to look like mine, but just to show you that it helps me to look at problem areas in my life (basically, the parts of my week that stress me out), and ask the question, “How can I make this process easier? And is it something I can set in stone each week so I won’t have to constantly decide when/how to do it?”

I challenge you to do this yourself, or if you have, please share with me what processes or habits you’ve learned. I love getting ideas from other people.

And I plan to share more in the coming weeks.

Happy 2023!