Approaching Things with Faith

Hello, everyone!
Another week has rolled along and things are going great! I've been able to stay on track and focus on my goals. And I learned something.... I feel like I already knew it, but for some reason I must have either not fully realized it or forgot about it. So, to start off, I am going to start with a quote:

   "When you put God first, everything else will fall into place."

 Last time I mentioned that I had made some big goals for myself, and one of them, aside from living healthier, was to increase my spirituality. To accomplish this, I have made a promise to myself that I will read the scriptures daily, write in my prompting journal, and say a kneeling prayer at least once daily. As I've done this, I've seen my life change. And it hasn't even been a month! I have been less stressed and more at peace (which, honestly, has helped a lot with my health anyway), I've more fully noticed the little tender mercies given to me daily, and all of my other goals have suddenly become a lot easier. Not that they are so easy I don't need to think about them (they are year long/life goals after all), but staying on track with my goals has come a lot more naturally.

As far as weight goes, I'm less tempted to eat the junk food that makes me feel gross and I have a stronger desire to exercise and get into shape. When I've gone grocery shopping, I don't feel the need to go get the typical snack food and I focus on eating fruits to get rid of my cravings for sweets. And I don't have a scale currently, but I can tell I must be losing some weight because my clothes are fitting more loosely. All without too much thought constantly. It's a huge blessing in my life and I know it's going to help me in all aspects of my life.

So this week, I want to challenge you to try making God more of a priority in your life. If you are like me and were struggling to do the necessary things each day, make a promise to yourself to be better. Take on one thing at a time. If you are already doing those things, find a way to get more out of them. I promise that whatever your goals are, whether they be loosing weight or something else, you will find that they are much easier to accomplish as you strive to do what God has asked us to do.

Stay strong and have faith in yourself. Look to God and to others to help you with your goals and you will have strength beyond your own. And even if things are hard now, remember that you are, were, and always will be, worth it.

Write Down Those Goals!

Hello, everyone!
Wow. Sometimes this blogging thing is hard and I keep forgetting to post! I was a lot better at this before my mission. Oh well. Like I have said in the past, sometimes you have to start all over again. It doesn't matter how many times you need to start over. What matters is that you're taking the steps to change. Speaking of change...
I don't want to sound cliche when I say this, but starting on the first day of this year I made some big goals for myself. And I mean some actual goals, not just the New Year's resolutions that you make and then forget about in a few weeks, or maybe a couple of months.
I'm bringing this up is because I learned something important about my own goals. I'm only going to address one of those goals because it applies to this blog, but it applies to my other goals as well. One thing that I want to do, of course, is lose some weight. I still have a lot to lose and it can be super overwhelming when I look at the numbers. Don't get me wrong, the numbers are still SUPER important.... keep track of those numbers! They can help you measure your success! However, I also learned (partially because of having lost the weight and gaining it back because of health issues that I can't control) that I needed to be a little less specific about the pounds and a little more specific about how I was going to lose those pounds. So, with this new outlook, I made a goal that was different than my previous goal. Instead of losing however many pounds in a certain amount of time, I have a goal to live healthier.
Now here's the most important part... I wrote it down. Goals are simply just wishes unless you write them down so you can constantly go back and refer to them. And I didn't just write down the goal, I took the time to write down how I plan to achieve that goal and the habits that I want to develop within this year to help me get there.
Now, I know that this method won't work for everyone, especially if you are all about the numbers. I have decided to take this route because there a lot of things going on in my body right now that I can't control, and it's not fair to tell myself that I'm not successful because the pounds aren't coming off like I want them to. My weight is a big factor for me, but the bigger factor is that I need to work to feel good, not just look good. I don't know if this will help you as the reader of my blog, but it's a big step for me.
I also wanted to mention something again that I mentioned before is to remember to look at the small successes  you see day to day. I went to work out this morning and in the middle of my cool down I decided to turn the treadmill speed down so that I could do lunges as I cooled off. A little after I turned it down to 1.5 mph and started to do lunges, I started to laugh. Why? Because I realized that 3 years ago, that was my maximum speed and now I had some extra time to do lunges.
Make this year your best year. Write down your goals and really focus on how you will accomplish them. I promise that as you do this, the best is yet to come. Keep working hard and love yourself no matter where you are.