Hello New Year, Goodbye Bad Habit

Last week I posted about adding a new habit as a substitute for your New Year’s Resolution. But not all habits are good.

I bet we all have some habits that we need to remove from our lives.

Making new good habits will help us grow into our better self. But removing old bad habits will prune, refine, restore us into our better self as well.

Take a moment and think of a bad habit. Biting your nails, chewing with your mouth open, taking the elevator when you could take the stairs. These small changes may not greatly impact your life at once, but over time, those tiny grains of sand could fill an hour glass or build a sand castle.

Small little improvements, shouldn’t be frowned upon for being small. But should be admired for the improvement that it is.

But the disheartening thing is that the removing of old habits potentially could be harder than starting a new habit.

Kicking that pack of cigarettes a day to the curb is incredibly difficult because of the addictiveness of those smokes. But like many bad habits there is an addiction factor usually assigned to them.

It is easy to fall down the rabbit hole of social media. You may pick up and glance at your phone, but before you know it, 100 TikTok videos later an hour has passed. Maybe you need to limit your phone usage each day?

Or maybe you’re the type that can binge watch an entire season in one sitting. And then start another one a few minutes later. Maybe you need to have some discipline in your entertainment.

Or maybe you have a tendency to gossip, be pessimistic, be selfish…not all addictions are like drinking two cups of coffee too many each day. Some are more mental and spiritual bad habits.

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭1‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Some bad habits need to be tested through the fire. And you will discover they are not worthy of your time and effort. It just wastes time, energy, and money that can be used on much better things.

Like a new good habit.

So examine your life. See where you can prune. And tenderly, or with a machete, start taking it away. It may be hard, but a sober mind is better than the alternative.

Here is to a new year and a better you.

It is possible…with Him, with His strength, anything is possible.

Peace