Snapshots of Life....The Highlight Reel

Yesterday was my birthday and it was the most amazing day of my life.  Bar none.

Do you ever feel so happy that you wish you could just take a bottle and bottle up all the happiness, just incase you will need it when the hard times come (and they always do....)?

That is how I felt yesterday.  There is nothing in my life that I regret.  There is nothing in my life as I am currently living it that I am ashamed of, or wish was different.  My son is doing great with his health (he got a successful kidney transplant at age 3, and is now 9 and still doing awesome), my husband is in good health and I love him, I am in good health and I love me, and we are just in a wonderful place right now.

I attribute all of these things to God, and give thanks to Him for giving us the tools to be responsible with our health and our finances.

Things have not always been this way.  A few short years ago, I was squandering both my health AND our finances.  We were in credit card debt up to our eyeballs from the transplant and from poor spending decisions in general.

And I have two words for "how did you change?"

Baby.  Steps.  Of course the DECISION had to be made first to DO so.  But the implementation was done with baby steps.

We took control of our health by utilizing Take Shape For Life as a tool and making incremental changes in our daily routine TOWARDS health.  We made a FUNDAMENTAL CHOICE to BE healthy, then began acting like we meant it.  Our outsides caught up with our insides.

We took control of our finances by listening to Dave Ramsey, finding new ways to increase our income (thanks again TSFL!), and making incremental improvements in our daily decisions and daily routines TOWARDS the commitment to someday become DEBT FREE.

Working on becoming DEBT FREE is similar, I think, in the dynamics of the process, to working on becoming a healthy BMI.  Both are ideals that you commit to, and both require daily consistent action, action that includes a prescribed set of principles that if we DEVIATE from, will give us SET-BACKS and move us further from our goal instead of closer to it.

A relapse in either area looks the same, it is deciding that what I want which is right in front of me (instant gratification) is more important to HAVE or to CONSUME (they don't call us "consumers" for nothing!) than our goal to be DEBT FREE or a HEALTHY BMI is at that moment.

And we succumb to the temptation.  That is what a relapse in either area looks like.

For ONCE in my life I have BOTH of these areas under proper control and management.  I am controlling both my body AND my money, instead of allowing my body or my money to control me, or to be out of control is more like it!

Chaos reigns in my life in BOTH of these areas when I'm not mindfully holding the reigns and THINKING about the direction I'm headed and WHY with every eating/drinking decision AND every spending decision.

SO!  Baby steps.  Am I a healthy BMI?  YES! 

Am I DEBT FREE?  Can I get on Dave Ramsey's show and scream "I'm Debt Free!" at the top of my lungs?  No.  But we have a plan to become so, and that plan is in motion.  And LIKE the plan to become healthy, if we set our sights on something and move a little bit closer to that something every day due to purposeful ACTION and yes, some sacrifice and deprivation NOW, we WILL be.  It is just a matter of time.

There is nothing wrong with deprivation and sacrifice when you are working on a goal that is greater than that THING or FOOD you are choosing NOT to have NOW.  Like Dave Ramsey says, "Live like no one else now, so that someday you can live like no else." 

And this is true in health AND in finances.  I don't want to be "normal" in either of these areas.  I want to be exceptional. 

Rinse and Repeat!