As the new year came upon us, I decided to implement some new habits into my life, and to challenge myself in a few new ways.

The New Habit

This year, I've taken the advice of, if I remember correctly, Bishop Robert Baron who says that it's a good practice to have a "Holy Hour" at the beginning of your day. The almost certainly incomplete message that made it's way into my memory was to begin the day with an hour of prayer and Bible study. I am stubborn and resistant to good advice, so it's taken me a few years to try this, and I've modified the blueprint a bit to suit my preference.

I've always been a reader - thanks Mom and Dad - and have amassed a respectable library over the years. Often, I'll pick up a book or five and fully intend to read them. They find their way into the shelves and are soon forgotten. Have you ever bought the same book twice? I have.

Having contemplated the idea of a holy hour for a while, I decided to plant and cultivate it as a habit for the new year. I have purposely framed it as a "habit" rather than a "resolution". A resolution is basically just a weak promise to yourself to do something - some goal you wish to achieve. But to cultivate a new habit doesn't really involve a goal or an achievement. It's just a thing you do consistently.

So I've implemented a holy hour for myself. It's not exactly an hour. Sometimes it's a half hour and sometimes it's two hours. But it goes like this. I get up early, often before anyone else is awake in my house. I make a cup of coffee, and sit down to read from a stack of books.

First, I read from the Bible. Right now I'm reading from the Wisdom of Solomon and the gospel of Matthew. Sometimes I'll bounce back and read from Psalms or Proverbs as well.

Next, I read a little from each of six or seven non-fiction books. These can be anything. I'm currently reading a book about Exorcists and Exorcism, a book about the effects of Sugar on the human body, writings from St. Alphonsus, a Matt Fradd book about Happiness as seen through the lens of St. Thomas Aquinas, and several others. I read as little as a paragraph or as much as several chapters depending on how much time I have, the amount of noise and activity in my home, and my ability to concentrate that day. It's hard to read the work of the saints with a headache.

I treat non-fiction books like the tools that they are, and I'm not afraid to write notes in the margins, underline things, or break the spine of a book to make it lay flat. I highlight anything that catches my attention or seems worth coming back to. When I finish a book, I will go back and read all the highlights.

As I finish a book, I swap in a new one to read. I'm also not averse to not finishing a book if I discover that it's not what I thought it was or if It's just not that interesting to me. I read about a third of "SuperBetter" by Jane McGonigal before shelving it and getting a new book. I place no pressure on myself to finish a book just for the sake of doing it.

I've found this morning holy hour to be a good habit for me and I wish I'd done it sooner. I look forward to that morning cup of coffee and going through the books. I always learn at least one good thing, and I believe that this habit will make me a more wise and a generally better person.

The Walking Challenge

I also have challenged myself to do some things this year. And it didn't have to be a January 1st thing, I was just pondering the idea of resolutions and how they often fail. I have no desire to fail, so I discarded the idea and instead decided to challenge myself.

My first challenge is to walk eight miles every day. Because I've been so a lazy and sedentary for the past few years, I know that if I tried to walk eight miles it would probably put me in bed for a week. So I'm building up slowly. I started with a 40 minute walk each day. It's January, which means it's cold and icy outside. So I started out walking around my house. It's late January now, and I'm up to an hour a day.

I've also added a sub-challenge to my eight miles a day challenge. I bought a weighted vest which has pockets that hold tubes up to ten four-pound tubes of sand. I'm at 8 pounds currently, and will work my way up to the full 40 pounds eventually. My scheme is for every four pounds of weight I lose, I'll add four pounds to my vest. I hope to be at the goal of 8/40 before next winter. I think this challenge will really begin to show progress once spring comes and I can walk outside.

The Sugar Challenge

Another thing I've been thinking about is eliminating sugar from my diet. Hi, my name is Andrew and I'm a sugar addict. You probably are too. Almost all Americans are addicted to sugar and I really don't like the idea of being addicted to anything. I don't drink alcohol regularly or to excess. I don't smoke. I don't use drugs, with the exception of caffeine, but I am conscious of that one and okay with it.

I'm certain that I will write more about sugar, but in the context of this post I'll just say that sugar is bad and I wanted to (at minimum) see if I can remove it from my diet for a while and see what happens.

The more I have researched sugar and it's effect on the human body, the more I have come to despise it in all it's forms. I also have come to resent the big corporations that have used sugar, the addictive substance that it is, to sell unhealthy food to us for longer than I've been alive.  One might be able to excuse it in the beginning and say they just didn't know what sugar does to us, but the data is out there now and they're still doing it. At this point, what they're doing is at least adjacent to criminal behavior, in my opinion. But I digress...

I won't go into detail in this post, but my challenge to eliminate sugar from my diet for a while has grown and become a pretty drastic change in my overall eating habits. I'm still treating it like a challenge - or maybe as an experiment - to see what happens to my body. I'm very happy with what this challenge has accomplished so far and will write more about it in the future.

Just to Wrap It Up

So after nearly a month, I'm pleased with the new habits of morning prayer and study that I've been nurturing. I do have more free time than most, but I'd recommend it to anyone, at least in some form.

I'm also pretty happy with the results, so far, of my challenges although my consistency hasn't been perfect. I have taken a few days off from walking here and there - mainly because my legs are not used to what I'm doing and they still get sore. I know that will go away in time.  And I've definitely slipped a few times (more than a few times) with my anti-sugar challenge, but it's getting easier to say no thank you and I will continue to work to be diligent.

I hope something I've said here is helpful and inspires you to work on a new, good habit or to challenge yourself to do something great. God bless you!