Joyful Ruins

Note: I wrote this a year ago. If I rewrote it, I would take a lot of the religious language out of it because this applies to all peoples, no matter what they believe. So, forgive me if the religious wording throws you off. I hope you can still get a sincere and helpful message from it.

Go small or go home

Mhm, you read that right. I’ve decided to change the saying. No more go big or go home. No more all or nothing thinking or pass or fail.  Why would I be so against such a popular saying?

Because it ain’t Jesus’s style.

Jesus used small things to move miraculously.  He chose Shepherd boys, the lowly and poor (who were considered small and weak), 5 loaves and fish, the faith the size of a mustard seed to be the epitome of His kingdom.  Even God, great unfathomable alpha and omega God, chose to come into the world as a small baby.

The Bible says do not despise the small beginnings.  I kind of think God is a fan of the small.

You might be wondering what this has to do with you and your life and the original saying.

The idea of go big or go home is that if you don’t give it everything you’ve got, or go above and beyond, then you might as well not even try. I think this mentality might just be why we have so many burnt out and mentally ill people. The reality is, you can’t live a go big go home lifestyle. It’s physically impossible.

There are some good truths in the saying to be sure, like be passionate, put in your best effort etc. In fact, the part I dislike the most is the go home attitude because it signifies that if you don’t exceed expectations, you aren’t enough.  So maybe I should drop the go home with my revised version, but I think going small is an appropriate expectation for most human beings on this planet. If you can’t even show up, then yes, you might as well stay home.

Here’s how you can apply the go small or go home mentality to your life.

Think about the last time you set some goals and started accomplishing them, like new years resolutions.  One of two things happen.

1. You start out with go big goals. You aren’t just going to change your diet completely but you are going to go to the gym every day AND stop watching TV AND only buy organic foods. Basically, you are taking go big to heart and wanting to do it all.

Quickly you learn that you can’t do ALL those things. You grow discouraged and you end up throwing in the towel…you end up going home.

OR

2. Maybe you start off with doable goals, like going to the gym 3 times a week. You start off really well, but in the middle of one of those times, your mind drifts and you become dissatisfied.  You start to think about going bigger, doing more. Surely 3 times a week isn’t enough, you’ve got to do better than this. So you add diet changes, more exercise programs. In the middle of actually accomplishing something wonderful you are beginning to ask of yourself much more. You aren’t content.

So you set out to add to your goals and soon enough you are discouraged because you can’t meet them. And soon enough you are so discouraged, you aren’t even doing the 3 times at the gym a week goal.

Either of those sound familiar? I’ve experienced this in so many areas of my life. I find myself seeking health and growth, but I don’t stop to savor the small steps along the journey or I just pile on more and more to what I’m doing, burning myself out quickly.

That’s why go small or go home is one of my new mentalities and it just helps me understand the way God works even better.  After all, God takes His time, enjoys the details, notices the small things, and He delights over them. He sees every sparrow that falls and He has numbered our very hairs.

So how do we live out go small or go home?

First of all, take off the pressure of go home. All of us are covered by an ocean of God’s grace so even when we “fail” we still have the footholding to get back up and try again.

Secondly, don’t be ashamed or afraid to adjust.  We all have lofty ideas of how we should set goals. Most of us set big goals, it’s hard not to. We get excited and eagerly write out a lot not realizing it might not realistically work or be sustainable. That’s why I say learn to adjust.

If you notice something isn’t working or something is too hard or is feeling terrible, consider how you could make it easier, make it more fun, or adjust it to fit into your life.

It could be that meal prepping for a healthy diet on Sundays just sucks because you want a rest, to focus on church and family. That’s ok! Choose a different day or ask for help from others.

Or maybe you are not just exercising every day but you’ve also added yoga every day on top of that. In the middle of your 3 days, your body feels tired and it just doesn’t want to do the workout you are doing. Yoga, on top of that seems impossible.

It’s ok to cut down how much you do at first. It’s ok to exercise 3 times a week instead. After all, what if you did that for a month?! That would rock and you would feel great without also hurting your body, getting discouraged, and giving up.

3. Grace

Look, the thing I hear the most from women when they are trying to get healthier is that they did ok but should have done better OR that they failed one day and that brought so much shame and  guilt.

Realistically, you are not going to do this perfectly. You are human. Mistakes happen. Schedules change. Moods come. It’s ok if you miss a day or two or even three. You can still continue your goals without wiping the slate clean.

Have you been eating really well and then have a day of binging? It’s ok! It’s part of being human and that doesn’t mean you have failed.  I bet you shamed yourself and criticized yourself when you binged, didn’t you? Did that motivate you to eat healthy again or did it make you want to binge more?

The way you respond to your failures is going to make all the difference for keeping yourself encouraged and motivated.  Please be kind to yourself and offer grace to yourself.  Imagine God seeing your  efforts. Imagine Jesus seeing your “mess up”.

He would smile at you and comfort you and tell you that you are doing a great job, He offers you grace to keep going while not beating yourself up.

4. Celebrate!

That’s right!! If you’re like me, you don’t even take time to recognize the good you are doing.

Like I wrote above, even in the middle of the good thing you are doing, you tell yourself you need to do more.

Recognizing that you have chosen something good for yourself is an amazing feeling.

On day one, celebrate that choice, that small step. Celebrate eating that salad, doing that workout. Who knows what will happen tomorrow BUT you did it today. God’s celebrating

over you. You should too.

Finally, I just want to encourage you in those small steps. All journeys take time, ups and downs, repetition, and the growth and health comes in stages and layers. Just like Jericho’s walls had to be circled 7 times before they fell, anything worth doing in God’s kingdom takes learning, time, and grace. And those small seeds, small steps, all lead to the BIG that you were hoping for all along.

So my dear friends, go small or try again.

(See how I changed that 😉).