Habits of Hope: Cultivating a Deeper Life with God

18.Start the Year with Hope: Simple Steps to a Balanced Life in 2025

• Ginger Harrington • Season 1 • Episode 18

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Kick off 2025 with hope and intention! In this episode, we explore how small, daily habits can nurture your body, soul, and spirit. Learn how to embrace progress over perfection, celebrate small wins, and trust God with the journey. Whether you’re looking to reset after the holidays or build momentum for lasting change, these practical steps and faith-filled encouragement will inspire you to start small, stay faithful, and let God work in your life this year.

 

Takeaways

  1. Start Each Day with Intention: Invite God into your daily choices and focus on one nurturing action for your body, soul, and spirit.
  2. Celebrate Small Wins: Recognize daily progress, no matter how small, to build momentum and foster gratitude.
  3. Embrace Progress Over Perfection: Let go of unrealistic expectations and trust God with the results of your efforts.
  4. Reset Anytime: If you feel off track, pause, pray, and take the next small step forward.
  5. Trust God with Your Journey: Focus on faithfulness in your habits and leave the outcomes to Him.
  6. Balance Comes from Alignment: True balance happens when body, soul, and spirit work together in harmony, not through overexertion or perfectionism.
  7. Faith Overcomes Shame: Shift your mindset from "not enough" to grace-filled progress, trusting God to equip you every step of the way.


Quotes
Faithfulness today builds momentum for tomorrow.
Small steps, big faith, lasting change.
God rejoices when we begin, no matter how small.
Progress isn’t about perfection; it’s about persistence in faith.



Chapters

00:00 Embracing New Beginnings

06:46 Nurturing the Whole Self

14:07 Progress Over Perfection

20:51 Celebrating Wins and Healthy Choices

26:53 Trusting God with Results


💌 Kickstart 2025 with the Wellness Challenge!
Join our 7-day email series designed to help you create healthy habits for your body, soul, and spirit. 

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 Habits of Hope Podcast  is for informational and inspirational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional advice—spiritual, medical, legal, or otherwise.

Ginger Harrington (00:04.089)
there's something so exciting about a fresh start to the new year. The start of a new year is the perfect time to pause, reflect, and realign not just our goals, but our mindset. You know, a fresh start isn't about doing everything perfectly. It's about leaning into God's guidance, embracing His mercies, and taking small steps toward the life He's calling you to.

If you're longing to feel more aligned, more energized, and at peace this year, I think you're going to love this episode. Today we're going to explore how to commit to nurturing our body, soul, and spirit, our whole self, through simple daily habits that cultivate health and honor God. Are you ready to focus on building the small, faithful steps that lead to a balanced and hope-filled life? Let's get to it.

because a deeper life starts now. I'm your host, Ginger Harrington, and let's say hello to our co-host, Larissa Jaqueur, AKA Grateful Chick. Hello, my friend. Hey, Ginger, happy new year. So excited to be here and starting off the new year with you. Me too. There's something so fun about the new year and I just have a great feeling about this year. I'm excited to talk about setting our mind to really

getting into a good groove as we start the new year. Yeah, this is a great topic to kick off the new year. A balanced life doesn't come from massive overhauls or exhausting yourself trying to do it all. It begins with shifting our perspective. True balance comes from the faithful and consistent choices that nurture every part of us, body, soul and spirit. Now what is this?

feel like for you as we're starting the new year. It's a fresh start, it's a new palette, there's so many possibilities, but also taking time to linger. There's so much talk about hitting the ground running on the first or the second, and that works for some people, and I love that, and I thought I was one of those people, but I've learned I just need to ease into the year, allowing the Lord to guide me as I go. So how about you, how does this look for you?

Ginger Harrington (02:20.462)
I'm thinking back to last year. Last year I entered the year feeling out of alignment. This morning I was spending some time with the Lord and reflecting back over the year and how that reset went. And it was actually, I think, very successful. And, you a lot of times we make New Year's goals and resolutions and by February...

They are out the window. My day job, I work in fitness. And so I see this tendency of folks to make all these big New Year's resolutions, particularly ones that align with health. The gym is packed out all of January and it starts to taper off in February. So. It's hard, right? It's hard to the momentum going, that's for sure. It is. And that's why I think that mindset piece is the foundation.

of how we navigate and how consistent we'll be, whether or not we'll even remember that we made some of these goals. It's really easy to try to revamp your whole life. But even just that mindset is almost coming from a place of shame. Like I didn't do good enough last year. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I'm not healthy enough. I don't look

good enough or I didn't get enough done or that type of thing and I don't want to enter a new year and a new season of my life with the not enough conversation in my head. I want to enter with grace and balance and harmony between body, soul and spirit. So I'm excited that we're going to be talking about this today. Larissa, would you share our verse with us and tell us a little bit what's on your mind with this verse?

Okay, our main verse today is from Zechariah 4.10. Do not despise these small beginnings for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin. And this verse reminds us that God values our small intentional efforts. And you know, I love that word intentional. Even the tiniest step we take toward health and wholeness is part of his greater plan for us. Start fresh each day with small actions.

Ginger Harrington (04:33.402)
that align your life with God's design, knowing He rejoices in your efforts to grow. And I know we'll talk about that because we always have actionable items. But I really like the reminder to not despise small beginnings. I know I have struggled with that for years. And I think this is why that easing into the new year and lingering resonates with me, because it's a little easier when you're slowed down to really think about

doing things intentionally and doing small things well. And just that reminder that the Lord rejoices to see the work begin. And I think that's where a lot of struggles happen, right? Is that we don't even begin maybe because it's shame or we feel like, it's already the 10th of January, whatever day it happens to be that you're listening to this. And it's all, I blew it already, you know? And that's not true. We can reset at any time. So this is a great.

verse to think about as we head into this new year. What about you? I'm not gonna go into the whole context and background of this verse from Nehemiah, but they were facing a huge task to rebuild the wall. And this wall was for protection, right? When we're thinking about

aligning body, soul and spirit and developing or just maintaining healthy habits and rhythms in our life. That's something that protects us and it can be a large task. If we set small goals within the bigger goal, then we break it down to more manageable chunks and we actually get started. Many years I've started out the year with the goal of losing 20 pounds.

And particularly in this season of my life, my body does not do the things the same way that it did when I was in my twenties and thirties. And so I am focusing more on smaller increments, daily steps, the micro habits that help you get to those bigger goals. If we're faithful with the small things, the bigger things are going to come. I really had not thought about God being delighted.

Ginger Harrington (06:46.968)
to see us begin and take small steps with the work that he's given us to do. I love that God is in it with us. And that's just a great reminder as we start the year. Yeah, I love that. Today, our habit of hope is commit to nurturing your whole self, body, soul and spirit, rather than focusing or hyper focusing on just one area of life.

We talk about a balanced life and when we say that we're usually talking about balancing all the things in life. You know what I'm saying work family health hobbies just all the things and and that is part of balance in life. But true balance comes from a harmonious alignment of body soul and spirit where we are living well.

living in faith and hope in all of those areas and that they're working together. That's easier said than done and this is not a work that we can accomplish in and of ourselves. And this takes us into our first point which is the way we get there is to rely on Christ to help us invest in our whole self. That key to getting it

aligned and working together and being faithful and consistent comes by the work of the Holy Spirit within us inviting Jesus into your habits and your patterns and asking him Lord teach me to live well the way you want me to live this year and help me to be faithful help me to make those small steps that help me live balanced and alignment body soul and spirit that harmony peace

I think it's so important and everything starts with God. Trusting in his guidance and looking for his guidance, relying on it, inviting him into each day is really a way to approach our daily choices with purpose. So any thoughts on that, my friend? Again, I love certain keywords that you use and

Ginger Harrington (09:07.14)
Relying on God's strength is such a good word and that reminder, and I think we can over complicate it as I have done. So I like starting off with this step one, so to speak, relying on Christ. Yes, yes. And I think about the analogy of tuning an instrument. My son is a musician. Every time he's going to play, he starts by tuning the instrument so that all of the strings of his guitar are going to be in tune with each other.

If he doesn't, it doesn't sound right. You can tell something is off. I think there's the same thing with these key components of who we are, body, soul and spirit. When one area is out of alignment or not healthy, it impacts all the other ones and it feels off. And so the Lord understands what's off and how we got there and how to

move forward way better than we do. And so it's really important that we include him in that conversation and seek his purpose and his path in that versus just coming up with this plan or system to make our lives perfect. So our next point is embrace.

Progress over perfection and this is a great one because I have struggled with that and I'm overcoming it which is great There's so much freedom in in that so focus on faithful progress by embracing small intentional steps rather than striving for perfection true transformations in small consistent steps not overnight be patient with yourself letting go of the pressure of perfectionism

The journey to hope and health is not about perfection. It's about faithful, small steps that lead to lasting change. I really like that we're talking about small steps because it all can feel so overwhelming and especially at the beginning of the year. I really like to know why this matters. I love that we include this when we can. So this matters because growth happens slowly and it's easy to overlook the importance of consistent progress. A practical habit

Ginger Harrington (11:19.194)
would be focusing on one or two simple actions each day, like drinking more water, taking a 10 minute walk, or meditating on a single Bible verse. I did this many, many years ago, this drinking more water habit, and it has stuck with me. It truly can become a default, like I talk a lot about gratitude being my default. I integrated it into my life, did it daily, and now it's just automatic.

You don't build strength by working out once. Muscles grow with consistent small efforts over time. And the same is true for building healthy habits. You know, we can't get healthy by eating one blueberry, but it does start with one, but then you have to consistently build on that. And so that's such a great reminder as well. So how about you? I think one of the things that came to mind for me is there are times when you come into a new season,

It's not just a calendar year, but it's a new season of life. This last year has been that for me. Last January, my husband transitioned out of working for the government and is now a missionary to the military, specifically to Marines through an organization called Tun Tavern Fellowship. And that shift to where both my husband and I are doing ministry work has been a new season for sure.

We've become grandparents in this last year. I know, super fun. And that's a new season. And I'm watching my kids enter new seasons of parenthood as well. When we have a mindset of making those small adjustments, being faithful in the small things, it helps us navigate the transitions of life and the new seasons, because sometimes new seasons and transitions

whether it's the transition into a new year or a new season of life can have some stress in it. And if we try to do it all perfectly, we just put this extra stress load on us. And for me, when I focus on being faithful today, doing something good for my body today, doing something good for my soul today, doing something good for my spirit today, then I'm not so worried about how well I'm doing or how far I'm coming. It's like going up the steps.

Ginger Harrington (13:41.338)
you'd go up one step at a time and you can't go from the bottom to the top in one leap unless you're like super athletic, which I am not. So anyway, that's just something that came to mind that when our goals are coming from a place of having this perfectionistic idea or this expectation on ourselves, it can be a little overwhelming and certainly stressful. Because then we get into the

good girl, bad girl, shoulda, woulda, coulda thinking of, I didn't do enough today, or I didn't do it well enough today, or I'm not there yet, versus today I was faithful. Today I did the things I needed to do. Today I was good to my body, to my soul, to my spirit. And I don't know, think that just makes so much sense, and it's so practical. Yeah, yeah, I love that.

Well, let's go into the next way that can help us in this process of committing to nurture our whole self, body, soul, and spirit. And that is celebrate your wins. I can tend to be a glasses half empty versus the glasses half full kind of thinker. And it's really easy for me to think about what I didn't get done versus what I got done.

what didn't happen versus what did happen and that's something that the Lord has been working with me probably for the last two years is to really think about and celebrate those wins don't just bypass them. When I was reading in Genesis and how God at the end of each day of creation marked the end of the day and he said it was good.

I really needed to kind of do a reset mentally and this gets into that soul piece of reframing how I look at the goals that I have made and that balance in life and the alignment between body, soul and spirit to really being able to feel good about those small faithful steps. And maybe I haven't lost 20 pounds quite yet, but I have lost some of that weight.

Ginger Harrington (15:49.17)
and I'm developing a lifestyle that supports keeping it off. so, you know, which is the better win? Just a thought. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I love this topic, as you know. So maybe share with us why that matters. I know you talked a little bit about that, but why does this matter, this celebrating your wins? When you celebrate your wins, it builds momentum, and it's so much easier to

move forward from a place of success than a place of feeling shame or failure or not enough. And it's easier to maintain a positive mindset when we have noticed the good things, the things that have been successful. And you know, as believers in Christ, we operate, we live, we navigate life from a place of victory. And honestly, sometimes I forget that. yeah, I do a lot.

You know, sometimes I'm acting and thinking like I'm trying to get to victory in Jesus, but because of what Christ has done, I already have that victory. And so it is learning how to live out of that. That is part of this aligning of body, soul and spirit, celebrating progress and growth is a process. And I think it's important to honor that growth. Right. And I think that's a piece of celebrating is

is being thankful for what God has done in our lives and how he is helping us to grow and to change, renewing our minds. God is in the process of doing that every day. I think it is important to be able to mark where progress has been made, where there's been breakthrough, where there's been change over time, because you you can't watch the grass grow, but if you

look at it over time, you can tell that it grows. And I think sometimes our soul needs to be able to step back and see that growth and to celebrate it. Yeah, that's a great point. So here's a practical way to do this. At the end of the day, reflect back over the day with the Lord and you're gonna like this.

Ginger Harrington (18:05.808)
Be grateful for the good things in the day and to celebrate the wins that day. I got the workout in, I spent time in the word, the Lord brought a verse to mine when I was talking with someone, whatever the thing is, notice those and celebrate those. And the end of the day is a good time to do that. When we're focused on those small daily steps and celebrating them, we keep moving forward. Yeah, amen.

also writing down one way you honored your body, way you nurtured your soul, and one way you grew spiritually. Journal to remember. This is an opportunity to remind ourselves of what is going right. I use the word journal, but that might overwhelm some people. Just write some things down from the day that you can celebrate. And of course, this turns into your gratitude list. That's convenient for me to be able to

to tack that on. But I also was thinking as we were talking about this and preparing is writing a prayer, especially on those tough days, whether it's losing weight or writing a book or, you know, whatever, changing your mindset, write notes of encouragement to yourself to focus on your progress, right? If you have a year long goal, that's a lot, that's 365 days of working towards something. And so you need

to break it down and celebrate the steps along the way. Keep making healthy choices. And we've used that word consistency and the word daily. So that's where this would come in. So even when life feels overwhelming, prioritize the next best step. And this is why when we create a habit and it becomes a default, we are more likely to do this with less effort, but we have to practice it daily for it

This matters because life happens, as we all know, and it's easy to get off track. So the key is to refocus and make the next best choice rather than dwelling on setbacks. Every healthy choice matters and I do this. I just stop in the moment kind of taking lots of things that you have said to me over the years and just say, okay, what is the next right thing I can do? It's not all over. It's not black and white. You can stop and reset. And so I love that.

Ginger Harrington (20:25.677)
making the next best choice versus dwelling on the setbacks. And so the practical habit would be when you feel off track, as I talked about, pause and ask yourself, what's one small thing I can do right now to care for my body, soul, or spirit? And then just do that one thing. Because I think not only with that all or nothing thinking, we think it's not enough. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed we don't do the one thing.

I can get overwhelmed in wanting to do everything and we just can't do everything. So just stop and think about what's the one small thing I can do because it all matters and it all adds up. yes, yes. And you're so right. You can get so focused on the big stuff that you neglect the small stuff. Yeah.

And it's the small stuff that keeps us healthy, getting a good night's sleep, drinking the water, eating nutritious, feeding our spirit with God's word, prayer. Really most things come down to the basics in life. We just need to keep our focus on being faithful in those basic things and trusting that God is working in the midst of all of that. And sometimes we do get off track. A season that

is so easy for me to get off tracks is when we've been traveling. When my schedule is disrupted, it's hard to get back on track. It's so much easier for me to be consistent in a normal routine. And not all of us are in a season of life where we can really have that consistent normal routine. My daughter-in-law who's getting used to life with a new baby.

Your time is not your own anymore when you have small children. And so whatever the cause of things that make it hard to keep making those healthy choices, when we have this mindset of do the next healthy thing, do the next nurturing thing for body, soul and spirit, it can just get us moving again. And I love that you're talking about don't get caught up in the same cycle. If your flesh patterns go that way,

Ginger Harrington (22:38.011)
You tend to be hard on yourself. We can just get in a negative head space where we don't even want to try and that's not healthy. It's not balanced. It's not aligned with God's purpose and best for us. So regardless of what happened yesterday, today's a new day and today I can make a good choice. And if I blow it today, tomorrow I can make a healthy choice. So I love that. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Love to share the good stuff, because it's helpful. Right. thinking about why do we want to do this? Why do we want to commit to nurturing our whole self body, soul and spirit? You know, the underlying thing is it honors God. In 1 Corinthians, it talks about our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit and that He resides within us and that

our lives are in our own so therefore honor God in your body. It's important that we remember that we honor God when we live well, when we are seeking and relying on Him, keeping in step with the Spirit. You know, this is another way to say a lot of the things that we've said today. So good, good thoughts. Sometimes I think I probably might sound like a broken record, but trust God with the results.

So oftentimes I'm measuring and evaluating and judging myself, whether or not it was good enough, whether or not I did well enough, or if I accomplished the goal or the purpose, and trusting God with the results, then it becomes about something bigger than just how I did. There are so many things in our life that we don't have control over the results.

when we trust God with our efforts, we release the stress of trying to control those outcomes. This trust allows us to focus on faithfulness rather than perfection. How to get out of the perfectionistic expectation over ourselves is a big part of what we've talked about today. So when we commit our work, whether it's soul work, spirit work or body work to the Lord, then we've invited him into that process and

Ginger Harrington (25:03.367)
He is working far beyond what we can see or even realize. One of my favorite quotes from Oswald Chambers is something to the effect of how God is working in the levels of our lives that we can't necessarily see, access, or sometimes even understand. And he's working to bring body, soul, and spirit together. So when we're trusting the work to him, we're committing our efforts to him.

It's recognizing that the outcomes really truly are the fruit of his work within us. of the verses that I love for this is Psalm 37, five, commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will do it. And just that partnering, right? Partnering, we're not in it alone. And I think sometimes it feels like we are. trusting those results to the Lord is really important. Prayer is a big piece of this.

Yeah, yeah. A prayer that can be really helpful. Thank you Lord for the small steps I was able to take today. Lord, thank you for enabling me to be faithful today. Lord, thank you that I can depend on you tomorrow that maybe tomorrow will go better if you didn't have a win today to celebrate. How about for you my friend? Yeah, I love that.

Just taking those moments to stop and pray to the Lord. Just short prayers, that reminder, because we're called to pray without ceasing, and this is one way we do it. It's not necessarily a 24-7, but it's taking that opportunity. And when we stop to pray, I think that helps reset us as well. When I'm having a struggle or the day has been hard, I can end it giving thanks to Lord for what did work, what's right to and praiseworthy. And then also,

and thank him for the win. Sometimes I have to like try to find it somewhere, but I find it. And then I wake up the next day refreshed and feeling different. I love that reminder to commit our way to the Lord. I mean, are we doing that? Because I'm I don't know that I did that this morning. I don't know that I woke up and went, OK, Lord, I'm committing this to you and I'm trusting you so we can reset in the middle of the day. If you think that you're like, oh, I can commit right now and move forward. So yeah, good stuff.

Ginger Harrington (27:25.189)
Yes, that is a great verse for this whole topic of committing to nurturing our whole self, body, soul and spirit. And then really believing that God is with me in the process. He is going to enable and equip and help me as I rely on him. Would you recap the five steps for us real quick before we finish off? I would love to. So the first step was rely on Christ to help you invest in your whole self. The second one is embrace progress.

over perfection. The third one is celebrate your wins. Love that one. And the fourth one, keep making healthy choices. And then the fifth one, as we were just wrapping up, trust God with the results. So how about some action steps, Ginger? Right, we've addressed a lot of these in the midst of our conversation. So just to recap that.

morning intention, inviting the Lord into the day, setting your intentions for the day and asking Him to help you rely on Christ. And that starts with prayer. That's a really good one. Daily actions, you know, just what's one simple thing I can do today for my body, for my soul, for my spirit, recognizing and capturing those, whether it's in a journal or just reflection at the end of the day.

Enables us to be able to celebrate those wins and see the progress over time And you know one thing that I think is good about when you write some of those things down on the daily you can look back over a month or six months or even a year and you can see growth you can see development and transformation and change because God's always working and It's really fun to be able to see that growth and change. It feels good

to recognize that God is working in me. He is bringing body, soul and spirit together. And just remembering that it's process. It's a lifetime process. We need to continue to nurture our soul and our spirit, no matter how old or young we are, no matter what our situation in life is. These things are important and they are how we start the year well.

Ginger Harrington (29:42.925)
live well throughout the year and bringing that harmony and balance to body, soul and spirit and not neglecting one of those important key components of the whole person is really a way to live in faith and wellness and vibrancy. And it can be simple. can be those small faithful steps. So I just think this has been a super fun conversation and friends that are listening.

You know, we'd love to hear from you. What are those small steps that you want to be taking this year to live well, to live in balance and harmony between your body, soul and spirit? Cause we want to be able to cheer you on. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please follow it on the platform that you are listening on. And if you're on Apple, we'd love for you to leave a review that enables us to know that what we're talking about is hitting.

home for you and that you are enjoying it. Larissa, Fran, thank you so much for joining us today. Let's end with a quick prayer. Father, thank you so much for the gift of a new year. We invite you and we trust you. We commit it to you and we know that you're going to be working. And so we thank you now for what you're going to be doing in our lives over the next year. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope this episode has encouraged you to embrace small and intentional steps toward a balanced, hope-filled life this year. But don't let the inspiration stop here. Let's put what we've talked about into action together to help you kickstart your year. I'm inviting you to join our wellness challenge.

simple seven-day email series designed to focus on one healthy habit each day. Each email will give you motivation, mindset tips, and practical steps to nurture one area of body, soul, or spirit. It's a perfect way to start your year with intention, consistency, and faith. Imagine friend what could happen if you commit to just one small action each day, drinking more water, reflecting on scripture,

Ginger Harrington (31:57.839)
or taking time to rest. Over the course of seven days, these small steps can add up to big momentum for your year ahead. So if you're ready to take that first step, sign up for the wellness challenge today. You'll find the link in the show notes. I can't wait to hear how this challenge helps you start 2025 with hope and balance. Until next time, friends, have a great week and remember small beginnings lead to big blessings.