The Small Steps Challenge
This four-month plan will help you incorporate the “Small Steps to the New You” into your life in a strategic way. Start by reading the introduction through chapter 3. Then make the following three commitments before you dive into the four-month challenge. These three commitments form the foundation for your journey to complete health in Christ.
Surrender your health to God.
Begin by praying a prayer like this one:
Stop making excuses.
What is the biggest excuse you make for why you are not where you want to be? Be honest with yourself. Don’t be afraid to look that excuse in the face. When you know what it is, refuse to make that excuse anymore. If you find it creeping into your mind, stop the thought and replace it with the following: God is able to do a great work in me.
Start taking small steps toward change.
Just picking up this book is a great step in the right direction. Tell someone you trust that you are reading it. Ask that person to hold you accountable to making healthy changes in your life.
Once you have made these three commitments, you are ready to start your journey to the new you. Over the next four months, you will begin making small changes in the four primary areas of health—physical health, spiritual health, emotional health, and mental health—one area and one month at a time.
Month 1: Small Steps to Better Physical Health
Month 2: Small Steps to Better Spiritual Health
Month 3: Small Steps to Better Emotional Health
Month 4: Small Steps to Better Mental Health
Each month work to incorporate as many small steps into your life as you can. Go at your own pace. Some of these steps will be quick and easy, and some will take more work. By the end of each month, you should be taking as many of that month’s small steps as possible, as consistently as possible.
Month 1: Small Steps to Better Physical Health
- Take a hard look at the gluttonous habits you may have in your life. Decide to stop justifying them.
- Acknowledge that God’s understanding of your physical health needs surpasses your own.
- Go to NewYouBook.com and listen to a message about breaking free from gluttony.
- Add more colorful fruits and vegetables into a few of your meals each week.
- Start reading nutrition labels on breads, pastas, and baked goods. Buy only products that are 100 percent whole grain.
- Trade white rice for brown rice.
- Try limiting your intake of meat to one meal a day.
- Acknowledge the reality of resistance in your life—and resist it!
- Take a ten-minute pause before snacking to make sure you are actually hungry.
- Claim a corner of the refrigerator for your healthy groceries.
- Choose restaurants that will have healthy options. You may even want to look at the menu online before you go so you know what your choices will be before you get there.
- Drink half your body weight in water every day. Divide your weight by two. That is how many ounces of water you should aim for on a daily basis. (For tips on how to drink more water throughout the day, see the “Small Steps to the New You” section in chapter 7.)
- Download a pedometer app or buy a pedometer to track the number of steps you are walking in a day. Try to hit ten thousand.
- Download a podcast or the audio version of a book you have been meaning to read and listen while you walk or work out.
- Put your workout clothes and sneakers by the bed the night before and take a morning walk as soon as you wake up.
- Need to call your mom? Plug some earbuds into your phone and take a walk around the neighborhood while you talk.
Month 2: Small Steps to Better Spiritual Health
- Take the quiz in chapter 9. Evaluate your answers. Jot down some ideas for how you could improve on each point.
- Think about this question: Who is Jesus? If you don’t know the answer, decide to find out. Don’t rely on your past experiences or what people tell you. Do your own intellectually honest research about his life and ministry.
- Seek out a healthy, Bible-based church in your area.
- Commit to being in church every weekend, as much as possible.
- Take one step toward deeper engagement with your church.
- Make a list of the supportive friends in your life. How many do you have? How authentic are these relationships?
- Seek out information about small groups at your church.
- Sign up for a small group and go!
- Choose to be aware of the needs around you.
- Act on small opportunities that present themselves daily.
- Pay attention to your passions and gifting and use them to serve others.
Month 3: Small Steps to Better Emotional Health
- Do the What-Went-Well exercise (chapter 13) before you go to bed each night, all month long.
- When you feel tempted to complain, find something positive to say instead.
- Have lunch or dinner with a friend from your small group and ask them about the good things going on in their life.
- Find a Christian counselor in your area and establish a relationship.
- Look over yesterday’s to-do list. Put a plus sign next to every activity that filled you with energy and a minus sign next to what drained you. Going forward, try to focus more of your attention on the things that are a plus.
- Take fifteen minutes to declutter and organize your desk or one room in your home. If you think you can’t finish in fifteen minutes, start anyway—and then do fifteen more minutes tomorrow.
- Put on some praise music and sing along while you make breakfast or run errands.
- Ask God to help you identify specific areas of bitterness in your heart.
- Make a list of the people you need to forgive and pray for the strength to do so.
- Forgive one person who hurt you using the process for biblical forgiveness (chapter 15). Then another person. Then another.
- Get out in the yard and do some weeding (if the season permits). It will solidify the image of uprooting bitterness—and give you some exercise to boot!
- Go to bed fifteen minutes earlier every night this month.
- Invest in a better mattress or begin saving up to buy one in the future.
- Try sleeping with a pillow between your knees to alleviate back pain.
Month 4: Small Steps to Better Mental Health
- Remind yourself as often as necessary that stress is a natural, unavoidable part of life.
- Make your to-do list either before you go to sleep at night or first thing in the morning.
- Practice eating frogs and living off peak. (See chapter 17.)
- When you are in a season that feels particularly stressful, set a timer every hour to remind you to think about the good in your life and to praise God for his faithfulness.
- Be intentional about listening to your internal monologue.
- When you catch yourself having a negative or self-defeating thought, immediately replace it with a healthier thought.
- Commit to memorizing one Scripture verse every week. Write it down and tape it to your bathroom mirror. Start with this one: “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise” (Phil. 4:8).
- Set aside fifteen minutes to have a conversation with God each day this month.
- Practice talking with God the way you would talk to a good friend. Don’t feel as if you need to say anything specific. Just thank him for the good things in your life and tell him what you are worried about.
- Be quick to turn your mind back toward God at various points throughout your day as things pop up that concern you or that you feel thankful for.
- Visit NewYouBook.com to download some free resources on prayer.
- Think about the person or people who motivate you to live a healthier, more complete life. Is it your spouse? Your children? Your grandchildren? Put a picture of that person or those people in a place where you will see it often. Focus on getting and staying healthy in every way so you can be fully present in your relationship with them for as long as possible.
- Spend some time reflecting on all you have learned over the last four months. Ask God to direct you and show you his grace as you begin living fully in the reality of the new you.