Above Yourself

Last month, my sister wrote a blog post about becoming recommitted. Something about that post stuck with me, because I was in the process of recommitting myself as well. Life can get busy, but I need to make time for the things that are most important to me. Around the same time I saw Beth’s blog post I noticed that Julia was writing up a list of 100 goals she’d like to achieve in her life. She said that one of her classes at BYU Education Week brought that idea up- the teacher said to write down 100 goals of any kind- things you’d like to do or accomplish in life. Unlike most of the other goals I’ve heard, there didn’t have to be a timetable involved; these goals were more like items in a wish list. Crossing something off your list means that you’ve got a memory of doing that thing, and that’s just as good as getting a Christmas present that had been on your wish list.

A week or so later I started my own list. It’s not up to 100 items yet, but it’s getting there. Many of the items have to do with being recommitted, and it’s a perfect time to post these given that this weekend is General Conference. It seems that Latter-day Saints have lots of opportunities to recommit themselves: New Year’s, General Conference, and even each Sunday as we take the Sacrament we recommit ourselves to following Jesus Christ. Here are a few of the goals I’m thinking about right now, each of which probably deserves its own blog post:

• Scripture reading
• Keeping up with my Spanish skills
• Fitness goals

There’s a lot more on my goals list, but these are the ones that are important to me right now. I don’t want to do too much while I’m just getting started, because it’s going to take a marathon effort to cross everything off my goals list!

Life is busy. The to-do list is growing. Where do I find the time to do the things that I know are important, but just don’t fit into a day? Often it’s about compromises, but I’m trying to learn to make routines that combine the things that are important to me. For example, if I want to go on a walk, I can take along my MP3 player loaded with a book on tape or the scriptures. Since I just finished listening to an audiobook in the car, I need something new. I think I’ve finally graduated from the radio, because I get annoyed by the fact that even the stations I listened to in high school play more music I don’t like than music I do like. These are just two situations where I can incorporate something spiritual to that list, such as listening to Jesus the Christ or the Book of Mormon, both of which are free at audio.lds.org. Take a look at that site, because it’s full of great things to listen to that you can download for free. Adding little spiritual activities into a routine is a great way to promote those important goals off the to-do list and into habits.

We just got back from two weeks away from home, which means that a lot of the things we usually do haven’t been done. There is grass to mow, groceries to buy, clothes to wash, and plenty more items like that on our to-do list. Does this mean we’re stressed about all that we have to do? Not really. We’re excited to get back into the swing of things and we’re looking at today as sort of a fresh beginning. Looking at our back lawn (which is really more weeds than grass, but we’re working on that), I think of these few days of “back to normal” before a routine sets in as an opportunity to prune back the things that have crept up on us and kept us overly busy.

It’s been almost two months since my last blog post? No problem! This post as an opportunity to redefine my goals for this blog. I’m not going to commit myself to posting here every day- a few times a month sounds more like it. I’m planning on taking the same strategy to fix the other things that are left undone.

Some things that went undone over the last few weeks will definitely stay that way, getting pruned off and out of our lives in the process. For me, that list includes a few TV shows I recorded to our DVR but were really more of a time-waster than entertainment, RSS feeds that I didn’t really read anymore, and other similar goals. Now the only trick is to make sure that other time-wasters don’t creep in to fill the void- there are plenty of other worthy goals worth tackling.

Family scripture study with little kids is no picnic, but my sister recently finished reading the Book of Mormon with her family. Congratulations, Beth! She even shared several tips for developing a family scripture study habit that she learned along the way.

I’ve had to work on my mental mindset recently. We all often experience setbacks in accomplishing our goals, and it isn’t until we do something about it that things really start to change. I’m working to try to establish regular goals for writing, but other things like schoolwork sometimes get in the way for a day or two and derail those plans. Even though I’m on spring break right now, I haven’t been focused on getting those goals back in order like I should. So here’s my plan: get back up, start up on my goals again, and continue forward!

Until I can turn my goals into habits I may have to get up over and over again, but it’s much more important to work on my goals right now as much as I can instead of using excuses like “I’ll start doing that after I graduate” or “I’ll wait until I have some free time”. Those aren’t very good reasons to delay goals, and the end result is that we lose out on all the progress we could have gained in that time. I love this quote from Elder Bednar:

A spurt may appear to be impressive in the short run, but steadiness over time is far more effective, far less dangerous, and produces far better results. Three consecutive days of fasting ultimately may not be as spiritually effective as three successive months of appropriate fasting and worship on the designated fast Sunday. An attempt to pray one time for five hours likely will not produce the spiritual results of meaningful morning and evening prayer offered consistently over five weeks. And a single scripture-reading marathon cannot produce the spiritual impact of steady scripture study across many months.

David A. Bednar, Brigham Young University-Idaho Devotional, September 9, 2003