5 Habits That Changed My Life

Please forgive the clickbait title. I don't know what else to call this.

Habits are all the rage right now and I believe rightfully so. I keep going back to this line from Augustine in Confessions:

It is a disease of the mind, which does not wholly rise to the heights where it is lifted by the truth, because it is weighed down by habit.

If Augustine is right, then one reason we don’t live in line with the truths we believe is that we don’t habituate them into our lives through our mundane, routine, everyday actions. If we want to be a certain kind of person then we must act like a certain kind of person. And our willpower simply isn’t strong enough to sustain actions that go against the grain of our natural wills. To consistently act like a certain kind of person, we need to establish small routines that aim us in the direction of becoming that kind of person.

The habits I’m going to talk about are not, except for one, the typical spiritual disciplines you hear about in spiritual formation circles. These habits are simply practical things that I’ve started doing to be the kind of person who can bear life. But being able to bear life means having the capacity to love others, to be a person of love, and to obey the commandments of loving God and neighbor with heart, soul, mind, and strength. That’s the goal of these small habits.

None of these are groundbreaking so I’m sure some readers will shrug their shoulders and think, “So what?” But I’ve also come to realize that I shouldn’t take these simple habits for granted either.

Everyone is different, but if you find yourself struggling under the weight of life, I hope these habits are something you’ll consider as we move into the new year. They won’t solve every problem, but I’ve found that they have helped me bear life and increase my capacity for love.

I don’t aim for perfection on any of these. I aim for a greater than 75% success rate. I try to give myself grace for days and weeks that don’t go according to plan and also just times when I straight up fail and have no one to blame but myself. But the most important thing isn’t that I do all of these habits with 100% accuracy, but to aim my life in the direction I want it to go. These are a few ways I attempt to do that.

#1. Rise Before Responsibilities

Yes, this is essentially “become a morning person.” But I’m the kind of person who needs a reason for almost everything I do and just “being a morning person” never cut it for me. I was always the person who slept through my early classes in college and stayed up past midnight most nights. I never thought I could be a morning person.

Until I had kids. All of a sudden I realized how degraded I felt as a person every time I shot out of bed to a screaming baby and had to rush right into my responsibilities for the day. Whatever “me time” I had before kids was gone. I was lucky if I had 30 minutes at the end of the day; hardly enough to hear my own thoughts let alone actually rest or develop any other part of my life. The constant movement of life and bearing responsibilities was keeping me from fully investing in the things that matter most.

So instead of just “becoming a morning person,” I realized I needed to rise before my responsibilities. I need to beat my obligations to the punch. I need to be with myself and God before I need to be with anyone else. I need to be in quiet before I’m in noise. I need to receive before I can give. I need to cast my cares before I can carry burdens.

The times I’ve gotten up have varied slightly, but I try to shoot for around 5:45 am. I know people who get up at 4:30 am or earlier and so this sounds like sleeping in to them. I also know some people’s jobs start earlier or they have long commutes, so you’re really pushing into the early hours of the morning at that point. I’m lucky that I get to work from home in this season of life so my commute is a few steps to my back office. But no matter my circumstances, I can’t imagine ever going back to getting out of bed at the last possible minute. The amount of capacity I’ve gained just from this one simple habit is impossible to overestimate.

If this isn’t something you do yet but want to start doing, consider moving your alarm back 15-30 minutes one week, and then again the next week, and again the next week, until you get to a time where you have the margin you really need. Give yourself a month or so to get there and practice getting up. Put your phone on the other side of the room and make a promise to yourself that you won’t go back to bed once you turn the alarm off. Head straight for the coffee maker instead. The first 10-15 minutes will be pretty rough, but you’ll settle in. By the time your responsibilities start up, you’ll feel far more rested than if you slept for that last hour. It’s paradoxical, but it’s how it works.

Once you’re up, what do you do? The next couple of habits will essentially be part of my morning routine.

#2. Morning Office

I’m way too tired right after I wake up to pray. I have no idea what’s going on. I finally realized that I needed help praying. That’s how I got into prayer books.

I used to think prayer had to be extemporaneous. If it wasn’t an original prayer straight from the heart each time, it didn’t count. But that is a relatively recent idea in Christianity. Christians have always prayed prayers. Prayers that were written by the church and for the church. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he gave them a prayer to pray. And the church has written other prayers for other circumstances.

My gateway to this world was Crossway’s Be Thou My Vision. It didn’t take long before I got a 1979 Book Of Common Prayer and fell in love with it. I’ve also loved Trevin Wax’s 30 Days trilogy for lots of reasons. All of these resources are wonderful. The great thing about the 30 Days trilogy is that the scripture reading is built into the books. My plan in the new year is to be a little more methodical about how I use these various resources and try to get through more of the Bible than I typically do in a given year.

At the risk of sounding weird (I hope I don’t), there are two more things I use during morning office that round things out for me. The first are these candles that remind me that my prayers rise to God like the smoke from the candle and that he is pleased with them like the pleasing aroma of the candle. I like the wood wick too, just as an aesthetic choice. I also throw this playlist on Alexa quietly in the background. The background music helps calm me and, honestly, stay focused. I don’t know if that’s an ADHD thing or not, but I know it helps.

I wish I could find the quote—alas, I can’t—but I started doing this after I read Ronald Rolheiser say something about praying with our senses. Not just with our minds and words, but with all of our senses, including our sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Being able to see the flame, smell the fragrance, taste the coffee, and hear the beautiful music has genuinely added more than I can describe to my prayer life.

The prayer books create a ritual of praying that sustains me even when I don’t feel like praying. Instead of wondering, “What am I praying for today?” I simply open up the prayer book and pray what’s in front of me. I’ve found that these prayers often “prime the pump” so to speak, and more extemporaneous or contemplative prayer is easier after. To quote Rolheiser (a quote I could actually could find):

What clear, simple, and brief rituals do is carry us: they carry our tiredness, our lack of energy, our inattentiveness, our indifference, and even our occassional distaste. They keep us praying even when we are too tired to muster up our own energy.

#3. Life School

I wish I had a better name for this, but I don’t. Once I finish the morning office, I take myself to Life School.

I find myself inspired by Proverbs 4:

Wisdom is supreme—so get wisdom.
And whatever else you get, get understanding.
Cherish her, and she will exalt you;
if you embrace her, she will honor you.
She will place a garland of favor on your head;
she will give you a crown of beauty.

Simply put, this means I read. A lot of times it’s theology or Christian living books but lately I’ve been trying to expand my reading. I realized how much that was limiting my ability to actually gain wisdom and understanding because the scope of knowledge was so limited. I’m currently having the same realization with only reading non-fiction and trying to read more fiction (but primarily at night).

I read a history of Rome this year that I loved so much that it inspired me to make a project out of surveying all of Western history. I’m currently reading a book on the Middle Ages as the next step of that. I also spent a month reading through a few finance books to sharpen my understanding of economics and personal finance. Those books became almost immediately applicable in my life. I did the same with philosophy and, no exaggeration, that month was life-changing. I plan on doing this in the new year with a host of different topics and will probably write more on it in the future. But the idea is simple. I identify something I don’t know that I should probably know or I’m at least curious about and I read a book or a few books on it. That’s it.

The crazy thing about this practice is that the more I read, the less “well read” I feel. I’m constantly discovering new trails I’ve never been down or have only take a step or two. It has a paradoxical double effect of making me both more confident and (hopefully) more humble with each book I read.

This is my primary way of combatting brain rot. As part of my job, I spend a lot of time on the internet. As a millennial, I spend even more. I consider this a serious mental health threat. Reading exercises my brain and helps me think clearer than just endlessly scrolling through barely-chuckle-worthy videos for hours.

I want to “get wisdom” and “get understanding.” I want to “cherish and embrace” wisdom. The best way I know to do that is to take myself to Life School almost every morning. I firmly believe that one of the best things someone can do is commit themselves to being a life-long learner. Make it part of your identity. Never be satisfied with the knowledge you have. Cultivate an insatiable curiosity and chase the rabbit trails as far as they go.

Cherish Wisdom and she will exalt you. Embrace her and she will honor you. She will place a garland of favor on your head and she will give you a crown of beauty.

Who wouldn’t want that?

#4. Quit Netflix

And by Netflix, I really just mean TV in general, but I wanted to give a nod to

Matthew Lee Anderson

’s (famous? infamous?) article, which is barely preserved thanks to the internet archive. Here is Brett McCracken’s engagement with it that tries to balance it out a little.

I have no idea how good the latest show is. I don’t even know what’s popular right now. I just don’t watch TV. I also have exactly 2% FOMO about it. Maybe twice a year I’ll wish I was caught up on the latest show, but then I think about the time that would take away from other things like chatting with my wife after our chores, going to bed earlier, reading, etc and it simply doesn’t seem worth it to me.

If the Cowboys are on, I might have the game on (but the worse they do, the less incentive there is to watch). But that’s just about it. My life feels full enough as it is. I don’t know why I’d fill it even more with TV.

I’m not anti-entertainment. A couple of years ago, I bought a Nintendo Switch and then about a year after that I bought a physical Gameboy emulator. What I like about video games is that if I want to play for just a little bit, I can. And then I can turn it off. And I can pick it back up tomorrow or a month from now and not miss a thing. It’s low commitment and only takes up the time I give it. I’m not committing to twelve 45-minute episodes.

The problem isn’t entertainment, it’s when entertainment gets in the way of me being able to live my life well. I want to have all my other boxes checked before I seek out entertainment. Sometimes that happens and that’s great! But it’s way too easy to entertain myself as a way of avoiding life’s responsibilities. Even then, I’m trying to find my entertainment in novels more than in screens as a way of even further de-digitalizing. I’m currently loving Golden Son. It’s fast paced and I just can’t put it down.

The only downside of this is that there are a few conversations I’m left out of. But who cares? If that’s the only thing I lose, then I lose nothing at all. If I’m only as interesting as the shows I watch, well, then that’s all the argument needed for quitting TV right there.

For the record, I don’t think watching TV is bad and I don’t judge people who do. Everyone has their thing. Some people love film and it’s worth making time for. But for me, it’s been one of the best things I’ve done and, honestly, I believe more people could do without it than think they can. I can’t think of an easier thing to do that would have a significant impact than to simply get your time back by stop caring about TV.

#5. Meet With My Pastors

I’ll just go to lunch with one of my pastors. They’ll check on me. I’ll check on them. I’ll ask them questions. We’ll bounce thoughts off each other. We develop a relationship.

Granted, it took many, many years (most of my 20’s) to find pastors I could actually do this with. So take that for what it is. But there’s something about just getting lunch or coffee with my pastors with no agenda, just to talk and get to know them that is so life-giving. They’re usually asking either nothing or very little of me and I’m usually asking nothing or very little of them. We’re just getting to know each other.

We don’t have a weekly coffee meeting. We usually don’t have a project we’re working on (though sometimes we do). We’re usually just hanging out and talking about whatever is on our minds. I find just getting to know my pastors as people, not just as Pastor, and letting them get to know me, not just as someone who goes to the church but as a friend, is humanizing in ways that are hard to describe.

In a world where pastors and congregants have seemingly never-ending expectations for each other and are constantly at odds because of it (or awkwardly avoidant), simply meeting with your pastors with no agenda either way seems to me to be one of the healthiest ways to be involved at your church.

I come with a lot of church baggage. I’ve been hurt by multiple churches in multiple ways. But being able to process that with pastors who care for me, both directly and indirectly, has done more to heal my relationship with the church than any book, podcast, or sermon ever could.

I’m sure there are a lot more than these five things that I could mention, but doing these five things over the past few years has moved the needle in my life in more ways than I can count. It’s often not immediately noticeable, but only as you look back do you see how much your life has actually changed.

What about you?

What are some of your habits that have helped you bear life?

Are you going to try any of these in the new year?

We become the sum of the little things we do every day. I don’t want to leave my character up to the whims of my willpower and I don’t ever want to put my life on autopilot. Going back to Proverbs 4, I want to,

Guard [my] heart above all else,
for it is the source of life.

Don’t let [my] mouth speak dishonestly,
and don’t let [my] lips talk deviously.

Let [my] eyes look forward;
fix [my] gaze straight ahead.

Carefully consider the path for [my] feet,
and all [my] ways will be established.

Don’t turn to the right or to the left;
keep [my] feet away from evil.

That’s not going to happen on accident.

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I’ve written a book about deconstruction. It’s called Walking Through Deconstruction: How To Be A Companion In A Crisis Of Faith. It’s deeply personal, but it’s not a memoir. It’s an attempt to serve the church, to help the church understand what deconstruction is, what causes it, and how to walk with people who are experiencing it.