Every one of us has developed bad habits. Either we do unhealthy things to ourselves or we allow them to be done to us. Some of us smoke cigarettes, eat too much junk food or yell at our kids. Others, though, hurt themselves by allowing others to mistreat them. Wives allow husband to scream at them, mothers allow children to push them around, call them names or act just plain disrespectful, We fall into these habits usually because we are tired. Fighting them and changing our diet, trying to quit smoking, acting nicer to kids or even forcing children to stop treating us badly requires a lot of energy. The problem is, the longer these habits remain active in our lives, the more miserable we are.
This week, let’s change that. Identify one area in your life where you are being hurt and stand against it. Say- no more. No more junk food, no more yelling at the kids or no more mistreatment toward you from anyone. Period. If you choose one thing, you can stand against it. If you try to make too many changes at once, you will set yourself up for failure because the amount of emotional energy you will need will overwhelm you.
So what are you going to say No! to this week? Take an hour or so for yourself and think. What hurts you the most? This may be a loaded question. Sometimes hurts pile one on top of the other and it can be hard to tease them apart. But for now, keep it simple. Just pick one behavior that you do or that is being done to you and face it. Make it go away. Don’t believe you can? Think again. You are a whole lot tougher than you think. You are in charge of stopping that behavior. You are the one who can look at others- yes, even if they are your children- and say: you will never do that again to me.
After your victory- please let me know what you stopped!
