Habit #1: Practice healthy coping
When I was going through a challenging book deadline, cancer treatments, massive financial stress due to Covid shutdowns, and some significant emotional trauma, guess what my coping mechanism was?
Food.
Guess whether it helped or not?
I’m sure you know the answer. I gained pounds, not perseverance.
All of us have healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms, whether we realize it or not. This sounds ridiculously simple, but it is also ridiculously important: If we want to build our “you-can-do-this” muscles in hardship, it means we have to figure out what our coping mechanisms are in the moment. Then we feed the healthy ones (box breathing, praying, walking, or calling a friend), and prune the unhealthy ones (sugar, drinking, sarcasm, rage-texting, or doomscrolling).
The unhealthy habits sabotage perseverance. The healthy ones build it!
I know not every reader has the same beliefs, but followers of Jesus know that ultimately, we have to turn to Jesus Himself rather than anything else we are tempted to lean on.
Who or what do you turn to? Healthy support mechanisms for the tested soul should start with things like prayer, but they don’t have to end there. For example, in our recent interviews with Christian first responders, multiple police officers and firefighters told us they had to choose to build exercise into their routine. They were busy, tired, stretched, and traumatized, yet when they went for a run, with praise music on their playlist, God fortified them.
What fortifies you? What fortifies your kids? Take a moment to think about that—and help your kids think about it—and write it down in the notes on a phone or journal. Then ask God how to build that into the day—especially when you’re tempted to turn to something else.
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