Some people peak in high school. I want to peak when I’m 80.

Over the years, I’ve developed small intentional practices and creative experiments to help me move in that direction. Some practices have lasted for years. Others lasted for a season. Many have sharpened my ability to pay attention and notice.

When I was intimidated by the kitchen, I committed to cooking two new recipes a week using the cookbook Healthy Cooking for Two or Just You. Now cooking is part of my regular rhythm.

When I was intimidated to go to the gym, I gave myself $2 every time I went in order to save up for new exercise clothes. Fifteen years later, I practically sleepwalk to the gym because the routine is so ingrained.

In my 30s, I realized I was becoming overly anxious about the future, so I practiced letting go by taking flying trapeze lessons. It was a physical way of communicating to my insides: this is what it feels like to loosen my grip.

Taking a picture of the same tree every day for a year taught me something about transitions, how spring might be preparing to burst out of a tree that still looks like winter.

Since 1998, I have had an annual December 5th phone call with one of the young people I mentored when she was in middle school. Now she is married with children almost the age she was when we first met.

I teach a class in prison called Religion and Spiritual Growth. One assignment asks students to design a personal spiritual practice and commit to it for 30 days. Regularly, students marvel at how these small commitments help them recognize their own agency, this coming from men living in a maximum security prison.

I love helping people pay attention to how they were designed and the areas where they hope to grow. I am available for one-on-one listening sessions focused on developing intentional practices, as well as workshops and conversations on intentional living, spiritual formation, and attention.