My word for 2020 is habits, so each month I select one habit that I want to stop and one I want to start.
So far in 2020 I’ve given up:
January – Watching shows for entertainment
February – Soda
March – Chocolate
April – Chocolate
May – No hitting the snooze
June – No hitting the snooze
July – Avoiding the national news
August – Avoiding the national news
September – Soda
October – Watching the Chiefs football games
I gave up watching the Kansas City Chiefs play football in October. Well, I didn’t watch any full games but I did see parts of several games, probably a half at most. I picked it because I didn’t have any better ideas the time and honestly I wasn’t committed to giving them up.
What do I want to give up in November? I should really challenge myself this time but I’m not confident I could give up something like chocolate or sweets, not this time of year. I think I want to do the no hitting the snooze again. I did well for a while but have slumped back into using it more than I would like.
My starting habits for 2020 include:
January – A daily devotion using the YouVersion Bible app and a ten-minute writing timer (TMT)
February – Read a list of truth declarations (Plus daily devotions and TMT writing)
March – Twelve minutes in prayer (Plus daily devotions and TMT writing)
April – Twelve minutes in prayer (Plus daily devotions and TMT writing)
May – Two minutes of prayer after devotions (Plus daily devotions and TMT writing)
June – Two minutes of prayer after devotions; Two minutes of core after running; (Plus daily devotions and TMT writing)
July – Three minutes of prayer after devotions; Two minutes of core after running; (Plus daily devotions and TMT writing)
August – Four minutes of prayer after devotions; Two minutes of core after running; (Plus daily devotions and TMT writing)
September – Five minutes of prayer after devotions; Two minutes of core after running; (Plus daily devotions and TMT writing); read truth declarations every day
October – Five minutes of prayer after devotions; Two minutes of core after running and one ten-minute workout a week; (Plus daily devotions and TMT writing); read truth declarations every day
I continued my YouVersion devotional streak to ??? in October. Most days I read my truth declarations and spend five minutes in prayer as part of my devotional time. I’ve been doing them more at night as I haven’t been as faithful of getting up early enough to make them a priority, so I hope to change that in November.
Finally I am seeing some progress with my core workouts. I was 100% successful is doing at least two minutes of core training after each run, and once a week I did one 10-15 minute workout. But the biggest breakthrough is in my mind. While I still don’t look forward to the workouts, I don’t dread them and I don’t think about not doing them. My mind has accepted they are going to happen, so I don’t have the temptation to skip.
For November I want to continue my core workouts to see if they can stick. Also, I am participating in National Novel Writing Month and I am trying to write 60,000 words by the end of November. In order to do that I’ll need a lot of TMTs, so my goal is to not have any days less than six. I’ll need a lot more than that and on good days I can do that, but even on my extra busy days I need to see if I can squeeze in an hour of writing fiction.
I have successfully written for at least one ten minute timer (TMT) session every day of 2020. That’s 305 days in a row. In ten months of writing TMTs I have completed 1,101 TMTs, which is 11,010 minutes (183.5 Hours) of new writing in 2020.
