Fasting

I worked with youth in the first church I served. One of the events we hosted each year was a fast for 30 hours to raise money and awareness for world hunger. We would eat lunch on Friday and then not eat again until 6:00 PM on Saturday evening. We would gather at church Friday evening and spend all day Saturday together, supporting one another, performing service projects, making posters for the spaghetti dinner with scented markers. We would then have dinner together Saturday night to break the fast.

Do you know what was the most difficult part of the event? The most physically painful part?

It was the moment immediately after I took my last bite of lunch on Friday. My stomach would actually hurt. Not because I ate so much food, but the knowledge that I would not be eating for another 30 hours was enough to make me physically ill.

By Friday night, I was fine. Saturday morning, no big deal. By the time we went to dinner on Saturday, I would have been content to wait until Sunday morning.

I think it’s like that with many things in our lives. The idea is often worse than the experience. The anticipation of the event carries more weight than the event itself. Whether it’s something we’re leaving behind or something we’re picking up, thinking about the change often takes more energy than making the change.

What do you want to change in your life? How do you want to grow? What is holding you back from making that change? At some point you just have to take that first step.

Take all of this as an endorsement of this book: The Motivation Myth. So much great stuff in this book, but it boils down to this. The anticipation around what you want to do is so often more challenging than doing the actual thing. And waiting around for motivation won’t help. If you want to get motivated, then get something done.

Get up. Get moving. Get it done.

Peace.