Find it hard to start good habits? Find it even harder to stop bad habits? Yeh, me too. So we just need to try harder don’t we? But what does that actually mean? What do we actually do? What steps should we take?

The core of James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, is a four-step analysis of how habits are formed (and broken). It’s an extremely important cycle to understand not only for our own sanctification, but also if we are involved in counseling people away from bad habits and towards good habits.

Step 1: Cue. The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. It is a bit of information that predicts a reward and therefore leads to a craving. (47-8)

Step 2: Craving. Without some level of motivation or desire—without craving a change—we have no reason to act. What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in state it delivers. (48)

Step 3: Response. This is the actual habit you perform, which can take the form of a thought or an action. Whether a response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with the behavior. 48-9

Step 4: Reward. Rewards are the end goal of every habit. The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward. We chase rewards because they serve two purposes: (1) they satisfy our craving and (2) they teach us…which actions are worth remembering in the future. Hence a habit is created.

 In summary, the cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward; cue, craving, response, reward—that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. (50-51)

Having analyzed the four steps of habit creation, Clear then suggests four laws of habit creation and four laws for breaking bad habits.

How to create a good habit

• The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious.
• The 2nd law (Craving): Make it attractive.
• The 3rd law (Response): Make it easy.
• The 4th law (Reward): Make it satisfying.

So, if you want to start a good habit at the beginning of 2019 ask yourself: How can I make it obvious? How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy? How can I make it satisfying? (54). Ask the same questions if you are counseling someone towards better habits with food, money, technology, etc.

How to Break a Bad Habit

• Inversion of the 1st law (Cue): Make it invisible.
• Inversion of the 2nd law (Craving): Make it unattractive.
• Inversion of the 3rd law (Response): Make it difficult.
• Inversion of the 4th law (Reward): Make it unsatisfying. (54)

As above with good habits, ask yourself regarding bad habits: How can I make it invisible? How can I make it unattractive? How can I make it difficult? and How can I make it unsatisfying?

Anyone with a sound biblical worldview can find many ways to “Christianize” each of these steps and can find many biblical and spiritual resources to enhance each step of good habit formation and to effectively break bad habits. Christians should therefore be far better at breaking bad habits and starting good ones than non-Christians.

Too often, we simply tell ourselves or others, “Just try harder.” But neither we nor they know where to start or what to do. What Clear does is identify the specific areas in which to focus our attention and therefore the specific questions to ask and the specific work required. In the following chapters, each of these steps is examined in more detail. We’ll follow Clear’s structure in further blog posts, suggesting ways that Christians can learn from him and improve upon him.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Blogs

What the ‘Quarter-Life Crisis’ Says About Young Adults in Your Church
“The networking website LinkedIn found that 75 percent of 25- to 33-year-olds report having a quarter-life crisis. I’m one of them.”

Still Saints
Great to see Desiring God tackling this weighty subject, and none better to do so than the wisest and most compassionate counselor I’ve ever met, Dr. Eric Johnson.

“About one in ten people suffers from a personality disorder, a deeply ingrained, long-standing dysfunction that forms part of the structure of someone’s personality. Although people with personality disorders often struggle to find long-term healing, the gospel of Jesus Christ, communicated by skilled counselors and patient friends, provides unique therapeutic resources that can, over time, bind up the most broken personalities.”

How Total Depravity Changed My Life
“Only through total depravity do the beauties of unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints come into their full glory. Only through understanding how indebted we are in Adam do we ever even begin to perceive how deeply loved we are in Christ.”

Caring for a Friend with a History of Promiscuity and/or Abortion
Brad Hambrick tackles the question: “What does the process of redemption and restoration look like for a person scarred by a past that includes multiple sex partners and abortions?”

Diverse Theologians to Read in 2019
Thabiti provides “a short list of theologians and leaders from differing ethnic backgrounds for those who may be interested to diversify their reading lists.”

10 Exciting Discoveries in Biblical Archaeology in 2018
“This past year brought numerous discoveries that supported biblical accounts and provided context for other scriptural knowledge. Here are 10 of the top discoveries from 2018.”

Prison Was My First Pulpit……
This is quite the story. “Linda Barkman was incarcerated after the man she lived with murdered her toddler. But she turned hardship into ministry.”

How protected is your teen from finding pornography online?
“Take this quiz to see how protected your teen is. While not every question may provide an answer that fits you exactly, choose the one closest to your reality.  ”

Why Pray for the Media?
“Why pray for the media? The answer is simple. Because God answers prayers offered up for the media. Consider that in 2018 two of the heralded heroes of Sports Illustrated, Time, ESPN and other major media outlets were Rachael Denhollander and Tyler Trent. Both are Christians who have suffered immensely, and have persevered and/or continue to persevere. In various ways, they were heard in 2018 and still are being heard because of their faith.”

Kindle Books

31 Days toward Trusting God  by Jerry Bridges $2.99.

Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God by Rankin Wilbourne $0.79.

The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together by Jared C. Wilson $0.79.

I’ve heard it argued that daily devotions are a bondage, that daily Bible reading and prayer are legalistic impositions that restrict a Christian’s freedom. Though not a Christian book, James Clear’s Atomic Habits demonstrates why the opposite should be the case.

He turns to neuroscience to explain that as habits are created, the level of activity in the brain decreases. Habits reduce cognitive load and free up mental capacity, so we can allocate our attention to other tasks (46).

For example, how much brain activity is involved in turning the ignition key, putting the car into reverse, and easing out of the garage? Very little, if you’ve been doing that for many weeks, months, or years. But this frees the brain to concentrate entirely on looking for pedestrians and other cars.

“Habits do not restrict freedom. They create it. In fact, the people who don’t have their habits handled are often the ones with the least amount of freedom. Without good financial habits, you will always be struggling for the next dollar. Without good health habits, you will always seem to be short on energy. Without good learning habits, you will always feel like you’re behind the curve. If you’re always being forced to make decisions about simple tasks—when should I work out, where do I go to write, when do I pay the bills—then you have less time for freedom. It’s only by making the fundamentals of life easier that you can create the mental space needed for free thinking and creativity.” (46-7)

“Conversely, when you have your habits dialed in and the basics of life are handled and done, your mind is free to focus on new challenges and master the next set of problems. Building habits in the present allows you to do more of what you want in the future.” (46-7).

Now apply that to daily devotions. If we have a good regular routine in the morning, we are engaging in numerous habits without even thinking about it.

Alarm goes off > get up > brush teeth > shave > shower > dress > coffee > breakfast > devotions.

The same routine, the same habits, each and every day. There’s no internal debate over each step, there’s no cognitive fuel used up in the process. There’s no “should I/shouldn’t I” argument. This frees the mind to focus on listening to God in his Word and speaking to God in prayer. Far from a bondage, this is freedom. The bondage is the daily debate, the daily guilt-trip when devotions are forgotten because not scheduled, and the daily battle to find a few minutes wherever whenever.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Blogs

The Rhythms of Grace
“As you look back over the past year and find yourself puzzling over why God did what He did, turn from what happened to the Who behind all that happened. This will strengthen you as you press into the new year before you. And when you hit confusing trials in the year ahead, and begin to doubt the goodness of God, pause and remember all you know about Him, for He is infinitely worthy of your trust.”

A Holiday Miracle
If you care for someone with mental illness, you want to read this deeply moving article.

A Simple 3-Step Bible Reading Plan for Children
“To develop a biblical worldview, we need to saturate our minds in Scripture. This requires repeatedly reading and engaging with the Bible throughout our lifetime. The earlier we begin reading the Bible the more time we have for God’s Word to seep into the marrow of our souls. That’s why helping a child to develop the habit of Bible reading is one of the greatest gifts we can give them.”

Is Saving the Earth More Important than Saving Souls? (The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity #10). – Canon Fodder
“We finally come to the tenth and last “commandment” of progressive Christianity and this one is a classic: “Life in This World is More Important than the Afterlife.”"

The Internet’s Gifts in 2018
“While probably idiosyncratic and not very comprehensive, this seemed like a good day to reflect on some of the blessings God’s brought my way through the internet. Though I love a good internet-bashing session, it remains an incredible tool by which a discerning Christian can gain many good things. In no certain order, here are things the internet gave in 2018 for which I remain grateful.”

The Tech-wise family: A conversation about parenting and family
And if you want help with managing that technology, Russell Moore interviews Andy Crouch, author of The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place which is on sale today for only $2.99 (Kindle version).

The Bible as an app: One man’s quest to have everyone engaging with Scripture
Another good-news tech story

“As of the day of our interview, 315 million unique devices had installed The Bible App. “And it is growing by about four million new devices every month.” Even more amazing is that most of the app’s growth is outside of North America. “We have a lot of growth happening—I mean triple-digit growth happening—in many, many regions of the world [like] India, Russia, Syria, Central Africa, Brazil,” Gruenewald pointed out. In fact, “it has been used in every single country and territory on earth.”"

And then there’s the bad and the ugly What Facebook Knows about You. You probably don’t want to know, but you should.

New Book

2 Samuel (Reformed Expository Commentary) by Richard D Phillips. One of my favorite series of commentaries and one of my favorite commentators.

Kindle Books

The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place $2.99.

Praying Together: The Priority and Privilege of Prayer: In Our Homes, Communities, and Churches $2.99.

Making All Things New: Restoring Joy to the Sexually Broken $2.99.

Yesterday’s post highlighted James Clear’s insight that the key to permanent behavior change is changing our identity:

“True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity…Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are” (34).

But this raises the huge question of where does our sense of identity come from? How do we, in Clear’s words, “upgrade and expand our identity”?

Clear’s answer is that it emerges out of our habits. “Your habits are how you embody your identity” (36). Your identity is your repeated actions.

How unsatisfyingly circular! We change our habits by changing our identity….which we change by changing our habits!

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity” (38).

“Habits are the path to changing your identity. The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do” (38).

It’s not a one-off action but a repeated action that changes our identity, Clear explains. We change who we are by changing what we do. And as these habits mount up, the evidence mounts up, and our story that we tell ourselves begins to change too. We become our habits

Clear admits that it’s a reinforcing feedback loop as identity influences habits and vice versa. Later, he reduces it to a simple two-step process:

• Decide the type of person you want to be.
• Prove it to yourself with small wins. (39)

Identity is therefore derived from our decisions and our deeds. We become our habits. We define ourselves.

How different to the Christian approach to identity which rests on a divine definition; not on what we decide or do, but on what God decides and what God does. The Christian’s identity is based upon God’s decision and God’s deeds. He elects his people in Christ, redeems them in Christ, saves them in Christ, adopts them in Christ, sanctifies them in Christ, and glorifies then in Christ. That’s why Paul can’t stop describing Christians as “in Christ” (see Ephesians 1).

With such an incredible identity, how much more powerful should be the motivation to change our behavior. What a foundation to build upon. Not the shaky creaky foundation of our own decisions and deeds, but God’s acceptance and action.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

One of the most “Christian” sections in James Clear’s Atomic Habits is his teaching on the importance of changing our identity if we are to change our habits. When I say “Christian,” I’m not saying that Clear is coming at this from a Christian perspective. What I am saying is that the most recent scientific research into habits confirms what the Bible has taught for millennia.

For example, the Apostle Paul said:

“Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts” (Rom. 6:11-12).

Paul is urging Christians to change their sense of identity, to establish new thoughts about who they are, to view themselves as dead to sin and alive to Christ. And the more they do so, the more they will dethrone sin and weaken its power.

2000 years later, James Clear depicts the three levels at which change can occur as layers of an onion:

• Layer 1. Identity: This is the centre of the onion and involves changing our beliefs, our worldview, our self-image, our judgments.
• Layer 2. Processes: The next layer is changing your habits and systems. This is the habits layer.
• Layer 3. Outcomes: The outside layer is changing your results. This is the goals layer.

He explains, “Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe” (30-31).

Clear says that each of these levels are involved in change but most people start with goals (what they want to achieve/what they want to do) rather than identity (what they believe/who they are). But, Clear argues, the more we start with identity, who we want to become, the more change we will see.

“It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are” (31).

The key to change, then, is identity change. For example, instead of saying, “I’m trying to stop smoking,” say, “I’m not a smoker.”

“True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity…Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are” (34).

The goal is not to stop or start something, it’s to become someone. Behaviors are a reflection of our identity. “Research has shown that once a person believes in a particular aspect of their identity, they are more likely to act in alignment with that belief” (34).

Do you see how “Pauline” this teaching is? It’s just a pity that it took a couple of thousand years to catch up! That’s not to say, we can’t learn from what Clear teaches. Not at all. Clear is simply finding and describing truth that God has put into the world and human nature and is describing it in ways that can help us fill out the details of Paul’s teaching in Romans 6.

If somebody comes to us and asks, “How do I implement Romans 6:11-12?” while our theological explanation of Christian identity will come from the Bible, some of the guidance for practical application could easily come from Clear’s book. It certainly helped me to understand the effective outworking of these verses a lot more than most commentaries have.

This connection between identity and habit also raises serious questions about Christians identifying as “gay Christians” or saying, “I’m an alcoholic.” Making even sinful temptation a core part of our identity can only make it far more likely that we will end up in sinful practice. As Clear says:

“Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity” (36).

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones