Rethink Your Habits: Find Purpose in Daily Routines

Most mornings I wake up and I open my brown leather Bible, usually a chapter a day and perhaps a commentary on that chapter to gain greater context of the historical and cultural background of what happened in the text. I write in my journal, the blank kind that encourages me to write as big or as small as I want to, encourages me to doodle little images and bring stories to life. 

Dallas Willard woke me up.

The irony, of course, is Dallas Willard has passed on to heaven, but reading his words in Living in Christ’s Presence was convicting. The spiritual disciplines are habits that put us in the place to be open to the move of God in our lives. The issue came when I saw opening my Bible as a path for intellectual knowledge, instead of relationship. As far as books go, the Bible is such a collection of literature with wild stories of donkeys talking and the sun standing still in the sky, with empires rising and falling as prophets declared what was to come. 

We all do this. Find ourselves going through life just going through the motions, forgetting our purpose for why we’re doing what we’re doing.

The Real Goal of Habit Formation

Though James Clear will tell you that the goal of habit formation is for it to become automatic, I think he’s wrong. (His book is still worth reading.)

The real goal is the larger goal you wanted in the first place. Maybe the gym was your way of getting out of the house and of moving your body, but then it became about how you look instead of how you feel. Perhaps you spent less time on social media to be more present to the people in your life, but you find yourself anxious about all the things you no longer see online. 

For me, reading my Bible isn’t about reading my Bible and checking that off as a goal. It’s to grow more like Jesus and to have more of his nature as I spend time with Him—to be full of joy and peace, to be utterly relaxed in a world full of anxiety and uncertainty.

This is going to be a wild statement for you fellow self-improvers out there, but what if it’s time to abandon the habits? What if we need to make a change to actually get to the place and become the person we want to be?

There are definitely times to push through on habits, but I’ve realized that if my habits don’t help me reach the end goal I had in mind from the beginning, it’s worth altering for the chance to get a little bit closer to what I want. That means for me: reading less of my Bible. Instead of a chapter, I will read one subsection a day. I’m not rushing to get it all in. It’s not an intellectual exercise. And I have more room for silent prayer, which has proven more fruitful in building my relationship with God.

The gym might have to be swapped with long walks with friends. Social media use might have to take a limited form in your life vs. not having it at all. We have to reevaluate whether the things we’re doing are actually leading us to life abundant. There’s so much pressure to stick with your goals but life has many interruptions and we have to adapt our habits so we truly live the lives we intended.

Lay it aside

And maybe that means laying down a goal or two. If you can’t always read at night because your family needs you, you may very well need to give up that habit so that you can be with the ones you love. Our needs are going to change as the sky gets darker faster.

This requires honesty, a brutal kind of honesty. We are limited creatures, even those of us in good health. Despite what gets advertised, we can’t go beyond our natural limitations. Limits are beautiful and for our good. Numbness to a habit can be our body’s and mind’s way of saying “Hey, this isn’t working for you anymore.” And that’s okay.

Your days of perfect gym attendance might be over but you can make some space for deeper sleep. You might not be the highest performing employee but your boundaries means you have greater work-life balance. Life is a series of trade-offs, and it’s critical for your well being to know when it’s time to shift.

Pay attention to how you feel both immediately after your habit but also a few hours later. What’s the fruit? Is it joy, peace, a greater capacity for connection? If the fruit of worry and exhaustion, if the fruit is that your character is unchanged, you should reexamine the place of this habit in your life and how it can be altered for the results you want.

Signing off,

Gigi