Creating Habits that Stick

We talked yesterday about the ‘work’ of creating a new habit or rhythm in our lives that draws us closer to Jesus. A great example of this is something that Author and Pastor Noah Herrin shared recently. 

Intimidated by the scriptural command to ‘Pray without ceasing’, he decided to tackle it head-on, and started a new habit. At the end of each scheduled activity, walking the dog, checking emails etc, he spends 60 seconds talking to God. At first a challenge, it’s now created a new rhythm for Noah, throughout the day naturally taking his thoughts to God and purposefully moving focus to Him before he starts the next item on his schedule. What felt like work to start with has actually developed a habit that has grown his life and faith.   

What started with a small decision held future fruit.  

Another Pastor and Author who speaks on the power of habits is Craig Groeschel. He says in his book The Power to Change; “Good habits are difficult to start because the pain comes now, and the payoff is in the future. Bad habits are difficult to stop because the payoff comes now, and the pain is in the future.” We know that good habits have value, so we need to find ways to amplify the voice of the good habits even as we reduce the pull of the bad habits.  

But how can we make a habit succeed? One of the principles in ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear, is that of Habit Stacking, the ability to grow a habit by adding it to something that you already do.  

So, if every day you make a coffee before anything else, then that’s a habit you already have – you don’t need to remind yourself to do it. Look again at the verse that we talked about – ‘pray without ceasing’?  What if you took the time that you’re stood at the kettle waiting for it to boil to pray for 60 seconds? Sure, you might only make 3 cups of coffee in a day, but that means you’ll have prayed 3 times more than you did the day before.  

We used this technique when we thought about adding the habit of gratitude to our day on Day 2 of this plan. Because when you add a new thing to something that is already ingrained behaviour, you set yourself up to win and to make the habit stick.  

Action it: 

Decide today what habit you want to create. Then identify a habit you can ‘stack it’ on. Something you do at least once a day. And now, practice! It may not happen every time, but lean into your newly stacked habit, and watch it gather momentum.

Habits DEVO Playlist