The Habit that Changes Everything

Beach Inspirations: Habit © Suzie Cheel

Habit experts often tell us to focus on changing one habit at a time so that we have give it all of our energy and really establish it before we move on to the next one. While I think that it is possible to have a complete change of motivation and desire from doing the wrong things to always doing good (see Mosiah 5), I do think there is some wisdom in realizing that our bodies are made to adapt more slowly then our intention. Persevering in our desire despite our weakness is what exercises our faith and strengthens our character.

I love the way William James explains that the currents in our brains leave impressions and the more often (or intensely) a current is ran through that pathway, the deeper the impression becomes. This current keeps clearing away all debris until it becomes a path of little resistance and the current of our thoughts naturally move to that avenue.

In other words, the current of our thoughts and actions naturally flow to the path of least resistance. This is why it can be so difficult to break bad habits - we must build a different pathway for our thoughts to travel to because they naturally go to the one that we have already carved out.

The good news is that our brain is malleable and we have the ability to consciously form the pathways we choose to form. William James encourages:

"The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. If there be such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one of my readers, let him begin this very hour to set the matter right. "

Carlos E. Asay in his talk, "Flaxen Threads" gives us some steps for acquiring good habits. I will place them next to the maxims given by William James.

Carlos E. Asay

William James

Step 1: Define, verbalize and write down the desired habit Step 2: Bind yourself to act (share your resolve with others) Step 3: Put the new conduct into operation (practice makes perfect). Step 4: Bolster your will or desire by riveting your mind upon the virtues of the desired habit (remember the “why” consistently – keep focused on what you want, not what you are trying to avoid) (my thought: the strongest "why" is our love of God and the vision of His desire for us - we can establish daily habits that remind us of this "why" such as scripture study and prayer). Step 5: You must not look back or permit exceptions to occur once you have embarked upon your new course of action (remember Lot's wife). Step 6: Plunge wholeheartedly into the new program of conduct (easing into it or tapering off will only prolong the struggle).

Maxim 1. Launch self with as strong and decided initiative as possible Maxim 2. Never allow an exception to occur until the new habit is securely rooted in your life (this feeds the old pathway) Maxim 3. Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain (this deliberately forms the new pathway in your brain) *See note below Maxim 4. Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day (do something each day that you would rather not do - to exercise you will) *William James points out that we can get into the habit of inaction if we do not act on our resolve so, in general, we must be careful to do something (even if it is small) whenever we feel inspired by something (a concert, a talk, an article), or we may get into the general habit of being inspired and not changing our behavior afterwards. He says,  "A tendency to act only becomes effectively ingrained in us in proportion to the uninterrupted frequency with which the actions actually occur, and the brain 'grows' to their use. Every time a resolve or a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit is worse than a chance lost; it works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path of discharge. There is no more contemptible type of human character than that of the nerveless sentimentalist and dreamer, who spends his life in a weltering sea of sensibility and emotion, but who never does a manly concrete deed."

Now, before I move on to "The Habit that Changes Everything" - I want to add a quick note about "never allowing an exception to occur".  I can get discouraged when I am working on a habit and in a moment of weakness I revert back to my old ways. It happens pretty often, and if I am not careful, I will let my disappointment demotivate me from trying again. I think it is very, very important to remember that even mistakes are part of our progress if we choose to learn from them and try again. We can always ask, "What went wrong? How can I avoid that situation in the future?" and move forward.

I also must point out that, thankfully, we do not just need to rely on our own sheer determination and will to change ourselves. The power of the atonement is much greater than our power. When we turn to God, He makes our weaknesses strengths and gives us the power to overcome. I KNOW this to be true - I have found my will to be often weak, but when I turn to God - impossible things do become possible.

Anyway, I had to give you some background into my study of habit lately so you could understand why I found myself asking one day, "What habit, of all of the many very important ones I still need to develop, should I work on first?" That is a hard question for a perfectionist like me who wants to work on everything at once whenever I resolve to improve. The answer to this is probably different for everyone, but my answer was simple and profound. It has blessed me so much that I just had to share it.

I should add that I have tried something like this before in various ways, but this time it has really stuck and I know it will be permanent.  How could I know this? I have only been doing it daily for 2 weeks, but I could not possibly live without it now. I will write a follow up post in a month just because I have told you of my lack of follow-through so you may not believe me, and I wouldn't blame you, but the benefits of this habit have been so intense and concrete that I feel the "habit pathway" is quite strong already.

This is the habit that I felt inspired to develop:

1. Start each day with personal time with God (I already had this part of the habit down) and make a list of what I felt inspired to do that day.
2. Prioritize the items on that list from most important to least important.
3. Diligently get to work on #1 and work my way down the list, remembering to "pause to help and lift another" at all times.
4. Report to Heavenly Father at the end of my day, evaluate and repent for my shortcomings. Learn from my mistakes.

I have been using the google keep app to help me with this.  It is the perfect app for me because I am visual and I like my lists to look appealing (not boring). On this app, I can make several lists that I can color code and see them all on the same screen with their first few contents. I just tap on the list to see the complete thing. I can write out the list, then rearrange it in the order I want, and then tap on it to cross it off when I am finished. 

I made several lists:
1) A "Pause to Help" List  - This is my daily "to do" list I write each morning, but I titled it "pause to help" (see youtube video below) to remind me that the purpose of the list is to learn to love like God loves; and if I don't complete the list that day (I never do), it is okay because I often need to pause to help and lift a sad or contentious child. And I am often lifting my little baby. Or maybe a friend needed to talk. Or the family needed an uplifting walk in nature. It is so easy for me to lose focus of the reason for the list and to focus on the list itself - that I have to have this reminder on the title. It has really helped.
2) Daily List - Just a reminder of my daily goals to help me when I am writing my "Pause to Help" list each morning
3) Sunday list (to remind me of my Sunday goals)
4)Weekly and Monthly List: A reminder of my weekly and monthly goals to help me when I am writing my "Pause to Help" list each morning.
5) A grocery List
6) An errand list
7) A weekly menu plan
8) A study list (to remind me of my study goals)
9) A "project" list to remind me of projects around the house I want to get to. (I try to put some project time and some study time into my "Pause to Help" list each day.
-I also have a calendar app I check to see if there is something scheduled that day.

t would seem overwhelming to look at all of the things I want to study and all of the projects I have left to do, the things on my calendar, and all of the things on my daily, weekly and monthly lists, but amazingly IT IS NOT! Because I prayerfully decide each day what to do and in what order - I know I will do what God needs of me that day - and it is enough. I feel at peace. I feel present. I enjoy my kids and love pausing to help and lift them.


(This is the song from where I got the title for my "To Do" list. I find myself repeating the words to this song often. I think it has become a theme for my life. It is what I long for.)

I went to a homeschooling conference yesterday. I often come away from those things with high expectations and too many new ideas to implement right away. This time, as the Spirit whispered something I needed to do, I would write it on one of my lists (projects, or daily, or weekly "to dos") and I was at peace that I would get to it when the time was right.  For example, one of the things I want to do is to make a timeline with my kids. Normally, I would have put everything else on hold for the week, worked on creating a timeline (I've done it before), and then when we were ready to use it, I would be too busy trying to re-establish all of the habits we put on hold in order for me to create the timeline, and then I would forget the timeline because I can never get the more essential habits down before a new project came my way.  I found this habit of prayerfully making a list everyday to be a habit that changes everything!

I love this quote by C.S. Lewis from Learning in War Time (sometimes getting kids to do their jobs feels like war time around here ;-) ) :

"There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work… favorable conditions never come."

I think I love his quote so much because I understand the eternal nature of my work. There is nothing more important than learning to love as God loves and bringing up my children to do the same. So many distractions get in my way, and I am naturally a distractible person.  I love this reminder that nothing should interfere with this most important of all work.

Wow. This is a really long post! I know blog posts ought to be short and sweet, but I guess I had a lot to say about this. If you make it this far - I hope it was beneficial to you in some way! One last quote by W. James that I just couldn't leave out because it is so good:

"The physiological study of mental conditions is thus the most powerful ally of hortatory ethics. The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, 'I won't count this time!' Well! he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. Of course, this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of work. Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working-day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out."