The Power of Little Habits

When I think of habit formation, I think of the movie Groundhog Day. Bill Murray plays a narcissistic weatherman who relives the same day, Groundhog Day, for 30 or 40 years.

He is sent to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to report on the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. And he hates it. He hates the town, the people, and the job. He hates everything. He is miserable and cannot wait to go home.

But no matter what he does, every morning he wakes up to Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe.” Over and over again. He remembers every repeated day, but no one else does.

At first, he uses this for selfish and hedonistic purposes. He times a bank robbery perfectly. He learns intimate details about women to seduce them, and so on. But those pleasures wear thin. Eventually, he repeatedly tries to end his own life to escape. But every morning, it’s Sonny and Cher again.

Then he realizes he is stuck, and that sets in motion a process of reflection. He takes an interest in other people. He listens to their stories. He tries to help the townspeople. He uses his time to learn new skills, like playing the piano. He learns to enjoy others and becomes the life of the party.

It’s the sort of thing that makes you want to make good use of your time, to learn something, to become better.

Now, admittedly, this is a Christ-less self-improvement story. But it does illustrate an important principle:

Time is the enemy of the immoral sluggard but a friend to a God-fearing, diligent man.

Time compounds who we are… a flexible sapling will grow into an inflexible full-grown oak tree if given only time.

Solomon looks at a broken, overgrown vineyard and receives instruction from it. This was not direct revelation, but the wisdom that comes from observing the world God made. As Charles Bridges said, “Everything around us reads a useful lesson to an observant eye.”

The vineyard had value. It could produce wine, sustain a household, generate income, and be handed down to future generations. But it had been neglected. Its condition revealed something about its owner. The broken vineyard was the outward sign of a disordered man.

He was a sluggard.

That word is not common today, except in the related word “sluggish,” but Proverbs uses it to describe a habitually lazy, idle, and inactive man. He craves but does not produce (Proverbs 13:4). He makes excuses (Proverbs 22:13). He refuses to plow in season and later begs at harvest (Proverbs 20:4). He loves sleep (Proverbs 6:9). He thinks himself wiser than men who actually know what they are talking about (Proverbs 26:16).

In other words, the sluggard is not merely tired. He lacks sense.

He consumes without producing. He makes excuses while thinking highly of himself. He avoids present responsibility and then acts surprised when future consequences arrive. He lives as though actions do not have consequences because he has trained himself to live only for the moment.

This is supposed to be about productive habits, and yet Solomon teaches us first by showing us the opposite: the unholy habits of a sluggard. But that is the point. Holy and unholy habits work the same way. They are small, repeated actions that gather strength over time.

You cannot build a productive life without holy habits. So we learn from the broken vineyard. The sluggard did not destroy it in a day. It fell apart little by little. A little sleep. A little slumber. A little folding of the hands. And then poverty came like an armed man.

That is how habits work. Small things compound. Neglect compounds. Diligence compounds. Time is the enemy of the immoral sluggard, but a friend to the God-fearing diligent man.

Small actions when repeated have powerful results, but those results aren’t immediate.

I bought some rocks for my kids for Christmas. I even told them I bought them rocks for Christmas because I knew they wouldn’t believe me. They were geodes—rocks with crystals inside of them. You can open them with a single swing of a sledgehammer, but that’ll often destroy the cool formations inside. A better way to crack them open is to use a chisel and hammer, slowly tapping until a crack forms, then gently opening it. It’s like 99 taps, and you don’t see anything. And then all of a sudden on the 100th tap, a crack forms.

Now, which tap formed the crack? Well, all 100 did. It just didn’t produce the desired result immediately. Whether good or bad, that is how habits work. Their power is realized over time and seemingly come out of nowhere.

Do you want a productive life? I do.

It’s a good goal. But I want to suggest that your resolve be aimed at cultivating habits and not the outcome of the habits, the end goal.

I like what James Clear says in his book:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Your goal is your desired outcome. Your system is the collection of daily habits that will get you there.

This year, spend less time focusing on outcomes and more time focusing on the habits that precede the results.”

Big goals don’t deliver big results. It’s a consistent system of daily habits that produces results. Funny enough, big goals can actually undermine long-term lasting results.

Let me give an example… A goal-focused orientation can make it about the end result and not behavior change. How many times have you or someone you’ve known made massive radical changes to achieve a goal (and did) but slowly fell back into their old habits and put the weight and then some right back on? It’s because they made it primarily about losing weight, not cultivating a healthy lifestyle. It was bad habits that caused a person to fall into poor fitness. And it will be good habits that lift them out of it.

Massive action, if not sustained, won’t produce lasting results. It’s better to work out 20 mins three times a week for a year than to work out two hours four times a week for only a month. Worst yet, the failure will lead to even deeper complacency.

Remember, in a competition, winners and losers often have the same goal: to win. What separates them is not the goal itself, but the habits and disciplines that shape them. Goals, by themselves, do not drive change.

This brings me to another point Clear argues in his book, which I also see in Scripture: habits flow out of your identity and reinforce your identity. People who think of themselves as runners tend to run. People who think of themselves as writers tend to write. And the more a runner runs, the more he thinks of himself as a runner. The more a writer writes, the more he thinks of himself as a writer.

Now consider who you are because of the gospel. You are not an object of God’s wrath, but an object of His love. You are not a slave to sin, but a slave to righteousness. You are no longer under sin’s dominion, but a vessel of the Holy Spirit. You are a new creation in Christ with new desires and appetites. You are free from sin’s dominion, so live like a freeman. You are a disciple, and disciples live disciplined lives.

Who are you, Christian? Now live like it.

And this is why habits matter so much. They are not merely things you do. Over time, they become part of what you are. The repeated act becomes a settled pattern. The settled pattern becomes a kind of second nature. This is why we must take habits seriously while they are still small, while they can still be bent, redirected, and trained.

In ‘Thoughts for Young Men,’ JC Ryle says this about habits:

“Custom becomes second nature, and its chains are not easily broken…Habits are like stones rolling down hill — the further they roll, the faster and more ungovernable is their course. Habits, like trees, are strengthened by age. A boy may bend an oak when it is a sapling — a hundred men cannot root it up, when it is a full grown tree. A child can wade over the Thames River at its fountain-head — the largest ship in the world can float in it when it gets near the sea. So it is with habits: the older the stronger — the longer they have held possession, the harder they will be to cast out. They grow with our growth, and strengthen with our strength.”

He had sinful habits in mind, but the same is true with holy habits. Time is the enemy of the immoral sluggard but a friend to a God-fearing, diligent man. Start small. Start today. Let your habits take possession of you, and who knows where the Lord will carry you.