Divine Discontent and Habits

I gave a little presentation at a church activity last week about creating habits to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. A lot of speakers call the feelings we feel in the gap “divine discontent”. Divine discontent comes when we compare what we are to what we have the power to become.

Brian Tracy, in his article Listen to Your Divine Discontent, compares our emotional state to our physical state. He teaches that our physical bodies express pain when something isn’t right. In the same way our emotional bodies express unhappiness when something is awry. “Just as the natural physical state is health and vitality, the natural emotional state is peace and happiness. Whenever you experience a deviation from peace and happiness, it’s an indication that something is amiss . . . Unhappiness is to your life as pain is to your body.”

He goes on to explain the feelings of divine discontent: you feel fidgety and uneasy; dissatisfied; unable to sleep; you have a sense that something isn’t as it should be. “Divine discontent always comes before a positive life change. If you were perfectly satisfied, you would never take any action to improve or change your circumstances. Only when you’re dissatisfied for some reason do you have the inner motivation to engage in the outer behaviors that lead you onward and upward.”

This quote reminded me of the time before I made a huge change in my personal education. I was a mom of young kids. I was already on my homeschool journey. I was involved with a homeschool group that we loved, but something was missing. I knew I needed to make a change, I just wasn’t sure what. I attended a little presentation at someone’s house. I’m not even sure how I learned about the meeting or why I chose to drive the 90 minutes to attend. I’m pretty sure something guided me there. It was there that I figured out my next step. I decided to get a mentor, and she pushed me and guided me to discover my mission. There was a lot of work involved, but it was exactly the next step I needed.

In a talk entitled Divine Discontent, Michelle Craig says that “divine discontent is not an invitation to stay in our comfort zone, nor will it lead us to despair.” She learned that wallowing in thoughts of everything you are not will heed your progress. She, along with Neal Maxwell in his talk called Notwithstanding My Weakness both point out how easy it is to get sucked into feelings of discouragement and inadequacy instead of acting on the call to action.

So how do we bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be?

Habits.

Habits are routines or behaviors done on a regular basis. They are often done unconsciously and almost involuntarily.

Habits are important because they create routine, order and efficiency in your day. They allow for fewer decisions. Habits also create your character.

“Watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

I’ve written about a lot about habits. I believe in the power of habits. You can read some of what I’ve written here, here, and here.

I’ve also read a lot about habits. Here are a few of my favorite books about habits.

The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson
High Performance Habits by Brendon Bruchard
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey

And I’ve created a free guide to help you create successful habits in your own life. Click here to get it.

Good habits are formed by deliberately doing the right thing over and over. Like getting up every morning at 5:30 to meditate and exercise. Like drinking lots of water every day or removing sugar from your diet. Like taking some time every night to be grateful. I do these things consistently because they are part of the best version of me.

What thing do you do every day to change your life?

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.