Habit vs Goal

Donald Miller, the acclaimed US author, says that you can forget your goals, and that habits are greater. “Focus on habits and the goals will take care of themselves.” 

As you invest in developing a habit every day, the goals will be achieved along the way.  

Goals can be a great place to start – giving vision of how the future could look. But in essence, once a goal has been achieved, it’s power is null and void. If your motivation to lose weight was to fit a certain size outfit for your kid’s wedding, once the wedding has happened, what happens next? The goal was great at motivating you in the short term, but when you go past that set event in time, unless you created new habits to reach that goal, you won’t sustain the change.  

Let’s go back to our earlier analogy… 

If habits are a person that we’re breaking up with or becoming, then goals are date-nights. Events. Moments that are come and gone.  

But habits are long-term. They come from and determine character. Identity even. They’re not just what you do, they’re part of who you are. Just as you can’t create a long-lasting relationship with once-a week events, it takes work every day to build a habit.  

When we choose to invest in Godly habits, we’re creating a deeper, closer relationship with Jesus. We’re not seeing it as a tick-list; Church-on-Sunday, mid-week groups, Bible study and that’s enough. We start finding our groove of spending time in His presence and listening for His voice, focussed less on the outcome, but more on the new rhythm that we’re creating.  

It shifts the trajectory of who we are.  

This change of focus from goals to habits comes first from our identity. We decide on the actions the person we want to be would take, and we do those things. As we do those things repeatedly, we become the person we are called to be. We know that we are called to relationship with God and not performance-based religion.

But as we flex our habit-muscle and develop patterns of Godly behaviour, we will learn more about our Saviour and walk in closer step with Him. As we read His word, we’ll be more attuned to His voice guiding our lives. As we pray more, our resilience grows when we encounter difficulties. 

When Paul talks about ‘pressing on’ towards the goal, he’s reminding his readers that it takes effort – we have to press on! It doesn’t feel like a leap to say that pressing on could equate to developing a habit. Because the goal that Paul is pressing on to is full maturity (spiritual perfection) in Christ – it is the person that Christ has called him to be, not a milestone event along the way.

‘And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit..‘

(2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV) 

Action it: 

Take time to ask God what you are pressing on towards. Who is the person that you are called to be? The ‘you’, fully mature in Christ, calling to the you of the present moment and urging you on?  Let the Holy Spirit speak to your spirit about the journey you’re on, and what the next steps are for you as you step from glory to glory and become more like Jesus.