Habits VS Goals
I have noticed a shift in the professional coaching and counseling world from an emphasis on goals to an emphasis on habits.
Being a go-getter, being able to set goals and accomplish them, has been held as a high ideal in our culture for some time. It still is, and it should be. We all benefit when people of character and competence are able to set worthwhile goals, plan out the steps to achieve them, delay gratification, stay disciplined and focused and accomplish the thing they set out to do.
Recently, in conversations with impressive people, I’ve noticed a shift in emphasis away from goals and toward habits. The strength of habits is expressed in the old saying, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Habits are the way we both live out and shape (or reshape) who we are. An emphasis on habits over goals focuses on shaping who we are and who we are becoming. When we do this, goals then become a tool in the toolbox of habit formation.
One of the easiest ways to see this distinction is in the coaching of personal trainer Elliot Hulse. Elliot is a muscled mountain of a man and people come to him all the time to get on some sort of super-special fitness program that will make them muscled like him. To many people’s surprise, if he finds out they haven’t been exercising at all or exercising consistently, the super-special fitness program he will likely recommend to them at first . . . is to walk, consistently. Take a walk, every day for three months, six months, or a year and come back. He will try to convince them that the fundamental problem in their lack of fitness is their unhealthy habits and it is only an ongoing, life habit of fitness and exercise that will make any difference in the long run. Without that habit any super-special fitness program will eventually be ineffective in their life.
Change who you are first. We are what we repeatedly do.
As a follower of Jesus I find a lot of encouragement in this. Jesus didn’t have a lot to say about setting goals, moving towards them, and accomplishing them, but he had a lot to say, teach, and model about the habits that shape our lives.
He taught his followers to pray without giving up, to serve, to love, to forgive, tell the truth, to give generously, to trust in God, obey God in the big and small things, and on and on. These are all habits. Significantly, Jesus didn’t stop at turning our attention to the habits of what we do or even say, but also the habits of how we think and feel. Jesus mentions the condition of our hearts forty-nine times in the Gospels (the parts of the Bible that tell the story of Jesus – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).
One of the things I believe Jesus is trying to tell us is that we aren’t just what we repeatedly do, but we are what we repeatedly do in our hearts. In other words, the habits that we practice in our hearts determine who we are and who we are becoming.
There is so much challenge and potential in this truth. What if we could change who we are through praying, and praying again; through choosing to be patient, and choosing patience again; through practicing gratitude, and practicing again? Then, perhaps we could be more like Jesus and more alive to who we most truly are.
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