Like I said yesterday, I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the simple changes that can be made in my personal life that can lead to living healthier and longer. It’s ironic that we are talking about developing spiritual habits on the weekends with our students and today I am talking about changing some habits in my personal life. Here are the four areas that I want to change in order to have a healthier, longer life:
- Sleeping Habits – I have been bad about not getting enough sleep at night. I typically go to bed late and get up early averaging about 5.5 hours of sleep. I am going to try to add 2 hours of sleep each night. This shouldn’t be too hard, I just need to go to bed and hour early and then allow myself to sleep in an hour later. That sounds pretty easy but I am sure it will have challenges. I guess the other option would be to take a nap in the afternoon. I understand this is an ideal, life doesn’t always happen this way but if I don’t have something to aim for I will miss it every time.
- Eating Habits – I haven’t ever really watched my eating habits. I have been fortunate enough to have a high metabolism, that is unfortunately slowing down with age, so I have pretty much eaten and drank what ever I wanted. I was the kid in High School that ate a little debbie brownie for breakfast topped off with a glass of coke. In college I was the guy that went with his roommate to Burger King at midnight to get 99 cent Whoppers. This will probably be the most challenging. I have cut caffeine out of my diet once before and it wasn’t that bad, but I came back to it. I am on day 3 of no caffeine right now and feel like I can kick it again. I am also going to try to eat healthier. There are some little changes I can make that will have huge results, so I am optimistic to see what happens.
- Exercising Habits – I haven’t been the best here, there can be several days go by without me really having any kind of activity for more than 12 minutes. My goal here is to add 30 minutes of activity everyday. This helps bring up your good cholesterol and bring down your bad cholesterol. Which in affect makes your heart healthier. This is probably what my body needs the most and will demand probably the most discipline.
- Work Habits – I’ll admit it, I am a workaholic, mostly because I love what I do. There isn’t much time that goes by that I am not thinking about student ministry or the church. I think it’s just the way I am wired . . . or the way I have programed myself. However, if I am going to change and create other habits, there are some things that I am sure need to change here also. I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet, but I am sure after some talks with my wife, (she will be real honest with me) and our student staff, we can come up with a plan and empower others to take on some new aspects of ministry.
This weekend we talk about accountability and why we need it. If you’re a reader of the blog feel free to hold me accountable to the things I have just listed.
Dan Gould 