Three Steps to the Disciplined Life . . . Not!!!

The other day my husband looked at me and said, “I can’t believe you’ve been so diligent with your writing. I’m amazed at how you’ve persevered with it.”

The reason he’s amazed is because he knows me so well.

We’ve been married for 28 years, and for most of those 28 years, he’s lived with the lazy, inept version of me.

The new, (somewhat) disciplined version is unusual.

I always wanted to be a disciplined person. Each year, I’d read the articles about how to become disciplined in three easy steps, and I’d try to do what they told me to do. But it never worked.

I was just too inept.

And I had the sneaky suspicion that those articles were written by people who were disciplined to begin with.

So what I’d like to do today is write a “Three Steps to the Disciplined Life for the Inept Person” post. Here goes:

Three Steps to the Disciplined Life for the Inept Person

1. Decide what you want to do.
2. Renew your mind whenever you don’t feel like doing it.
3. Repeat as often as necessary until you feel like doing it.

It’s simple, but it works. Here’s why: It’s hard to drum up discipline when you don’t have it to drum up. Our only hope is to go to God for help.

Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 that we’re transformed by the renewing of the mind, not by making a plan and sticking to it. That’s a comforting verse for all of us inept people. Change is possible.

But we need to do it God’s way. Paul says we’re transformed by the renewing of our minds. Not by making a plan. Not by drumming up our non-existent will power. And not by following three easy steps.

We’re changed by the renewing of our minds. God does the changing. We do the renewing of our minds. His truth is what changes us.

As an inept-by-nature person, my only hope for being disciplined is to keep renewing my mind in all the areas of my life where I’m undisciplined (which is about a hundred).

God will transform me, but not in an instant. At least not usually. Usually it takes about one journal’s worth of renewing my mind to see some real victory.

If you’re tired of being undisciplined in some area of your life, I want to encourage you. Go to your local bookstore. Buy a journal, and start renewing your mind.

Ask God to help you see that area of life from His point of view. Then search the Bible for some good Scripture. Write those verses in your journal. Carry your thoughts captive to the truth every day you don’t feel like doing whatever it is you want to do.

Write out your prayers. Truth journal. Do whatever you need to do to see that area of your life from God’s perspective. And then sit back (as you continue to renew your mind) and watch Him transform you.

And when it happens, write and tell me about it.

Need Help Renewing Your Mind?

I can do easy things through Him who doesn't need to give me strength because I can do them on my own.

Wait a minute . . . did I quote that right?

No. Let me try again.

I can do fun things though Him who doesn’t need to give me strength because I actually like to do them.

No. That’s not it either.

Wait a minute . . . I have it:

I can do . . . all . . . things through Him who gives me strength.

In a follow-your-passion, life-should-be-easy world, I keep forgetting I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.

Instead, I think that if it’s not easy, I can’t do it.

And if it’s not fun, I shouldn’t do it.

So I tend to avoid things that aren’t in the fun and easy category.

Just like some people avoid things that aren’t productive. And others avoid things that make them uncomfortable.

I have one thing working in my favor, though: Renewing my mind is fun and easy for me. I actually like doing it.

So even though I think writing is hard and boring, I’m willing to sit and renew my mind so God can change my attitude towards writing.

And even though I think eating with control is hard and boring, I’m willing to sit and renew my mind so God can change my attitude about eating.

But what if you’re a person who thinks that renewing your mind is hard and boring?

That’s a problem.

Because if you think renewing your mind is hard and boring—or unproductive and uncomfortable—you won't do it.

The thought will pop into your head, I should really renew my mind, but it will be immediately followed by another thought:

No, that’s too much work.

Or that doesn’t sound very fun.

Or I really should get that project done first. I’ll renew my mind later.

Those thoughts will keep you from renewing your mind, just like my thoughts left to their own devices keep me from writing.

So what’s the solution?

I think the solution is to renew your mind about the renewing of your mind.

Look at it this way. When I see writing from God’s perspective, I actually want to write, even though it’s not fun and easy.

Likewise, if you see the renewing of the mind from God’s perspective, you’ll actually want to renew your mind even if it’s not fun and easy.

If you want help on how to see the renewing of the mind from a biblical perspective, check out this post: How to Make Yourself Truth Journal. The post is on truth journaling but it could also apply to Scripture prayers or quiet times.

I’ve also spent the last year working on another tool that's easier for some people to use than truth journaling. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get that out, but it could be soon if I decide to put it into an e-book or self-publish.

Since I find all parts of the writing/publishing process to be hard and non-fun, I would really appreciate your prayers on figuring out what to do next with this new tool.

I hope you have a good week renewing your mind.

And if you’re tempted to think, Maybe I should clean the house, instead, tell yourself, No, it would be more productive to clean my mind.

(I know, lame ending. Why can’t I resist lame endings?)

When To-Do Lists Drive You to the Refrigerator

I had a hard time sticking to my boundaries yesterday. It was one of those days when I felt like just sitting by the fire with a bowl of ice cream in my lap and a book in my hand doing nothing. Now if this had been just a fluke day in my otherwise diligent life, it wouldn’t be a big deal. The problem is that I often feel like sitting in front of the fire doing nothing. I’m a lazy person by nature.

Now I suppose I could say, “Well, that’s just the way I am. Besides, there’s nothing that really needs to get done today.” But what if I were to say that day after day after day? What would my life look like?

I know what it would look like, because I’ve lived it. You might think it would be a fun, relaxing life, but it really isn’t. What it is is a series of last-minute “oh no – I need to get this done today!” moments. It’s a feeling of being overwhelmed and out-of-control—feeling like you’ll never catch up with life.

Does God really want me to live my life like this? I don’t think so. I know that my laziness keeps me from doing things He wants me to do, so I’m working on bringing this area of my life captive to Christ.

Instead of sitting all day by the fire yesterday, I did this. First, I pulled out my procrastination verses and prayed through them. Then I truth journaled about my list (It would be more fun sitting and eating by the fire all day than working, I don’t feel like working so I shouldn’t, idle time is the best time, etc.), and finally I broke my jobs into smaller more manageable tasks and got to work.

Now you might say, “That’s crazy—all that work just to make yourself work? Why not just force yourself to do it?” Here’s the answer. If I just force myself to do it (which I’m not good at anyway), I miss the opportunity to renew my mind and change the way I think about work.

It took a lot of effort yesterday to carry my thoughts captive to Christ through truth journaling and praying Scripture. It would have been much easier just to sit by the fire and eat ice cream with the plan of “doing better tomorrow.” It would have been much easier to just try and force myself to do the work. It would have been much easier to give up and say, “I’ll never change.”

But do I really want what’s easy? Or do I want to please God? I can’t do both at the same time in this situation.

If I continue to renew my mind when I feel like procrastinating, one day I’ll have victory over this area of my life. I’ll probably never be a “let’s get it done” sort of person, but as God changes the way I think about work, I'll actually be more inclined to "get it done now" rather than waiting until later.

One day my first reaction will be to do the list—not head for the refrigerator. Taking the time to renew my mind now will lead to a weight loss later - because I won’t be eating to procrastinate anymore.

A Plan for Success

I said in my last post that I would tell you some practical things to do to change the way you think about food. That's true. I will. Unfortunately, I feel compelled to give some more theory before I do that! (If you can make it through the first part of the post, though, I'll give a nice practical list at the end.)

I want you to think back with me to your young childhood. How did you learn that eating for fun and comfort was a good idea? Did your mom sit you down when you were five years old and say, "Honey, don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't eat whatever you want whenever you want. Food is there for us to enjoy. Don't worry about the consequences. Just eat what you feel like eating. Oh, and would you like some ice cream?"

I'm guessing she didn't. I bet it was more like this:

She gave you a treat when you were hurt, because she wanted you to feel better, and she knew treats did the trick. She let you eat all your holiday candy in a couple of days, because she wanted it out of the house, and she was tired of hearing you ask if you could have some. She said, "Let's go have some pizza and ice cream - we deserve it after all that yard work!" And you were happy to oblige.

Your mom had good intentions, but she didn't realize what her words were teaching you about food.

Now I'm not knocking moms. After all, I am one. In fact, I've done every one of those things with my kids. It wasn't until I wrote Freedom from Emotional Eating that I realized what I was teaching them:

Food will make you feel better. It's okay to overeat on holidays. You deserve a treat when you do hard things.

It would be wonderful if that same mom could sit us down and say, "Honey, I was wrong. It's really not good to eat whatever you want whenever you want. That won't make you happy. No, it's much better to have boundaries and stick to them. So why don't you just change your way of eating, and life will be much better!"

Well, it would be wonderful if we could change that easily, but I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. Why? Because we learned lots of lies about food growing up and it takes a while to "unlearn" them.

We learned those lies situation by situation, and I'm afraid we have to unlearn them the same way.

That's where renewing the mind comes in, and now we'll get to the practical part. I believe there are five things you need to do if you want to change the way you think about food:

1. Choose a set of lifelong boundaries. These boundaries must be flexible enough to fit into regular life, yet strict enough to disallow opportunities for emotional eating.

2. Make up your mind not to eat one bite outside your boundaries. This is very important, because it helps you develop the mindset that you only eat at certain times. What you want to do is train yourself to only think of food at certain times of the day (either at a meal or scheduled snack or when you're hungry). (And no, Pavlov's dogs do not come to mind.)

3. Renew your mind every time you eat outside your boundaries. What you're doing with this is re-thinking all those things you learned growing up. Truth journaling, lie-truth charts, and Scripture prayers all work well to renew your mind. (One note on truth journaling, it's far more effective to write it down rather than do it in your mind.)

4. Get someone to hold you accountable, not to sticking to your boundaries (although you can do that too if you want), but to renewing your mind every time you break your boundaries.

5. Abide in the Word of God. Self-control is a fruit of the spirit, and we get the fruit by abiding in the Vine, not by trying as hard as we can to muster it up only when we need it. Instead, we change our desires by replacing lies with truth, and we gain self-control by abiding with God and spending time in His Word.

If I were going to add one more thing to the list,it would be, "Don't condemn yourself when you mess up!" But I will save that for the next post.

Romans 12:2 and emotional eating

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Today I’d like to take Romans 12:2 and apply it to emotional eating. Let’s take it one section at a time.

Do not be conformed to this world.

I can think of many ways we conform to the world that cause us to eat too much. Here are a couple of them:

1. We’ve adopted Hollywood’s idea that we have to be gorgeous and skinny (and so we eat in despair when we aren’t).

2. We’ve adopted our culture’s idea that because we deserve to be happy, we should be able to eat whatever we want whenever we want.

Neither of these ideas are scriptural. God says it’s what’s inside of us that counts, not what’s outside (1 Samuel 16:7, Proverbs 31:30, Luke 16:15), and He doesn’t go along with the “you should get whatever you want whenever you want” idea, either. If fact, He actually expects us to give up things for Him (Matthew 16:24-25).

But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The Greek word for transformed here is interesting. It’s a change that starts on the inside and is manifested on the outside. In other words, God’s not asking for an outward show of obedience. He wants to change our hearts, so that we actually want to obey Him.

How do we do that? By the renewing of the mind. We must change the way we think if we want lasting behavior change.

So that you may prove (test) what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

There are two Greek words that can be used for prove or test. Peirazo means to test with no expectation or with the expectation of finding it bad. Dokimazo means to test with the expectation of finding it good. Guess which Greek word is used here? Dokimazo.

That means that if we do die to self, get transformed from the inside out, and take on God’s thoughts rather than the world’s thoughts, we'll find that His will is good.

On the other hand, if we just go for the outward conforming—following a set of boundaries out of brute force rather than a heart that actually believes life is better when you follow the boundaries—we’ll find that His will is not good.

Why? Because we haven’t been changed from the inside out. We’re still essentially hanging on to our own will fueled by our own set of beliefs.

We may be conforming to a set of boundaries on the outside, but inside, our hearts are telling us that we should be able to eat whatever we want whenever we want. Sooner or later, our hearts will win out, and we'll be eating like crazy again.

No, for lasting change to take place, we must be transformed from the inside out.

In my next post, I’ll show how this is played out in a practical way—how to change the way we think, so that we actually want to stick to our boundaries.