Making Good Habits, Breaking Bad Habits

Joyce describes how bad habits are built up through repetition. While we’re forming them we don’t even see them as habits, we only see the later consequence of a behaviour pattern that doesn’t make us happy with ourselves. By then it’s often too late. They’ve become part of who we are – or rather who we’d rather not.

Joyce Meyer believes that you need to change one habit at a time. First you have to be honest and identify what’s a bad habit and what’s a good one. True change, she reckons, takes 30 days of repetition before something becomes a genuinely changed habit. Because her own lifestyle is firmly grounded in daily prayer and the Bible, each habit breaking journey starts right there; nothing, she insists is accomplished without God's help.

Joyce believes strongly in building yourself a support system with others – you aren’t alone in wanting to swap bad habits for ones, and in keeping your words and thoughts positive. Focus not on want you want to leave behind, but on what you’re working towards.

She also believes it’s important to celebrate and rejoice the good days; the ones where you accomplish something – however small, and every time you shake off the mistakes and disappointments that seem to set you back to square one. Don’t despair! Go right back to working toward your goal and never give up.

To help you break the habit of looking back in despair, she outlines four steps to help you stop making excuses, to lose the hurry habit, the emotional habit of self-pity and, instead, develop confidence in Christ and 'habitually' add value to others. There’s a word for this, she says: it’s discipline.

For encouragement, Joyce refers you to Philippians 4:13- “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Further quoting Romans 12:21 and Galatians 5:16, Joyce calls you to "Live by decision, not by emotion." With her usual examples from her own life and the lives of others, she helps you concentrate on the good habits that will solve many bad habits and how the habit of faith is itself one of the best you can learn.

From nail biting to cell phone addiction, procrastination to overspending, bad habits seem to outnumber the good ones. Unfortunately, we pay a price for bad habits that outweighs the immediate gratification that they bring. Experts say that at least 40% of what we do is solely the result of habit, which is why it is so important to make good habits and break bad ones.

In this book, Joyce Meyer starts by examining the nature of habits. The first habit - and most important one to have - is the God Habit. By making it a habit to start your day by reading the Bible and communing with God, asking for His help in your efforts and His strength and sustenance, the stage is set for overcoming the habits you want to break and establishing new ones in their place. She then explores how to break bad habits by examining the destructive negative behaviour patterns. The author moves on to discuss 14 good habits and devotes a chapter to each.

By the end of the chapter, the reader has a specific roadmap to follow until the behavior has become automatic (the definition of a habit). It's like following a GPS to get you to a new place. After traveling the same route several times, the GPS isn't needed for you to find your destination. The 'habit' of following the right route is ingrained. Among the habits discussed are: The God Habit The Habit of Being Decisive The Health Habit The Happy Habit