The Power to Change: Mastering the Habits That Matter Most

by Craig Groeschel

Here’s what tends to happen to people who haven’t defined a win: they settle for someone else’s. Your parents may decide what they want for your life. Without your own goal, you’ll fall into their plan as if you have no choice. Bosses most assuredly have a way they want your life to go. They will enforce their will unless you are committed to running your own race. Most commonly, people without a defined win fall into the current of culture. They live like everyone else. Not having a finish line makes it easy to want a new car like your neighbor’s, a promotion like your coworker’s, and a vacation like your friend’s. You’re living a life, but it’s not really your life. You are wise to decide where you want your life to go. So what’s your finish line? What’s your win? Do you know?

I have started one new habit a year. Most have been small and seemingly insignificant. If you looked over the thirty-plus years, you would see I had a few years where my new habit didn’t take. I also have intentionally dropped a few habits along the way. But I can tell you with confidence that I have started more than twenty new habits that are now a consistent part of my life. I couldn’t point to any one of those habits and say, “That’s what made me close to God, a great husband to Amy, a good dad to my kids, and an effective leader.” But together, these habits have reshaped how I see myself and how I treat people. They have renewed my mind and revived my spiritual confidence. They have changed my body and my posture. My life is transformed, and it happened one small habit at a time.

Habitologists33 call connecting a new habit to a current habit “habit stacking.” It’s especially helpful because of the way your brain works. Your brain builds up connections between neurons that are used frequently. Your brain removes connections between neurons that are not used. (That process is sometimes called “synaptic pruning.”) Those removed or “pruned” connections are why it’s so difficult to remember something you rarely do and so challenging to start doing it. Your built-up connections are why it’s so easy for you to remember to do things you frequently do and to do those things.