The Importance of Habits................Choosing the Narrow Path

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

With Christmas approaching and parties happening in full force, it reminds me of how important habits are. I mean come on, how many of us associate the holidays with sugar, candy, cookies, egg nog, and other fat promoting foods? I know I do. This has been the first time in my life that I have really taken a critical analysis of my behavioral habits and how they are related to foods. Like many of you know I have cut out sugar from my diet for the last 10 weeks. I never thought I could do it..........but I was wrong. I can do and have done it! Health is much improved.....energy levels are phenomenal!

So my brilliant insight for the end of 2007 is this........habits will form you character, dictate the level of success you attain and 100% send you in a very specific and intentional direction. In other words, every habit you make is taking you down a specific path, whether it be a good one or a bad one. Because we are made in the image of God, we have the free will to create good and the free will to create bad. We truly can make the invisible become visible. The challenge is when the invisible we are creating is destructive to our health. That means that we are completely and fully responsible for our success or failure in any endeavor. We are accountable for our actions..........enough said!

So at the age of 34 I have finally learned that the labels we put on ourselves (the scripts we think we have to play out) can be changed for the better. It's amazing how gaining success in an area that we once thought was impossible to change can foster new changes in other areas of life. It's kind of like a giant snowball that starts rolling down the hill; the faster it gets rolling and the more momentum it has it picks up more snow and gets bigger, bigger and bigger. Well, that is what life like. The question is, what do you want the snowball to be made of?

Training:

Not much. I have been doing handstand push ups against the wall and pistols daily. Body is feeling good though. I hopefully will be able to run some track meets this month and next month. Of course that will be influenced heavily by when the baby is born!!!!