141 - Contentment Habits
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Show Notes:
The key to success is contentment.
I mean, think about it—if you can find a way to truly be content, to be happy in every circumstance, wouldn't it be awesome? Every day it would be incredible. I mean, we'd wake up so grateful and so happy because we're content! This episode is about fighting for contentment with simple habits in our lives. Habits that can help us pause and realize just how good we have it. Habits that help us to live at ease and to live content.
Now, for those of you who just started the Contentment Challenge, you can do this! I hope this is going to be encouraging to you. And if you're listening and have no idea what I'm talking about, it's a challenge I host every year to give up shopping for things for three months, it's saying a temporary goodbye to Amazon Prime and Target and instead, focusing on the things that bring true contentment and fulfillment. It started January 10th, but the beauty about the Contentment Challenge is you can do it any time of year when it works for you.
Head to nancyray.com/contentmentchallenge, where you can learn all about it.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below.
Over the years, God has taught me so much about contentment and as beautiful as that sounds, and you might be thinking, oh yay, Nancy lives such a content life—here’s the ugliness of it that you don't see. I found myself over and over again, discontent, discontent. That's why God has to teach this to me over and over again. It's why I do the Contentment Challenge every year and I just want to pause and, and kind of analyze just how embarrassing that is.
I live in America, the freest country in the world. I was raised in church by parents who love me. I've been married for 13 years to an incredible man. We have four beautiful, healthy children. We live in a home that has AC in the summer and heat in the winter. Our pantry and our fridge are full. I have the freedom and the ability to earn money, learn new things. I can work hard. I can learn a new skill. I have access to the internet. I have wifi in my house. I have not had major health issues. I'm healthy. I have dear close friends that I share my life with. I have so much, so much. So why in the ever-loving world would I struggle with discontent?
Well, I think there are several reasons, some of which you might relate to. I think, first, it just comes down to my focus. What am I focused on? Because when I start to focus on the things I don't have, or my struggles, or how hard this day is, or fill in the blank, I start to get a little sad.
I started to feel discontent. I feel like this isn't all that it was cracked up to be, and my mind can kind of spiral. I think it also has to do with what I allow in front of my eyes. Like when I see others around me, seemingly happier or more organized or having nicer things or having a better body or having better behaved children are more “successful” business or work, I start to question, what am I doing wrong? Why do I have a different lot in life? Why is it harder for me as a believer?
I think discontentment is a huge tool of the enemy. When he can shift our focus, when he can shift my focus and he can convince me, then I need to complain about all the things in my life. Instead of acknowledging all the good that I have in my life and thanking God and praising Him, he knows he's gaining ground. I think he uses discontentment big time, and if I'm honest, I see it in myself a lot. And I see it in moms in America. I feel like we just complain about our abundance a lot. And I'm raising my hand here. I mean, this is I, yeah, just struggling with discontent and complaining when we have so much given to us. Most of all, I think discontentment arises, honestly, just because life is hard. I don't care who you are. I don't care how much money you have, what you do for a living. If you are the coolest celebrity or nobody, I don't care.
We're all living the human experience, which includes suffering and sadness and hard days. And if I can just be honest for a second, life with four kids, it is, it's amazing. It's so good. I love it. These kids are precious, and some days are crazy hard. I recently compared it to being a Navy Seal. Yes, I did that. I compared it to being a Navy Seal in training because here I am just trying to live life. You know, I'm just trying to sleep, go to the bathroom, make three meals a day, do my work, do laundry, have relationships, but then there's things that feel like mines going off in a field. What is it? Mine? Is that right? Yeah. We're just going to go with that. You know, the secret bombs hidden in a field, that just like go off and like totally disrupt everything that I'm doing. Or there's like cold water thrown in my face or like get down and give me 20 like in the middle of something I'm trying to do.
This is like what it feels like, right? Because I fold laundry and my toddler just come and unfolds all the work that I did and throws the clothes everywhere. I try a new recipe trying to feed my family, like healthy things. It takes me two hours to make this recipe. I'm so excited about it. I give it to my family at dinnertime, the whole, by the way, the whole time of making it, there's just fights I’m breaking up. I'm trying to not, you know, get burned. I'm trying to keep everyone sane and not killing each other. And then I have to stop and feed the baby. And then I get up and I finished cooking and dinner's late and I'm sweaty. And I finally get it all on the table and I serve it in everyone.
All the kids just say it's gross. They don't want it. They want chicken nuggets. I'm like, why, why, why do I do this to myself? You know, I dress everyone in warm clothes for a walk. We're trying to get outside. It takes me 45 minutes to get us all dressed. And by the end of that, three of us are crying, including myself. And we finally get out the door, make it to the end of the driveway and then someone needs to pee. And we're all in our winter clothes. I mean, it's crazy. You know, anytime we go somewhere, I'm running late, almost always running late, stressing out about it. And when I finally get everyone loaded in the car, the baby has a massive poop and it's just all over the car seat and himself in the car. And we were already late, you know, and on top of this, I'm being woken up throughout the night to feed this baby and I'm sleep deprived and it's hard to remember to eat and go to the bathroom. I mean, it's just a lot. At least Navy Seals know there is an end to their training, but there is no end in sight for us. It's just this on repeat every day, every day. And I say that tongue in cheek, obviously, but you can see, you can see that life is just hard and you can also see how easy it was to just like spiral into that thinking.
I mean, funny, but also on hard days, not funny. Not really funny at all, because you can just spin out of control and you can say, why, why, why does everything have to be so hard? And you just get so discontent and you're not content with the messes and the lateness and all the things that are happening that feel so hard.
But after years of me thinking about contentment and really thinking about what, what did Paul mean? What did he really mean when he penned the words “I am content in every circumstance when I have much, or I have little, I am content”? I have really wrestled with that. What is, what does that mean? How can I really live that? And I just, to be honest, I'm still learning. I am still learning this in such big ways in my life. But as I've wrestled with this over the years, I've learned just a few practical habits that I try to incorporate into my everyday living so I can live a more content life. And I hope, I hope that this will just encourage you.
Maybe you can just take one or two of these and try them out and see if they'll help you live a more content, more happy life, no matter what your circumstances.
1. Focus on the good
Focus on the good. Focus on what is good, not everything that's going wrong, but focus on the good in the middle of the crazy dinner shenanigans. And when you're feeling stressed out, because you're late, just focus on what you had that day.
Maybe none of your kids are sick. Maybe that's what you can focus on.
Maybe you focus on the fact that you just made up this crazy creative dinner when you were out of groceries and you use stuff from the freezer and all the kids ate it. Maybe that's what you focus on.
Maybe you focus on the extra hour of sleep that you got.
It doesn't matter, just focus on whatever is good that day. I love this quote by Oprah: “Be thankful for what you have and you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you'll never ever have enough .”
Focus on what you have.
2. Guard your gates
Guard your gates, and by your gates, I mean your eyes and your ears. I have never been more convinced in my life that I become who I listen to. You become who you listen to, whatever we are letting in our eyes and our ears, whatever books, podcasts, music you're listening to. That is who you're going to become. Like, I mean, it so has an effect on our brains.
For me, it can affect my mood and it can turn my whole day around for the bad or for the good. Let me ask you this. Who are you following on Instagram? Who are you watching on TV? What are you letting in? It might be a great time to just unfollow a ton of people on Instagram, or just turn off Instagram completely for a while, find some new podcasts or new books to read that will be uplifting and will help you become the person you want to be. It truly can change your life.
Guard your gates.
3. Worship
It is incredible to me when I turn on worship music, when I think about myself less, when I think about God and who He is, the atmosphere in my home and my heart change. Get plugged into a church where you can have regular worship with fellow believers, if you're not. It is so powerful to me every Sunday. When I show up at my church and I can worship the King of Kings, it changes everything. I have a kids worship playlist (here’s the link). I've made it just so that we can listen to worship music on the way to their school, and they can engage on their level.
And it just keeps scripture and the thoughts of God in my mind. There's something that happens in the spiritual realm when we worship. I mean, there's a worship song that says, this is how I fight my battles. And that is true. We fight our battles in the spiritual realm, worshiping through every single day. The good days, the hard days, if we can just worship and create that as a habit, it really is a life of contentment because we know God is with us and he's on our side and it's okay. No matter what happens.
4. To be honest
That's not really a habit, okay, I'll confess this. It’s not really a habit, but it's something that I wanted to mention because I don't think that it's helpful for us to pretend like everything's great all the time. False contentment or false happiness, or just putting up a show or putting up a front—it doesn't do anyone any good because life is painful. It will bring pain and sickness and hard days. I think to bring true contentment, we have to be honest, we have to face them.
We have to share in that sorrow and loss with our people. But I think we also don't need to medicate them with shopping or wine or fill in the blank, whatever it is. Don't just sweep it under the rug. And also don't blow it out of proportion and complain. You just need to be honest, you need to focus on the good. Worship, be honest, and know it will pass.
5. Stop shopping
This is kind of a weird one, but it's to stop shopping. stop the influx of material things in your home and your life. Because we live in a culture that tells us we need new things all the time to be relevant, to be pretty, to feel confident. But truly the times that I have felt most content in my life is when I have taken those things away.
Well, first of all, it peels back the layer of like, okay, I'm not content unless I keep getting these things, so what's wrong there? And then I shift my contentment and my focus on what really matters. Then I find true contentment deep down. In walking with the Lord, abiding in Him, looking at all that I have, counting my blessings, being thankful. And if you can just stop shopping for a little bit—which is why I mentioned the Contentment Challenge—really it's like it breaks something off of you and makes you live a more content life.
6. A good clean out
I'm talking like clean out your house, clean out your closet, get rid of stuff, give away the kids' toys, give away some clothes, just sell some things, get rid of some things. It is so funny. It feels like that doesn't make sense, like to be content, get rid of stuff, but every time I do the Contentment Challenge, I do a big clean out and it's so weird. I get rid of tons of stuff out of my house. And I end up feeling like I have more. And the reason is because I see the things that I want to keep. I've been very intentional about what I want to keep in my home, and then I use them and I enjoy them.
And I love the things in my home more, versus buying a bunch of new sparkly things and adding to all the clutter that is filling up my home, causing me more stress. So if you can stop shopping, number five and number six, have a good clean out, for me, it fosters more contentment. and number seven goes along with that—
7. Use what you have
Use what you have. Don't save it for a rainy day. Don't put that pretty thing on the back shelf for “one day.” Get it out. Use it. Use the clothes in your closet. Go back and put that thing on that you haven't worn in several weeks. Don't save them for special occasions. Use them. That's how they're beautiful. I love this quote by Shauna Niequist, she says:
“How we live matters. What you choose to own will shape your life, whether you choose to admit it or not. Let's live lightly, freely, courageously surrounded only by what brings joy, simplicity and beauty.”
I think that paints such a pretty picture of a contempt life.
8. Read a good book
Foster the habit of reading in your life. The more I read, the more I realize what a gift it is, first of all, to be able to read; second of all, what a gift the pages of a book are. I mean, they teach us things. They share stories with us. They make us cry. They inspire us. Books are I think just the form of the greatest wealth that you can have.
Just getting into the habit of reading is so life-changing. And I, I have not been a reader my whole life and I would not say I'm an avid reader. I really try to read about one book a month and that's about all I can swing, but it's so life changing and you’ve just got to get good books and take them at a pace that you can, because it's worth it.
Books just show me that I have so much more than I realize. Okay, enough about books.
9. Get outside
Just getting outside, taking a few deep breaths, getting outside for five minutes a day, getting outside and going on a walk in God's creation just does something in my Spirit. It makes me realize I don't have to have that new car. I don't have to have x, y, and z. I don't have to have this or that. It just ministers to me. Getting outside, feeling the sunshine on my skin and taking a few deep breaths of fresh air is, it's just the best feeling. And it makes me always feel so much more content when I can just get outside for a little bit.
10. Step back and gain perspective
The habit of looking at the world around you, the habit of frequently stepping outside of your four walls, outside of your own mind, outside of the life that you're living and seeing that there are people in your own city and town that really don't have much at all. That people around the world don't have much.
Did you know that 2.6 billion people on this planet, 2.6 billion people live on less than $2 a day. That is their life, and if you're listening to this podcast, the chances are, is that you live on a lot more than that. And that makes me incredibly humbled and incredibly grateful that this is the life that I get to live. So grateful. And it also makes me want to step back and gain perspective on where I fit in this world.
What am I, what am I doing? How am I using my gifts and my abilities to make a difference in my family and in the people around me? And also just to be grateful that this, this is where I landed. If we can just step back and gain perspective regularly, it will cultivate such gratitude and such a heart of contentment.
So that's it. Those 10 things for you to think about incorporating in your own life to foster contentment.
Focus on the good.
Guard your gates.
Worship regularly.
Be honest.
Stop shopping.
A good clean out.
Use what you have.
Read a good book.
Get outside.
Gain perspective.
And I would be remiss if I did not share the most important thing. Now those are habits, but the most important thing that truly will bring contentment and satisfaction all the days of your life is a relationship with Jesus. Walking with Him. It’s giving your life to him and following him because when you have that, you know that everything's going to be okay. You know that no matter what comes today, what comes next week, what happens in the future, what happens in our culture, what happens in your family—it will be hard at times, absolutely, but in the end—He wins and in the end, you'll spend eternity in heaven with Him.
And that is really the heart of contentment is walking in a relationship with Jesus every single day, abiding in Him. And I hope that these habits that I've mentioned today can help enhance that relationship with Him as you walk out your days.
Thank you so much for listening to episode 141.
I'll end with a quote by John Mark Comer. He said,
“What you give your attention to is the person you become. Put another way, the mind is the portal to the soul, and what you fill your mind with will shape the trajectory of your character. In the end, your life is no more than the sum of what you gave.”
Thanks for listening.
