RICHer Habits

As I was wrapping up the 2023 calendar year, a book captured my attention called Rich Habits by Thomas Corley. At first I dismissed the book since the title sounded trite and my initial scan of the book seemed oriented around something like a get-rich-quick framework. However, I gave it time to develop and was surprised to find that the main point of the book had less to do with wealth creation than I had at first expected. Instead, the kinds of habits that were delineated had more to do with good living. My initial misgivings gave way to a new appreciation for what Corley was on about. Quite a few of his habits aligned well with my own moral outlook.

While some of the advice in Rich Habits is squarely in the domain of financial advice (such as “save 20 percent of your net income”), many of the habits explored by Corley seem almost unrelated to wealth and finances. For instance, he notes that over 80 percent of wealthy people read at least 30 minutes daily. Corley writes about habits such as emotional control, listening more than you talk, avoiding toxic relationships and seeking a mentor. As a classical educator, I found that many of Corley’s habits align well with the kinds of insights one gains from the rich intellectual and religious traditions delineated in the great books. I expected to find trite and trivial material, but instead found wisdom.

What Corley really gets right is the inspiring idea that must be present to generate the effort that goes into forming a new habit. My initial read was that whatever Corley was on about, it would not truly inspire me to form new habits. It is not as though riches hold no attraction for me. It’s just that I have an aversion to money making for its own sake. Perhaps I have taken too close attention to the verse “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” (1 Tim. 6:10). I am not saying that it is evil to earn money, nor is it evil when one has the opportunities of utilizing the wealth-making tools available to us today. But for me I have often not been motivated by money and instead desire some higher cause. This is where philosophy and theology have gotten me: the higher calling. Thus, in discovering the extent to which the Rich Habits aim towards higher ideals, I really started formulating some thoughts on habits I could go after in this next calendar year.

Reviewing Habit Formation by Charlotte Mason

Let’s take a moment to consider once again how one forms habits. Mason writes, “In all matters of physical exercise it is obvious to us that–do a thing a hundred times and it becomes easy, do a thing a thousand times and it becomes mechanical, as easy to do as not.” (School Education 105). This principle of repeatability is core to habit formation. Having begun with an inspiring idea such as living a fuller, richer life, we need to detail specifically what the habit is. Take for instance, the desire to read more. We sense that reading more will make us wiser and more knowledgeable. But simply telling ourselves to read more won’t get us there. Instead, we need to spell out the details. When, where, what and how are essential here. A more detailed habit will be articulated as “I will read for at least thirty minutes daily by placing a book next to my favorite chair and setting a reminder when I get home from work.” Notice how specific such a program is. It implies that the necessary materials are set out. A time and location are set, and a numerical measure is established to know when the habit is performed each day. Being specific like this helps us track when we have accomplished one of the many times we need to practice the habit for it to be fully formed.

We must be diligent and vigilant with ourselves. When training a child, we are the grown up that can assist them with reminders and accountability. But if we are on our own, we may need to recruit the support of others. Telling a spouse or a friend of the habit is really effective to support this new area of growth. Set some check in times to report on how things are going. Or find someone who wants to develop the same habit as you. Getting the details right can be helpful here. You don’t need to overdo it on what your daily routine will be. Set reasonable standards. Make it easy to comply. If you get started into your habit routine and discover it is a little overbearing, tinker with it a bit. With the reading example, it may be that 15 minutes is the right dosage. If you’ve only been reading zero minutes a day, even five minutes a day is a massive improvement and puts a peg down on the daily habit of reading.

Aim for full compliance, or at least be honest with your progress. It is worth having some sort of tracking device (a simple notebook would suffice, but there are also apps for this). If you aimed for 30 minutes, but your time got interrupted, no worries. Simply mark the 23 minutes spent that day. Accept it for what it is and aim all the more to fulfill your goal the next day. One piece of advice I’ve heard from numerous sources is to never let a habit lapse for two days in a row. Life throws us curve balls, so we can allow for a one-day lapse. But it is then up to us to regroup and recommit to never let two blanks to occur.

Finally, consider the reward of your habit. I think the truest reward is the acquisition of the habit itself. With our example of reading daily, the true reward is a growing list of books read. It is becoming the kind of person who reads daily. Now, it can be helpful to have little rewards along the way. But be careful not to become behaviorist about your habits. You are not trying to become your own trained monkey after all. What I try to do is picture pleasant things that would induce me to continue my habit training regimen. For instance, would a nice cup of tea, sipped slowly during my reading episode better incline me towards maintaining a daily reading ritual? Most certainly! For others it might be a chat in the kitchen with a spouse who have mutually agreed to a reading routine and delightfully share what they’ve read. There are all kinds of little rewards that fit well the overarching goal of living a life that is fuller and richer.

My 2024 Habits

So what is my list of habits for this next year? Here are three of my most important habits along with a brief description of each.

1. Begin each day with morning prayer. As an Anglican, we have a rich tradition of the Book of Common Prayer. It really only takes about 20 minutes to read the morning prayer, which incorporates confession, adoration, intercession and Bible reading. I have an app on my phone that makes it super easy to do the readings as well. Deepening my relationship with God is very important to me, so this is one way to habitualize a standard process that will daily work toward this goal.
2. Read for a minimum of 30 minutes daily. I already read a lot and have opportunities to access great books as well as professional journals. However, my reading habit occurs in fits and starts. I tend to go days and even weeks without reading and then go on a reading binge. So this habit is more about making reading a regular part of each day. I am still likely to binge read when approaching a deadline, but I think I can curtail the drastic on and off again nature of my reading. I have accumulated a number of books that I am very interested in reading, and now this habit will see me systematically make my way through them.
3. Write a minimum of 500 words daily. This is actually transforming an old habit into a new format. Previously I cultivated a habit of writing a minimum of 20 minutes a day. This fit nicely into my morning routine and gave me a sense of accomplishment before I even started working. Now I have some new goals on the horizon to develop at least one of the book ideas which will require a more consistent output. So I shifted from a time-based approach to a word-count approach. I am aiming to send one book proposal by March 31^st.

SMARTer Habits

Breaking down these habits, they have several things in common. First, there is an embedded inspiring goal, such as a deep relationship with God or a book proposal. Many New Year’s resolutions are inspiring goals, but they often lack specific routines that leverage daily effort to accomplish those goals. This leads to the second things these habits have in common which is a specific daily action. Here I draw from the SMART goals framework to spell out habits that are Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic and Time-related. Now, there are some different ways the acronym SMART has been constructed, but I find this one the most helpful for me. Let’s break this down a little bit more. By specific, we mean that details get spelled out. I add in another “S” by keeping the details simple as well. I should be able to recall in a few short phrases what the plan is. By measurable, we mean that it should have some form of numerical measurement that demonstrates that you have actually done or not done something.

By ambitious, we mean that the goal ought to be a bit challenging and aim at something that you feel is important to you. This draws upon what we learn from the Zone of Proximal Development. We grow when we challenge ourselves a little bit. If our goal is too easy, we become bored with it and hinder our own growth. By realistic we mean that the goal can actually be achieved. A goal that is too challenging, in other words, also hinders growth. If we’ve set ourselves an impossible task, then we shut down any hope of accomplishing it.

Finally, by time-related, we can mean an amount of time is allocated each day or we set some sort of deadline by which the goal is accomplished. For two of my habits, I have set a daily amount of time devoted to the habit. For the last one, I have set a deadline for shipping a book proposal. Using the SMART framework can help quickly map out a habit that actually works for you.

In my previous work on habits, I spelled out ways we can incorporate Charlotte Mason’s method of habit training for the children we are working with. I think if we are taking habit training seriously as a tool to enable our students to enjoy freedom and masterful living, it behooves us to likewise habit train ourselves. Taking inspiration from our educational values, we can imagine ourselves as carrying out our calling, appropriately handling stress, taking care of ourselves in healthy ways, and being well connected with God and our family and friends. So as you go into this next year, consider how you can aim at your highest values and then develop habits that will give you the best opportunity of achieving that inspiring vision.

Take a deeper dive into Charlotte Mason’s practice of Habit Training with our on-demand webinar. Learn practical tips to guide students towards their best, most mature selves with this training video.

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Of course, not all resolutions are created equal. There’s a resolution to get in shape by working out more, and then there are The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards, full of profound thought and purposeful Christian spirituality. Are written goals and resolutions classical? Should personal goal setting be a deliberate feature in our educational programs? I believe the answer to both questions is yes. There is a rich classical tradition of personal goal setting, especially as it relates to virtue and habit development. Helping our students cast a positive vision for their own personal growth and detail the steps they can take toward their own development is a powerful and undervalued lever in the classical, Christian educator’s hands.

Classical Goal Setting

To demonstrate that resolutions and goal setting are classical, we need look no further than the Stoic philosophers. Their handbooks and meditations are full of the stuff of resolutions. Classical goal setting might be said to differ from many modern New Year’s resolutions in its overarching focus on character as the outcome rather than money, beauty or career. Living a good life, developing areté or virtue, and serving God and neighbor better should be the aim of a classical and Christian set of resolutions. This is in contrast to goals centered merely on increased discipline to promote personal fulfillment. 

At the same time, even goals with a narrow focus tend to work, or at least substantially increase the likelihood that a person will hit their goal. The reason why is articulated well by Aristotle. It is as simple and profound as saying that those who have a clear target are much more likely to hit it:

If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right? If so, we must try in outline at least, to determine what it is, and of which of the sciences or capacities it is the object.

Aristotle, Ethics and Poetics (Veritas Press: 2019), 10 

Aristotle believes the chief good is eudaimonia, happiness or, we might say, personal fulfillment. We have already had occasion to modify Aristotle’s endorsement of happiness to suit the transcendent frame of a Christian worldview in the opening foray into a series on Aristotle’s intellectual virtues (see “Aristotle’s Virtue Theory and a Christian Purpose of Education”). We can merely note for our purposes here that Aristotle’s metaphor of archers having a goal or target is incredibly helpful. 

In life we all make choices. In fact, we all deliberate about what is good for ourselves. Having in mind the ultimate goal that we are aiming at will necessarily clarify the mechanics involved in taking a successful shot. Of course, here Aristotle is showing how our life is not an infinite regression of goods that are merely useful for some other good. Classical goal setting does not settle for the immediate desired end but pushes its participants to ask why. Why do you want to go to the gym? Why do you want to be more physically fit? Why do you want to have more energy and vibrancy as well as look better? For Aristotle, these questions lead up and out to his big picture vision of eudaimonia and the good life. 

This questioning and clarification process helps sort our immediate wants from bigger goals and our future vision. It also makes classical goal setting more effective, because in the process we are also sorting out our various priorities and connecting our short term goals and objectives to our ultimate telos and vision of human flourishing. The clarity achieved will then increase motivation to stick to a new habit or practice in spite of obstacles. If our goals are connected to a lesser vision, which, say, identifies human pleasure as the end-all-be-all, the misguided vision of happiness that Aristotle says most human beings operate with, then we will be easily led astray from our goal of regular exercise when the pain increases and the Siren song of some other pleasure is calling our name (read Educating for Self-Control, Part 1: A Lost Christian Virtue).

Modern Research on Goal Setting

Similarly modern research has shown that there are better and worse ways to set goals. Brian Johnson explains the importance of imagining both a positive future vision and the presence of obstacles to making that vision a reality. He draws from the research of Rick Snyder in his book The Psychology of Hope to detail the need for not only goals, but a sense of agency and multiple pathways (i.e. plans B, C, D, etc.) to get there (Areté: Activate Your Heroic Potential, Heroic Blackstone: 2023; 88-89). Genuine hope distinguishes itself from mere wish by involving both a sense that I can personally contribute in some way toward a better future and the realism that struggle, failure and the need to try-try-again will be part of that process.

Johnson also draws from the work of Gabriele Oettingen to much the same effect (90-91). In her book Rethinking Positive Thinking Oettingen uses the acronym WOOP to delineate the most effective set of steps to turn resolutions into reality: Wish, Outcome, Obstacles, Plan. Each step should be written down and articulated. A wish for the future must be connected to the overall purpose or vision of the good life (think Aristotle’s eudaimonia). Obstacles must be anticipated with some plans or “implementation intentions” for how to deal with them. This process helps us stick to the vision when the rubber of good intentions meets the road of reality. 

Jordan Peterson, the now famous Canadian Psychologist and author of 12 Rules for Life, has independently worked out something similar in the form of his Future Authoring program:

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, decided to ask his students to sit down and write about their ideal future. They were asked to specifically describe the type of person they wanted to be, the skills they wanted to attain, and the relationships they wanted to have, among other things. (see Self Authoring – Future Authoring)

Notice that writing out the “ideal future” constitutes the major element in this process. From public lectures we know that Peterson’s Future Authoring program also involves imagining a negative picture as well of what the hellish version of the self would be if it went down a dark path instead. 

(Read Patrick’s series on Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: Rules for Schools?, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.)

In addition, like the work of Snyder and Oettingen, Peterson’s process also involves getting down into the nitty gritty of daily habits and potential obstacles. It also has the support of research studies to demonstrate its effectiveness (see Self Authoring – Research). For instance, a single intensive goal setting session significantly improved the GPA of undergraduate students who were struggling academically within a semester (see Hirsh and Peterson, “Setting, Elaborating, and Reflecting on Personal Goals Improves Academic Performance,” 260). The research is clear, despite the low success rate of New Year’s resolutions. Goal setting in a detailed way with written goals and articulated obstacles has been shown to be incredibly effective. 

Applying Goal Setting to Education

The study cited above makes the application of goal setting to education obvious in one sense. It can be used powerfully as an intervention for students who are struggling academically. This should not be overlooked in our K-12 classical Christian schools and homeschools. Too often we resort to lecturing a student about what they should do or not do in order to improve their academic performance. Part of why this does not work is because it doesn’t appropriately harness a student’s autonomy or will, in Charlotte Mason’s terms. 

Sometimes we are tempted to think of habit training as something we do to a student, rather than something we do with a student. But Charlotte Mason is clear that a student must own his or her own character development, otherwise it is a mere veneer: 

We who teach should make it clear to ourselves that our aim in education is less conduct than character; conduct may be arrived at, as we have seen, by indirect routes, but it is of value to the world only as it has its source in character…. What we do with the will we describe as voluntary. What we do without the conscious action of will is involuntary. The will has only one mode of action, its function is to ‘choose,’ and with every choice we make we grow in force of character. (vol. 6, p. 129)

A goal setting process allows an individual student to make their own assessment of their future vision, their obstacles, and the pathways forward. The student then choses to follow the positive goals that they set for themselves. The voluntary and personal nature of this process make it ideal for developing character. 

Now we must add in to this process the classical goal setting features we discussed before. We should direct them in their resolutions not just toward improving academic performance or an exercising habit but their ultimate purpose from a Christian perspective and how their immediate goals relate not only to their personal fulfillment but also to the glory of God and their salvation in Christ. Christian classical goal setting should not only WOOP (Wish-Outcome-Obstacles-Plan), it should do it Jonathan Edwards style. 

What does this look like in our education settings? The first and most obvious note is that a classical goal setting exercise should most likely not be an assignment with a grade. The tang of artificiality and forced reflection might undercut the autonomy and will of the student. It is important to have times and seasons set apart perhaps at the start of the year and the beginning of a new quarter or semester, or even a unit in a course, where students are given the opportunity to reflect in writing on their own learning and progress, as well as their ultimate goals and personal growth. I have conducted a writing session similar to the future authoring prompts for students during an Upper School student orientation time. Students were told that what they wrote would not be collected or graded and were encouraged to reflect seriously and purposefully on their own future vision of themselves and their goals for the year. 

In some classes and courses, specific virtues and vices can be used as prompts or options to articulate their own assessment of themselves. The classical and Christian content of history, literature and biblical texts can be helpfully applied in a meditation journal, where students regularly react personally to questions that ask them to apply the examples and thoughts of these subjects to themselves. Most of all, we can conclude that the development of character and specifically the intellectual virtue of prudence or practical wisdom hinge on these sorts of practices. Prudence involves a person deliberating about the real decisions they are making on a daily basis in light of a future vision of flourishing. Goal setting and resolutions are necessary part of that process. In order to turn out men and women of prudence we should carve out periodic class time for intentional reflection regarding personal development.

A series entitled “Counsels of the Wise” explores and applies the intellectual virtue of prudence or practical wisdom (Greek: phronesis):

1. Counsels of the Wise, Part 1: Foundations of Christian Prudence
2. Counsels of the Wise, Part 2: Why Reviving Moral Philosophy Is Not Enough
3. Counsels of the Wise, Part 3: The Practical Nature of Prudence
4. Counsels of the Wise, Part 4: Preliminary Instruction in Prudence
5. Counsels of the Wise, Part 5: Principles and Practice, Examples and Discipline
6. Counsels of the Wise, Part 6: A Pedagogy of Prudence
7. Counsels of the Wise, Part 7: Leadership, Liberal Arts, and Prudence
8. Counsels of the Wise, Part 8: Aiming at the Intermediate or Aristotle’s Moral Virtues

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