How are you doing with your Lenten promises?

Photo by Daniel J. Schwarz on Unsplash

We start off commited, delighted with the new beginning.

We get the ashes on our forehead. We’re prepared for the drill: 40 days to give to our Lord and when we reach Easter, we will be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

What can happen along the way?

Well, we can lose momentum. We get distracted perhaps. The shine of our resolve starts to wear off. We lose in the first or second hurdle, and so we decide to keep it safe. We justify by entertaining the thought: “I’m actually doing pretty well anyway!” And there goes our Lenten promises or some of them anyway.

What to do when this happens?

The Do Something Principle

The “do something principle” is about doing something to get the momentum going. It is the means to take action when you don’t have any motivation to do something.

We tend to think of inspiration, motivation and action as a linear loop. But the opposite is also true. If you are waiting for inspiration, do something - brush your teeth! Do whatever you need to do for 1 minute. Just for 1 minute! Don’t think of the long haul.

Reward yourself for small wins

This obviously is not very Lenten like but if you’re at rock-bottom, there is no harm in tricking yourself to get up again.

Sometimes it’s a pyschological necessity. This is simply about winning over the primal side of your brain. We would love to be above this but hey-ho, we are human!

Case study example:

You gave up social media for Lent but 4 days in, you have an argument with a close friend and now you are so angry, you throw in the towel altogether and wallow in your depressive state by watching a million TikTok reels. Binging to forget.

In this and in other similar situations, we need to be aware of the “all or nothing principle”. The all or nothing principle is basically tricking ourselves into inaction by saying things like: well I’ve given up now, so I might aswell just give up altogether.

Rather, you need to be thinking of small wins.

I’ve fallen in this today. I watched a million reels.
Okay. (Take a deep breath and say sorry to our Lord)
and then just say:
Tomorrow, I will only watch 5 minutes of reels.

This is tricking yourself but it is - I promise you! - the guareenteed way of easing yourself back to your resolutions.

And this bring me onto the third point.

Progressive Growth

Organically grow a lifestyle that you gradually get used to. Identify with the plan, not with the end result. If you develop a game-plan of about 7 days of trying to get out of a rut, it will be much better than aiming by brute force to change overnight. Manage your expectations and be patient with yourself.

You migth be saying to yourself - But this is Lent, I should be doing it for our Lord and not trying to trick myself into doing it. Yes, this is true, but if you are doing it, you need to count on the human means as well as the spiritual means to overcome the rut you might find yourself in.

This line: There is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations and it’s up to each one of you to discover it. (St Josemaria) is for these kind of moments.

Your human efforts dovetail with your spiritual ones. We need to tap into the means at our disposal in this world of ours to grow more Christ-like. We read Scripture and frequent the Sacraments, but we also need to seek out input (books, podcasts, videos, etc.) that help us humanly. God counts on everything.

So when the shine on your Lenten resolutions is wearing off, ask our Lord for His strength, but also learn the tricks of the trade to get over the slump you may find yourself in.

Footnote:

The ideas for this blog post came from this one video I find truly helpful when you have kind of given up (I say, “kind of” because no-one wants to admit it ;) - Joey Schweitzer with “How to get out a rut”.

There is also a great book called “The War of Art” by Stephen Pressfield. It’s worth listening to it on Audible as it’s narrated by the author. It’s a great book and very helpful to read when you are trying to improve. He explains how to overcome our resistance to becoming better and he does it a very earnest and funny way. Such a good book!

Happy Lent everyone! Keep it up! It’s worth it :)