"The Goal is Not to Read a Book, But to Become a Reader"

The intentional promotion of and thinking about habits, despite its rich pedigree in some of the greatest philosophers such as Aristotle, is usually relegated to the category of “self-improvement topics”. This runs the risk, however, of treating habits as something we “add-on” to our lives rather than recognising how entrenched in our lives they are no matter what we do.

Habits are so implicit that we often fail to recognise them until they become extreme or lead to extreme outcomes, whether good or bad. But in reality they form the building blocks not just of outcomes which we want to achieve, but much more, of who we are.

The Utility of Habits

Usually when someone wants to talk about a “self-improvement” topic, they accompany it with a great success story in their lives, in order to bolster the case for why what they have to say is important or true (or worth buying). I don’t have such an extreme story! (Nor am I selling anything) But on reflection, I could say without doubt that habits have almost always been the explanation for the various instances in my life when, either gradually or unexpectedly, incredible things have happened. To list just a few cases:

It was resolving to read just 25 minutes a day that ultimately lead to me getting through around 50 challenging academic / philosophy books over the last 2-3 years.

Even just in the last few months, it has been deciding not to eat anything between 20:00 and 14:00 every day that helped me lose 15 pounds. Or developing the habit of practicing focus in my studying and writing that made it possible for me to write my first book.

It was my nearly unwittingly having gotten into the habit (out of mere curiosity) of reading a few chapters of the New Testament each day over the course of a year in high school which became the preconditions for a mystical experience of Christ which changed everything for me.

And yet on the other hand habits are inherently neutral and can also be destructive. At various other phases of my life (even recently here and there) it has been developing habits of passively scrolling on social media, thinking negative, anxious thoughts about life and the future, and comfort eating which lead to a number of far less desirable outcomes.

Habit-formation is in itself neutral. Good habits can completely change your life and make you someone you never thought you dreamed you could be. Bad habits can destroy you or at least cause you to live in mediocrity.

What is true either way is that as humans we have an active tendency towards habit formation. Our brains are made to render making the daily decisions we make easier to repeat. And in this respect, being a “creature of habit” is not something which describes some personalities, but all of humanity.

The upshot is that if you do the hard work of making good decisions for a certain amount of time, at some point your brain will, nearly of its own accord, decide to make you desire to do those things repeatedly, regardless of how difficult they are. And you’ll like doing it.

Small habits Make a Big Difference over Time

Any plane pilot knows that being off course by just a few degrees can lead to being hundreds of miles away from the intended destination. Over time, the tiniest of changes can make a very big difference.

This was an example offered by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits, of which I’ve just read the first few chapters. I really appreciate James’ point because it resonates with my general experience: if I try to take on something too big, too quickly in life, like reading an hour a day, I often fail. It’s not because I don’t want whatever outcome that habit was aimed at, it’s because the very resolution itself isn’t compatible with the ebb and flow of our moods and will-power throughout the days.

When you make a resolution to do something or adopt a specific habit, all you’re looking at is the desired outcome (the good) and how great it might be to achieve it. But we all know that many things happen between many sunrises and sunsets which distract us, sap our energy, and discourage us, which can take our eyes off of that goal. This makes taking big steps very difficult, and often we end up giving up the habit because we have lost the mindset required to be motivated enough to carry it out when it gets hard.

Clear proposes a different strategy, which aims at adopting small habits which 1) are easier to carry out even when you’re simply “not feeling it”, and 2) which have a compounded and self-reinforcing effect over time.

The initial problem with this is that small habits aren’t very superficially impressive. Ok, so I decide to read 10 minutes a day. That’s not going to finish this big philosophy book for months! Sure, but it’s better than resolving to read 45 minutes or an hour a day, running into a busy patch and not being able to, then eventually not finding the motivation to return to it, and ultimately giving up the habit.

Further, don’t underestimate the nearly 61 hours of reading in a year which results from that tiny 10 minutes a day. The same applies to many different aspects of life.

Small habits make a huge difference over time, and as I mentioned earlier, they are self-reinforcing. Do the same small thing over and over again and it becomes something you can’t live without. Forming a habit in line with your goals in life is like deploying an autonomous process inside yourself which just keeps on going and only every once in a while requires some intervening force to keep in motion.

Further, the benefit of instilling numerous small habits is that these are easy to begin and continue in, and end up mutually working together to create far bigger results. Let’s take an example:

Suppose I want to get in a habit of running more, but I just can’t get motivated enough to do it. I manage to try once a week or so to get outside and jog a few miles, but it's just so hard and requires far more effort than I am usually willing or able to give.

But a few things may be working against me here. Perhaps I just don’t see the good of running in the moments when it would be necessary to motivate me. So making a small habit of spending 5 minutes a day at 11:00 reading running forums, or watching running training videos can instill in me a bit of excitement about running. Second, perhaps when I start my lunch break, it takes cognitive work to think about where my shoes are, my shorts, and my shirt. Making a habit of 1) putting all of my running gear together right beside my desk the night before and 2) resolving to immediately change into it (whether or not I go running) once I begin lunch might change that. So by the time my lunch break comes around, I am both excited to run and it becomes a matter of course to slip into my running clothes.

Lastly, perhaps one of the reasons I really don’t feel like running around mid-day is because I’ve been snacking too close to that time, putting my body in digestion mode rather than physical exertion mode. Then perhaps I should set a timer for 10:00 after which I make a habit of not eating anything so that my body is ready for physical exercise when 12 or 13:00 rolls around.

Just implementing these smaller habits will very likely be effective enough to get me outside running far more often on my lunch break.

Since often it is lack of motivation or bigger obstacles which prevent us from accomplishing the habits we would love to be accomplishing, making smaller daily habits which help promote the first and avoid the second are key.

“Every decision you take is casting a vote about who you will become”

In another sense, the habit is not just working for you as if it were some separate thing from you. In reality it is changing who you are. As Clear notes and as I’ve noticed myself, habits develop from and shape our own self-perception. As Clear wrote, refusing a cigarette, saying “No thanks, I’m trying to stop smoking” versus saying “No thanks, I’m not a smoker” makes a world of difference. In the one, one sees himself still as a smoker trying to resist a temptation. In the other, the person is acting out of a self-perception and identity. This identity-based mindset is more likely to properly establish the habit of refusing cigarettes, because our self-perception sculpts our actions.

The goal is not to “read the book”. It is to become a reader. The more you see the act of reading as something foreign to who you are, the more difficult it is to form the habit. Yet once you begin to establish the habit of reading, the habit begins to change you such that you develop as a person to become a reader both in self-perception and in reality. Your tastes, desires, knowledge, values, and skills begin developing in the direction your habits carry you in.

As C.S. Lewis and Aristotle also have claimed, the moral life is no different. Many of us live under the illusion that in order to really start “being a good person” we would need to have some earth-shaking experience like that of George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, in which our perspective completely changes and goodness begins to flow out of us. After all, on our own efforts it can be quite difficult just to fulfill the minimal demands of merely being morally good. But that’s simply not true.

The Divine is certainly unpredictable, and it can happen to any of us (and often does happen to those who habitually seek the face of God) that the heavens will break open and draw us up into a moral beauty so stark that it would forever break the most arrogant heart. But being good almost always starts with the smallest of decisions. For example, making small but concrete “atomic” steps like starting a simple habit of saying “I’m sorry” to your loved ones when your temper has gotten the better of you, or saying the Lord’s prayer every morning first thing getting up. They’re not particularly impressive, but they slowly and imperceptibly change who you are. And most wonderfully - they reinforce themselves and start providing compound interest. As C.S. Lewis wrote, every moral decision is not only important in itself, but is also a strategical battlefield by which we can conquer far more territory if we are victorious. A plane flying on course will be that much closer to its destination in an hour than if it had been flying off course the entire time. Habits aren’t just things to do, but they transform our own mental, spiritual, and emotional situation.

I noticed when I began reading 25 minutes a day and had established this as a habit that it was not lack of time which had prevented me from reading more, but lack of desire. But when my desires started changing, I realised I could (and even wanted to) take on even more. So even though I only required myself to read 25 minutes a day, this compounded itself to grow even more; after a year I found myself sometimes desiring to read hours a day.

The same happened to me with running in 2021. I started (completely out of shape) with a simple 3K for lunch every day, then later 5K, then 8K, then 12K, then 16K and at some point 21K - I couldn’t get enough of it. Love grows with repetition, and even the most difficult of habits can develop into a near obsession.

As Clear writes, every decision we make shapes who we are becoming; it’s a vote we cast into the future about who we will be.

The picture I’m trying to paint here is one which reframes habits from our short-sighted perception of them as awful, painful, hopeless tasks which will always continue to be so, towards the idea that they are things of inertia. In the very beginning, habits may be difficult to begin, but they begin to change us and ultimately become lovely to us, establishing a momentum (inertia) that requires significant opposition to reverse.

You’re never “too old”, “too sick”, or “too anything” to start new habits.

Another point worth mentioning here is that the capability for habit formation is intrinsically human. As long as you are human, you are fully made for habit formation. The lies, or as one of my favorite bands Haste the Day worded it: “honey-soaked words geared to sink you and keep you”, which we all tend to believe and which are particularly tempting for the aging or the sick run something like: “you’re too old for this”, “it’s too much effort and I don’t have much longer to live to even exercise these virtues”, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, or “you’ll make it harder to stay healthy if you put in too much effort”. None of these are true, and in fact old age and sickness are some of the most excellent places to put good habits to work to counteract the vagaries of fallen nature. Habits are the best way to maintain control over one’s life despite pain, despite discouragement, despite significant obstacles: with small, consistent habits which keep steering you in the right direction. Excellence, and yes, Holiness do not reside in ease, but show their real substance first when things are less easy rather than more. Didn't see sickness, old age, or even a full-to-exploding schedule as a disqualifier for making bigger changes in your life.

I might write more about the book Atomic Habits later as I read it, but I wanted to share these thoughts while they still swam about in my head. I wish you all a good week.