Where will you be in ten years?

Recently, I was listening to a sermon by Craig Groeschel on resetting your routine, and honestly, it was exactly what I needed to hear, as challenging as it was. The first question that challenged me was: where will you be in ten years?

Honestly, it’s a question I’ve never particularly liked because who am I to guess what the future holds? To me, the future has always branched out into a million different pathways and possibilities, all because each choice I make can take me in a different direction.

This time when I thought about where I would be in ten years, it was different from previous times. The future looked darker, more hopeless, the potential pathways fewer and the darkness was spreading and getting darker every moment.

Immediately I decided it would be better not to think about it because clearly, the longer I think about my future would only mentally bring me down into a bad place. But that’s not like me; I’m always overthinking, so I continued thinking about it and concluded that the darkness was only the cloud hovering over my life recently and growing because of my negativity. So naturally, I decided it was time to try and be a more positive person. A challenge because I am naturally more of a pessimist.

At this point, I’m not even ten minutes into the sermon, and already I’ve discovered something I need to change, and that’s from a question I’ve heard many times before. What he said next made me think I needed to change my life.

Will you be in the same place or a better place in ten years? It wasn’t those words exactly, but the point is still the same.

I started to look at my life and where it’s at because our habits will shape who we are in the future. Trying to be positive is one thing, but thinking of the habits I have right now, the few I have, the future isn’t looking very bright. It seems like I’ll be stuck in the same place in ten years, which is a scary thought.

I’ve been in a bad place mentally recently, sinking lower than I would like and feeling like I’ve been beginning to drift away from God. I’ve been feeling pretty hopeless and finding that I am less motivated, and fewer things bring me joy. Looking at it now, it seems evident that God was behind me watching that sermon today because I don’t usually listen to them during the week, although I probably should.

It is clear now that I need to make new habits and eliminate a few. I must admit I’m not motivated to do so even now that I know I need to for the good of my mental health. Maybe it’s spiritual warfare, but maybe it’s not, but I do know that change is inevitable, and I would rather make a change that is good for my life than have a bad change happen to me.

I’m a pretty lazy person, naturally; I tend to use the bursts of energy I have to be productive; I can be disciplined though I have been relatively lax in that department lately. I do have an idea in mind on how to begin changing, and honestly, I started this process a little while ago but didn’t really progress. I started with a few things, like getting outside daily and implementing a skincare routine at night and in the morning. Those things I stopped making an effort in, and they became occasional. I suppose occasional is better than never. The only habit that kind of stuck was being careful about the content I consumed. I wanted to start listening to more Christian music, and I have done that; I’ve not entirely erased secular music because I love music, but I have been making more of an effort to stop listening to songs with explicit language and themes. I have been cautious of what movies I watch and the books I read too. I prefer more wholesome content anyway, so that hasn’t been particularly difficult.

But the truth is that change is always difficult, especially regarding our habits. Habits are hard to break regardless of the motivation behind breaking or changing them. So I decided to come up with a challenge to make things more fun.

A challenge which involves:

One thing to grow my faith.
One thing to get me outside.
One thing for my future.
One thing for fun.

These are four principles of the challenge, vague enough to leave room for interpretation on what each thing has to be but detailed enough to make a difference. It also leaves room for more items to be added or removed at any time outside of these principles. I chose four to make it easier to start, hoping to add more or different ones in the future.

My Challenge

One thing to grow my faith is to read at least one chapter of my bible each morning before I even think of looking at my phone.

One thing to get me outside if I have not left the house by 3pm each day is to go for a walk regardless of the weather (unless it is a danger to life, which is extremely unlikely here) for at least 20 minutes.

One thing for my future is to stop complaining. I hope doing so will make me less negative, at least on the outside.

One thing for fun is to listen to only Christian music (for a week initially) and expand my horizons by finding new artists and genres to listen to.

‘Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.’

Wayne Dyer

Perhaps you have realised that there are some things in your life that you need to change, and I hope I have inspired you to create your own challenge. It may not be easy, but leaving that stagnating comfort zone, we often find ourselves in is the best thing we can do for ourselves. Even a failed attempt is still progress. When we do not try, we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to succeed. So please create your own challenge and give it your best shot. Let me know how it turns out.