A More Beautiful Life Collective

In this post, we are talking about life proofing your habits to help them be life proof. We are focusing on how to cultivate good habits and make them stick by figuring out why our current habits aren’t working. Then, we figure out new prompts and triggers to jumpstart our habits and help us reach our goals.

This is part of our series on getting things done from a biblical perspective. You can subscribe to the blog to get our latest content sent directly to your inbox.

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Run Your Race Well

I was racing, huffing, and puffing to the finish line. There’s something truly amazing about the feeling of a race, all those people gathered together moving in mass to the finish line. This race was particularly special, as over 40,000 people came together to race over the Cooper River Bridge. Roads are closed down throughout historic Charleston, SC for the 6.2-mile stretch. 

There’s a palpable energy in the year before the race starts. In the chilly air, everyone goes out to line up with their race group at the crack of dawn. People are chattering, stretching, and drinking the last cup of coffee as the sun rises in the distance. We are all waiting for the “Ready, Set, Go” that sets us off towards the finish line. 

The hardest part of this particular race. is the gradual incline of the bridge itself. In fact, the slogan of the race is “Get Over It.” As you huff and puff to climb to the top, the heat of running on asphalt and concrete- and a sunshiney Southern Spring Day – starts to get to you. The realization that you still have 2-3 miles to go after you finish the bridge starts to get to you too. 

Big races bring a sense of camaraderie not often seen in the adult world with people coming from all over the world to run in them. Most aren’t coming to compete to win the grand prize or 1st place records. You are running to test yourself and see what you are made of. If you finish, you’ve won a certain sense of accomplishment. 

The Apostle Paul likens our life to a race and encourages us in his letters to “run in such a way so as to win the prize” (1 Cor. 9). We are not supposed to ‘run aimlessly,’ run like we are ‘beating the air.’ We run with determination and purpose with the sole purpose of finishing well. We want to run our race well so that we cross that finish line with a sense of accomplishment. 

When I am racing over the Cooper River Bridge, to finish well means to pace myself, and keep moving one foot in front of the other as I climb up and over it. It means to stop and drink water. It means to listen to my body. It means to push myself as I near the city center, to the park where the finish line is. Ultimately, to finish well means to persevere, to keep going, to not give up, so that I can make it to the end of the race. It means learning how to cultivate good habits.

Finish Your Race Well

We’ve all heard the saying that life is like a marathon, not a sprint. This is true. Our years are like marathons too. At the beginning of the year, we start out on a race to meet our goals. But, many of us start out too quickly, too ambitiously, or with not enough gumption at all. So, we fall behind in our race and ultimately give up. We don’t know how to cultivate good habits.

This is the time of year – late January to mid-February – when people often start to abandon all those New Year’s Resolutions and good goals they have made. We dealt with a lot of sickness at the beginning of February. Between recovering from the holidays themself and sickness, the first week and a half of the year flew by with little to no progress on any of my goals. But, I realized that this was almost a good thing. I do not need to stick to a pre-prescribed time schedule of how I am going to meet my goals. I can start working on them when I am able to. 

This seems counterintuitive to finishing well. To finish well, we need to start well right? Well, yes. But, most runners would tell you that if you run the first mile like it’s your last mile it will end up being your only mile. You will overdo it and end up not enduring to the end. 

By easing into my year, I am able to add routines and habits gradually to my schedule. This means that by mid-January I’m not even thinking about giving up on my goals because I’m focusing on them as I can. I’m still easing into them. I’m still learning how to cultivate good habits.

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Listen to your body and be aware of your situation

As I ease into my goals, I’m also starting to recognize when things aren’t going right. We create our habits based on aspirations we have for ourselves that we turn into achievable concrete goals. However, like most New Year’s resolutions, the habits we so desire to do often fall by the wayside when we start living real life. We want to practice lifehacking, where we look at our habits and honestly decide whether or not they are helping us achieve what we want to do.  What’s crucial is that we know how to cultivate good habits and make them stick.

Just like the Cooper River Bridge Run begins easy and flat, but works up to a gradual incline, your year may start off great. You have motivation. Everyone’s talking about their goals. But, then February hits and things go sideways. You get sick. You’re tired. You wish it was summer. You are ready for a break. This is the bridge you have to ‘get over.’ 

The response here shouldn’t be to just give up or to keep pressing forward at the same pace (because that would lead to overdoing it). It should be to listen to your body and make adjustments as you need to so that you can finish well. You can learn how to cultivate good habits by paying attention to what is working for you and what is not working for you.

I needed to life proof my habits, so when I am tired, sick, or busy my habit can keep going. This makes it easier to stick with your goals for not just the first week of January, but also the rest of the year. 

To Life Proof Your Habits means to analyze what’s working and what’s not working so that you can help your habit stick. You learn for yourself how to cultivate good habits. You figure out what behaviors and triggers help you to accomplish your habits, and then, you think about how you can add what works for you to your everyday routine. 

In this way, you are making your habits life proof meaning that you are making them actionable even when life gets real and hard and messy. Proofing Your Habits is part of lifehacking your habits which we talked about in this episode of the podcast.  When we life proof our habits, we are trying to figure out how to cultivate good habits in our lives now.

What’s a proof?

I have a love-hate relationship with math. As an English major – and now a would-be writer – I feel much more comfortable when my mind is filled with words and ideas rather than numbers. But, I want to take you back to your high school math classroom for a minute and trust me going back to that place of pain (or okay – maybe joy for some of you) will be worth it. 

Think back to your Geometry class. In those squeaky 9th-grade desk chairs, imagine sheets of paper spread out with a t-chart drawn directly in the middle of each of them. For a brief moment, math class became almost an English class – which definitely incited groans from a few. With lines and lines of sentences – along with numbers, you were writing proofs. Do you remember now? 

Proofs were definitely not my favorite moment in high school, not by a long shot. And, I felt frequently like they were a waste of time. I’m pretty sure unless I got a math degree I would never need them again. 

But interestingly enough, in college, I actually got one of my first jobs instructing. What you may ask? Well, instructing proofs! I took a logic class in college, and it was like the thought process of math but without all the numbers. And, I was actually pretty good at that. So, I ended up being a tutoring instructor for the introductory logic course at the college. 

The basic premise of a proof is that you are given an initial statement (called a premise) and a statement you have to prove. Then, you have to go through the thought process of how to prove that it is true using different laws of logic. 

Basically, it looks like this: 

By writing the proof, you do all the steps in between P and Q to prove it (or say that the proof can’t be solved). (Generally, it looks something like if P then Q, etc. etc.) 

How to Cultivate Good Habits? Through Proofing Your Habits

I don’t regularly use the skill of writing proofs in my everyday life. (Actually, I never use this skill.) But, recently I started noticing that I was going through this process when I thought about my habits. 

I needed a little bit more direction in my lifehacking. Meaning, I needed to figure out what I needed to change about my habit in order to help it to stick. I needed to go step by step through each part of my habit flow and see what allowed me to actually achieve the desired behavior. By doing this, I can learn how to cultivate good habits.

All of our habits are made up of two things: 

• Our habits are set off by triggers or prompts. We can stack habits on each other to create routines. Each habit then triggers the next habit. 
• Our habits – and all behaviors – are determined by what we have the ability and motivation to do. If something is too difficult or undesirable to do, we will not do it. So if we have set up a trigger – but the habit is too difficult or undesirable to do, the trigger will not achieve its purpose. We will still not do it. 

So part of the process of lifehacking is to figure out the sweet spot in the midst of the trigger, difficulty, and motivation behind the habit. Many of us may have set up goals for ourselves, but then the habits that are supposed to get us to that goal are just not happening. 

Instead of just giving up on the goal, we should figure out why the habit is not happening. We have to figure out how to cultivate good habits.

You can think of it in terms like this: 

• Premise: I am not getting up in the morning. 
• Prove: I want to get up at 5 am to do my quiet time. 

Then, you need to go through all the steps to get from the Premise to the Prove. In this way, you are proofing your habits. 

So the steps may look like this: 

• Premise: I am not getting up in the morning. 
• If I start looking at social media at night, then I stay up too late. 
• If I read instead, then I go to bed on time. 
• If I keep my phone by my bed, then I don’t get up in the morning. 
• If I move my phone to the door, then I end up getting up. 
• If I clean the kitchen at night, then I start with my quiet time first thing. 
• If I don’t clean the kitchen, then I get behind and skip my quiet time. 
• Prove: I want to get up at 5 am to do my quiet time. 

In this string of steps, you are looking at different behaviors and seeing what the result of each behavior usually is. Sometimes, that behavior will trigger another behavior to ultimately result in the desired behavior. Sometimes, it won’t. But, by documenting each step, you get closer to figuring out how to engineer your behavior in order to achieve your desired behavior. 

We often do the same things over and over again expecting different results. Then, we feel frustrated when we haven’t moved forward. Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Do you keep failing to do the same habits to reach goals and resolutions you’ve set for yourselves year after year wondering why you haven’t made any progress? It could be because you aren’t looking to see how you could change your behaviors to make those habits stick. We aren’t trying to learn how to cultivate good habits.

If you would like a printable version of our “Proofing Your Habits” Guide, visit A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop.

Engineering Your Habits to Accomplish Your Goals

I think all too often we just assume that things are the way that they are and it will never change. We assume that maybe by setting goals, we could have something different happen in our lives. But, when we set the goal and our behavior doesn’t change, we just throw our hands up in despair. 

Really and truly, we have a lot of ability to change what’s happening in our lives, but we often ‘throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.’ We throw goals into our lives and see what sticks. If something doesn’t stick, we just say that it’s not meant to be. 

I think that the actual issue is we are not operating with the data that will help us to change. We aren’t really sure why we are not accomplishing our habits because we are not being thoughtful about what helps us to accomplish our habits. 

How can we know how to cultivate good habits? By Proofing Your Habits, you are able to analyze each of your behaviors and see if it gets you closer or further away from your goals and dreams. Then, you can make the necessary adjustments. 

If I recognize that I can move my phone a few feet and that results in me actually waking up and starting my day when I want to, then I am empowered to make the necessary changes in my life to accomplish that goal. 

If I recognize that I am very motivated by that first cup of coffee, then I can attach some of my ‘must-dos’ for the day to that first cup. 

In the example we had above we can see a few behaviors that are positive, and a few that are not. 

• Premise: I am not getting up in the morning. 
• If I start looking at social media at night, then I stay up too late. 
• If I read instead, then I go to bed on time. 
• If I keep my phone by my bed, then I don’t get up in the morning. 
• If I move my phone to the door, then I end up getting up. 
• If I clean the kitchen at night, then I start with my quiet time first thing. 
• If I don’t clean the kitchen, then I get behind and skip my quiet time. 
• Prove: I want to get up at 5 am to do my quiet time. 

Once you figure that out, you can choose to move forward with your habits and goals informed and hopefully motivated to make those necessary changes to accomplish those goals. 

When you practice Proofing Your Habits, you are literally life proofing them. You need to know how to cultivate good habits. To do this, you need to make the behaviors you want to do more likely to happen even when life gets crazy because you’ve learned what makes them happen in the first place. You are also helping yourself navigate changing seasons and days. When things change – you get a new job, a new puppy, have a baby, get married – you are able to navigate the changes. You just ask yourself the same questions and work through the steps to figure out what leads to you doing the habit and what doesn’t lead to that habit. 

How to Cultivate Good Habits by Proofing Your Habits

Before beginning to proof your habits, you have to do some planning and data collection. The first step in how to cultivate good habits is to do some planning and goal-setting for your year. You can read more about this process in our theme of the year post and our lifehacking post. And then, practice adding in some of the habits you’ve chosen to your life. This is your data collection phase. You are figuring out what your normal routines are during this stage. You probably already have done these two steps, but to figure out what’s working and not working for you, it’s so important to have some goals to work towards. 

Step 1. Pick one habit that you want to work on that you’ve been struggling to actually do. 

Example: I want to read every day before I go to bed. 

You’ll notice that I have an actionable habit here that also includes when I want to do the habit. I easily know whether or not I have completed the habit because it’s concrete. You could even add page numbers to this habit if you wanted something more concrete. It’s essential that you determine when you want to do the habit. If you haven’t, you will just feel a general sense of “I need to do this thing” but you won’t have made a plan for doing it. If you want to know how to cultivate good habits, you have to start by making a very concrete plan to do the habit.

Step 2. Figure out what’s working and what’s not working for you with this habit. 

Example: I never get to bed on time. I always fall asleep on the couch. I’m too tired to read. When I do read, I’m falling asleep or thinking about something completely different. 

Step 3. Write a list of things you do surrounding that habit. 

Example: 

• I look at my phone before bed. 
• I binge-watch shows after dinner. 
• I’m reading a dense nonfiction book. 
• I am falling asleep on the couch. 

Step 4. Analyze the effects of your current behaviors.

The best way to do this is to think in “If … then …” statements. Basically, you are determining why you are not doing your habit based on your current behaviors. 

Example: 

• If I look at my phone before bed, then I end up wasting my reading time. 
• If I binge-watch shows after dinner, then I don’t go to the bedroom on time.  
• If I’m reading a dense nonfiction book, then I don’t enjoy reading. 
• If I am falling asleep on the couch, then I never get to do my reading.

Step 5. Determine alternate behaviors that could help you reach your habit.

I would recommend going through the behaviors listed in step 4 and switching them up one by one. Fill in the blank: “Instead of .. I’ll do …” 

Example: 

• Instead of looking at my phone before bed, I’ll plug my phone in at 8:00 to charge. 
• Instead of binge-watching shows after dinner, I’ll turn off the TV and do a different hobby. 
• Instead of reading a dense nonfiction book, I’ll pick a fiction series to read. 
• Instead of falling asleep on the couch, I’ll go to bed by 9:30 pm each night. 

Step 6. Decide on new prompts to trigger your habits.

As you switch up the behavior, you should see if the new behavior functions as a trigger to jumpstart your habit. It is still helpful to think in terms of “If … then …” statements in this process. 

Example: 

• If I plug my phone in at 8:00 to charge, then I am ready to start reading earlier. 
• If I turn off the TV and do a different hobby, then I get distracted and don’t read.  
• If I pick a fiction series to read, then I enjoy reading and stay up late reading my book. 
• If I go to bed by 9:30 pm each night, then I’m not as tired the next day.

You can start to see as you add in new habits which triggers you to accomplish your desired habit. Some of your changes may be very positive right away and will help know how to cultivate good habits. Some may not be. If you have a negative result, you just change the habit to something else and see what happens. 

How to Cultivate Good Habits in the midst of a hectic life

After the holidays, I was really struggling with waking up in the morning. I was always pressing snooze on my alarm clock. I knew from the past that I have an easier time waking up if I move my alarm clock away from my bed. One simple change helped me to wake up in the morning which started my day on the right track by allowing me to do my morning routine and have time to read and do my morning pages. 

When we have children, we don’t just accept that our house is dangerous and there’s nothing we can do to change it. Instead, starting with those newborn days (and accelerating as your kids start walking) you slowly baby-proof your home, adding in baby gates, child locks, and outlet covers. There will be things that you didn’t even know you needed to do until your child finds a way to pull out all the cords on the TV, knocking your gaming console to the floor. Or when your child takes their sippy cup and breaks your TV because the TV was too close to the floor. 

Childproofing your home takes time. It takes looking at the current situation and problem-solving a way to make things work for your situation. 

Proofing your habits is the same. You look at your situation and see what needs to be done, but you don’t expect to have it all figured out right away. Instead, you try something, see how it works, make adjustments, and see if it works better. Repeating that process will ultimately lead to great results. This will allow you to see how to cultivate good habits in your life.  

It will help you to finish your race well. 

This is part of our series on getting things done from a godly perspective. You can read more about habits in many other posts on the blog. You can get our Aspirations, Goals, and Habits Workbook at our shop and download our free printable on proofing your habits too. Subscribe below to never miss an update on new content. 

Until next time, keep creating a life you love and cultivating your heart for God.