I am not content, but I long to be a woman who is filled with joy, grace, and contentment.

Yesterday, I shared my struggle and desire for contentment. If you missed it, you can find it here: Introducing the Contentment Chronicles. It was tempting for me to wait until the new year to start something like this. But I fully believe there is no reason to wait to run after something good; So, welcome to this sweet journey as I chase contentment! This month, I’m introducing three new things into my every day to move towards a place of joy and grace.

1. Stick to a morning routine

As I’ve been reading about people who are both successful and content, something that has stood out is their routines. This is an area I am embarrassingly lacking in. I tend to embrace chaos and be driven by my needs and desires in a moment. Introducing routine is likely going to be a recurring theme over the next few months.  And this is starting with my morning routine. It’s beautiful, simple, and looks like this: Wake up at 6:45, drink tea, read my Bible, journal, and read part of another book. I’ll be reading Ann Voskamp’s Advent book this month! I long to serve God more in my everyday moments and am excited to see what happens because of these mornings. Calm and contentment begin to grow when you ground your heart first.

2. Cut out all wardrobe and home shopping for the month 

I did this for the first time last Spring and loved it. The best way for me personally to introduce new habits it to shock them into my daily routine. This means I will not be adding any additional Christmas decor this year. If I loved it last year, it is definitely good enough for this year! As I mentioned in my last post, knowing when to stop styling our home and my wardrobe are huge struggles for me. So this month I’m going to choose to enjoy what I have already and not even take the time to look at what I think I need.

Tip: Something that helped me immensely when I did this before was to unsubscribe from email lists. Unroll.me is my favorite tool for doing this easily. The first time I did this, they found 108 subscriptions. It blows me away how much easier it is to not be tempted by all the pretty things when they aren’t landing in my inbox constantly! Who knew!

3. Move our TV to my office

While Seth and I are not yet ready to start a family, we’ve been having more conversations lately about what we want our family to look like. We are in the car for hours most weekends. (Thank you to all of our fun #ABPhoto couples who keep us traveling to all the pretty places!). And when we aren’t listening to Enneagram podcasts, we love to dream about our someday little clan. One thing that we have noticed is a large disconnect between the way we currently spend our time and what we value for our family (even though it’s just to two of us for now).

Seth and I love people. We value knowing each other and the people we love deeply. And we would rather have conversations and experiences over watching TV. But when life get’s crazy and Netflix is an option, we don’t even think before we choose Netflix. So this month, we are trying something new and are moving our TV to my office. We know it’s going to be weird at first. But we’re both excited to see how this grows our relationship and for evenings spent cooking together and curled up reading on the couch. We also believe that this is more in line with allowing our home to be a safe place to show up, belong, and be known. We love the idea of designing a space that encourages conversation and community rather than entertainment.

4. End each day with thanks

I know, I know. It’s cliche, cheesy, and made me shudder just a bit too when I wrote it. But as simple as this is, I don’t do it. Instead, I spend those last, sweet moments in my day thinking about everything I should have done better and what I can change for tomorrow. This is every bit as stressful and awful as it sounds. So this month, Seth and I will jot down three things from our day that we are thankful for. If I am not regularly pausing to give gratitude for the sweet blessings I already have and experience, it’s no wonder I find myself struggling to be content.

So friends, I hope you are encouraged or even a little challenged to pursue more grace, joy, and contentedness with me this month. I’d love to hear what other ideas you have to increase contentedness below!