The American philosopher, writer and historian Will Durant once said, “You are what you repeatedly do.” Our habits are what shape our lives. They say, “You are what you eat.” The reality is,“You are your habits.” You show me someone with good habits and I'll show you a successful person. Show me someone with bad habits and I'll show you someone who can never quite get there.
Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 1 Timothy 4:7b-8
As a tech director there may be many habits you wish you could incorporate into your daily life. Some of them may be spiritual, such as reading your Bible more, praying more consistently or memorizing scripture. There may also be some practical habits you would like to include, like waking up earlier, exercising daily or drinking plenty of water.
The problem many of us face is is that we try to make habits that are far too ambitious. We don't just want to exercise daily we want to run for an hour each day. We don't want to just read the Bible each day, we want to read through the whole Bible in a year. The problem is that, without continual deliberate effort, these things will rarely become habit.
So, if you want to change your life you need to change your habits. Here are some tips for you to create habits that actually stick.
Start small
You have to start small. Painfully small. Let me repeat this, take the habit that you want to incorporate into your life and make it as small as you possibly can. If you want to read your Bible, don't just say you want to read the whole thing in a year. That will take nearly 30 minutes each day. Maybe a better goal is to consistently read for five minutes each day.
The key to building a successful habit is being able to be consistent with it for 2-3 months.
If you want to wake up earlier, don't start setting your alarm clock for two hours earlier than you normally get up. Start with 15 minutes earlier. The key to building a successful habit is being able to be consistent with it for 2-3 months. So you want to choose something that you know you can maintain.
Don't skip twice
It would be easy for me to say, “Never miss a day." But we both know that's unreasonable. However, I think it's very reasonable for you to commit to not skipping two days in a row. The problem with trying to build habits is that the second day is always easier to skip. If you commit to not doing that you will immediately bounce back the day after you missed.
The problem with trying to build habits is that the second day is always easier to skip.
Build on the habit
So maybe the goal was to build a habit of praying for 30 minutes each day, but you decided to start small and just pray for five daily. And now you find that you are able to do that relatively effortlessly, then add in another five minutes and slowly work your way up to your ultimate goal.
Or maybe you wanted to wake up two hours earlier but now you're consistently getting up 15 minutes earlier, so now you can bump it up another 15. You have already built the habit--and now you are starting to build on it.
As you can see, building a habit is more about being slow and steady than over-ambitious and burning out.
One final and critical thought: Since building good habits is a long-term commitment, make sure that the habits you choose are really worth the effort.
