How Daily Habits Deepen Our Faith

In today’s episode, I share the spiritual maintenance plan that’s helping me feel more grounded—even when life throws me off track. If you’ve ever struggled to stick with daily prayer, scripture study, or consistent habits during stressful seasons, you’re not alone. I open up about a time when I felt totally overwhelmed, and how focusing on Jesus Christ brought me peace and perspective. I also introduce my Shine On Bullet Journal and the upcoming Summer Habit Tracking Challenge—an 8-week experience to help you build small, Christ-centered habits that create real joy. We start July 1, and I’d love to have you join us!

QUOTE:
“Our faith in Jesus Christ needs to be nourished daily. It is nourished as we pray daily, study the scriptures daily, reflect on the goodness of God daily, repent daily, and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost daily.”
—Elder Dale G. Renlund

JOURNAL PROMPTS:

1. What habits are fundamental to your spiritual growth?
2. What area of personal development is going well right now?
3. What type of support do you need to be successful at maintaining your habits?

IG @beckyschettlercoaching
Website
Free Habit Tracking System

8-week Habit-tracking Challenge

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the Shine on Podcast with Becky Schettler. I am grateful for you taking the time to listen to this podcast as I share some insights about following the Savior's way of living. I hope it strengthens your faith and testimony of Jesus Christ as I share my personal stories and challenges that have tested my faith and commitment to the Lord. One scripture story that keeps coming up for me recently is the parable of the 10 virgins. Of those who were invited to meet the bridegroom only half were prepared when he came. President Oaks talked about this parable in his general conference talk in April 2025, and he suggested that those that were prepared had followed the fundamental spiritual maintenance plan of personal prayer, regular scripture study, and frequent repentance. I love the idea of a personal maintenance plan. What is that? Could it be as simple as prayer, scriptures, and repentance? It makes me ask myself, how can I create a pattern in my life to maintain a fundamental spiritual plan? And to get more personal, how can I be consistent and follow a maintenance plan when life has its challenges of health, wealth, and relationships? It seems there are more unexpected things that happen in everyday life that throw me off when I finally settle in and get a good routine of habits going. All of my life, I've been taught the importance of prayer, scripture study, and repentance. I know when I live these principles, I am happier and I manage the emotional ups and downs of life better. But my problem is when I get out of my routine or a big change hits me or a loved one, or a major health challenge arises or even traveling can cause me to lose the momentum. With any of these types of things that pop up, it can offset my progress, and I feel like I'm failing at maintaining my spiritual habits. My light starts to dim and I'm not shining for myself or others. Life feels heavy and overwhelming, and I feel trapped. This made me reflect on a time in my life when I felt completely brokenhearted and desperate for something to change. I had some personal challenges that involved people I care about deeply, and it caused me to feel great fear, anxiety, and worry about my current situation and the future. It paralyzed me. I couldn't move. I felt trapped with no control to change the situation. This made me dig deep inside to decide where I wanted to find grounding and peace. Jesus Christ has always been there for me and He's always been my source of light. So I tried to be open to the spirit. This is when I became aware of the invitation from President Nelson to focus on Jesus Christ. He said,"when the focus of our lives is on Jesus Christ in His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening or not happening in our lives." That resonated with me so much. He continued to say the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with our focus." To me, that just seems so simple. I decided I wanted to experiment on his words and be intentional about focusing on Jesus every day. I wanted to learn all I could about Him and His character. These daily spiritual habits pointed me in a direction that has given me a new perspective of joy. And that is what I needed. Jesus was my answer. In the first episode of season two of this podcast, I talked about living my life in the Savior's way. This means I follow His example of increasing in wisdom, stature, and in favor with God and man found in Luke chapter two, verse 52. And I do this by setting daily habits that strengthen my body, mind, spirit, and relationships. When I focus on balancing each area of my life, I can choose habits that aligned with Christ-like qualities, and I feel more joy in life. This is why I created my own bullet journal with specific habit tracking tools that can help anyone create a happy life. I have given this bullet journal the name Shine On" like this podcast. I feel that God wants me to shine the light of Christ through this podcast and by teaching others how their daily habits can create a happy life. He wants us to be happy. I have customized the Shine On" bullet journal with features that establish a morning and evening routine, daily planning, weekly journaling, and monthly tracking of spiritual habits, of gratitude for God, service and joy. It is all in one place, and it is easy to track all of it. I know that when you commit to the small and simple habits each day, your consistent effort will make big changes. The joy I feel has changed as I have invited Christ into my daily habits. I have learned that regardless of the circumstances of my life, my faith and trust is centered on Jesus Christ and what he can do and not what I can do. My job is to love others and his job is to save others. I feel more at peace with this truth now that I am not trying to control things out of my control. I love this quote by Elder Renland. He said, quote, our faith in Jesus Christ needs to be nourished daily. It is nourished as we pray daily, study the scriptures daily, reflect on the goodness of God daily, repent daily, and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost daily. Just as it is not healthy to defer eating all of our food until Sunday and then binge our weekly allotment of nutrition, it is not spiritually healthy to restrict our testimony, nourishing behavior to one day of the week." I love that quote because it reminds us that we have to put forth effort every day. That is where we see the changes over time. I always like to leave some journal prompts. So the prompts go like this. First, what habits are fundamental to your spiritual growth? What area of personal development is going well right now? And last, what type of support do you need to be successful at maintaining your habits? I am growing a reputation as a Happy Habit Tracker coach. I help people establish habits that create a happy life. The best part of my habit tracking system is that it resets at the beginning of every month. So no matter when you catch this episode, just know that you can get a jumpstart on your habits at the beginning of every month. And I am here to help you. If you feel guilty for not sticking to your goals or you know there is something you really want to achieve but you don't know how to get started, you may be interested to be part of my eight week habit tracking challenge. This challenge includes my Shine On bullet journal and a weekly group call, which will focus on a fundamental habit. The next group is getting ready to start July 1st, and I would love to have you join us. Come find me on Instagram@BeckySchettlerCoaching and I can share more details. If today's episode reminded you of a time when you struggled with maintaining fundamental habits, or if you're longing to feel more happy, I'd love to connect with you. I am scheduling free mindset breakthrough calls to offer new insights so that you can feel more peace and purpose. You can find me on Instagram@BeckySchettlerCoaching. I'd love to hear what today's message stirred in your heart. You'll find links for a free habit tracker and my website in the show notes. Thanks for joining me today.