In my last post on making habits stick I mentioned Flylady’s one habit a month. Since then I’ve been reminded of other avenues for habit building. One is making three goals to reach in 30 days. So, three habits in a month. 3 in 30.
But this is the one that I really like. My pastor shared that he tries to make it a habit to read a Proverb a day. There are 31 Proverbs. So one for each day of the month. Just one a day. So, say you start off with good intentions and read Proverbs 1 on the first day of the month. Then you fall behind and suddenly it’s the 4th. It’s ok. Just read Proverbs 4.
My pastor shared the age old, ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away.’ Then said,
“How about a Proverb a day will keep the devil away.”
I think we can all say that would be a great habit to build. And a simple route for making a habit stick. For me, the key is keeping it practical, building a new habit onto another habit that already exists. Reading a Proverb a day could naturally be the start of or follow my morning quiet time. Or it could be something the children and I all do together, right after breakfast. It could even be a new habit for around the supper table or tucking in time.
What do you think?
-Tricia homeschools five children from preschool to middle school. She’s forsaken life in the drive thru lane for the road home. She contributes a blend of writing at parenting, homeschool and frugal living sites. You can find her facing that daily dose of chaos at Hodgepodge. Tricia is a.k.a. Hodgepodgemom.
This is a great one to start, I once heard of a Pastor who challenged the youth in his church to do this and told them that their grades would improve if they would just read 1 Proverb a day. I heard that one young lady took him up on the challenge and God proved it to be true. Thank you for sharing about habit building because this is an area I greatly need to improve in.
Felina – I love that use of a Proverb a day!
Breakfast time would be the perfect time to form the habit! We do our “faith reading” at that time. We started that habit years ago and it worked out well- when I make a decision to do something like reading the proverbs, it is easy to just slip it in there because we already have the habit. I might put proverbs next on my breakfast reading list.
I love it!!