I'm just not doing well in school. My grades are not good. I'm not getting my homework done and feel crummy about myself.

I'm frustrated that I can't seem to make good choices. When I'm with my friends, I just give in to what they want to do.

I always hear about how I should study and read the Bible... but I just can't get into it! It's frustrating, because I know it contains a lot of good stuff—but I just don't have the time and desire to read it...

What these problems have in common is that they are all caused by one thing—poor choices. Poor choices, when made often enough, become bad habits.

And these poor choices and habits are showing up all over. According to a just-released study based on a 2004 national survey of 24,763 high school students, nearly two thirds (62 percent) cheated on exams and more than one in four (27 percent) stole from a store within the past 12 months. And 40 percent admit they "sometimes lie to save money." These are bad choices—habits—that happen all too easily.

Ironically, many of these youth had a better opinion of themselves than their behavior would indicate. Despite these admissions, the majority of students reported high self-appraisals of their character (74 percent rated their own ethics higher than those of their peers) and stated their convictions that honesty, ethics and good character are very important. Almost all, 98 percent, said it is important to be a person of good character (Josephson Institute of Ethics survey, 2004: The Ethics of American Youth).

So while the majority of young people believe having "good character" is important, indicators show that their choices and their habits don't reflect the practices that produce good character.

What are habits?

Habits are the things we automatically do without thinking—whether good or bad. People brush their teeth in the morning out of habit. People plug in their CD player or iPod when taking a jog or a walk out of habit. People eat a snack before going to bed at night out of habit—the ultimate example of "been there, done that" in life. Habits just happen automatically!

The older we get, the harder it is to change a habit. When a person has been kind and courteous for years, it is easy to be kind and courteous. When a person has practiced lying and deception for years, it is almost impossible for him or her to be frank, truthful and straightforward.

We need habits

Yet we need habits. They help us to function in life. If we did not learn from doing something several times—if it were as hard the 200th time as it was the first time—life would be very different for us all! Think about it: We would still struggle at age 19 with buttoning a shirt like we did when we were 4 or 5 years old. As an adult we would continue to wrestle with the shoestrings in tying our shoes just as we did as a young child. In other words, no progress would be made in our human development.

So without habits—without being able to automate frequently repeated actions—we could never move beyond the most simple of tasks. We would barely be able to walk, let alone perform amazing feats of multitasking, such as walking and chewing gum at the same time. Without habits, our conscious mind would be wholly engaged each time we performed those simple tasks. Yet when that task becomes habit, it is simply performed without thinking. Without habits, the learning process would "start from scratch" each time we did something!

Habits and character

But how do habits affect the kind of person you are? Many of you have heard of the best-selling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. In his book Covey makes the case that effective and successful people—people of purpose—have certain ways of doing things, certain habits in common. Rather than the more common habits such as listening to music or reading the cartoon page every morning, Covey is referring to routines of behavior and morality. The very title of the book shows the connection between our habits and our effectiveness in life.

What, then, about moral habits? Just as brushing your teeth every morning became a habit, so moral habits are learned by practice. No practice, no habit.

Imagine not being in the habit of being honest. What if every time you spoke you had to consciously decide whether to tell the truth or not? This would be bad enough, but in real life if you don't develop the habit of telling the truth, you likely will develop the opposite habit of lying. Few people are good at this, and those few who are, are truly scary.

So we see that only through habit—only by automatizing (the term behavioral psychologists use) these moral decisions—can we actually go about living our lives. Having no habits—making all moral decisions separately, consciously and deliberately each time we are faced with a choice—would drive a person crazy! Our minds do not work that way. So it is through these moral decisions that eventually become habit that our character is developed.

Personal character is the word that expresses what we are and who we are. Our character is more specifically defined by the qualities we have that show our personal values and morality. And, as we have seen, our understanding about right and wrong—our conscience—is molded by the many decisions we make hour after hour and day after day. For many, this realization is scary! Many of us understand we have some bad habits that need to be broken.

Breaking bad habits

Old habits die hard. Bad habits die harder. As human beings, we've been conditioned to respond to the stimulus of a bad habit. In fact, a habit is like taking the path of least resistance. Naturally, we follow our conditioned response.

In some instances, we are slaves to instant gratification and we are rewarded by our habit. It becomes a tough cycle to break.

Many people assume they cannot get free of a bad habit, so they give in and don't even try. This is also an act of character being formed. In this case, poor character is being reinforced by "giving in" to poor choices or bad habits.

However, bad habits can be broken. Good habits can be learned. But we must start by acknowledging the habits we have that are not productive or good and dealing with them. Here are four steps to ridding yourself of bad habits:

1) Ask yourself why this bad habit seems desirable. What's been in it for you? For instance, why does watching TV for four hours every night seem "good"? What does it do for you?

2) Ask yourself why this same bad habit is not desirable.

What price are you paying? What are you losing by continuing the habit? In fact, why do you consider it a "bad habit" in the first place?

3) Make a choice. Now that you've weighed the pros and cons of this particular habit, force yourself to make a conscious choice of what to do. In a sense, you have now removed it from the "habit" realm. You are now making a conscious evaluation of the fruits of this habit rather than the "automatic" response to it you've had for months or years that have made it a habit!

4) Replace the "bad" behavior with another behavior or choice. This should be something that is productive and positive.

In the first century the apostle Paul gave the Church some valuable instruction that is still applicable to us today. Considering what we think about, he wrote: "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things" (Philippians 4:8).

Here we find the biblical principle of filling our minds (and our time) with things that represent goodness and justness. These words of Paul are foundational in considering what we do with our time. They should affect how we make choices—choices that ultimately determine our habits.

Define your future

In a real way, our future—our success or failure in life—is defined by the habits we cultivate. Whether they be good, productive habits of choice or whether they be wasteful or harmful habits of weakness, they will all have their impact. But it is never too late to change bad habits.

Jesus Christ taught that our choices or faithfulness in the small things determines our ability to inherit greater responsibility (Luke 16:10).

Our destiny—the purpose for which God created us—is to become part of His eternal family. That's why Jesus gave us timeless advice about our view of the future and the way we live our lives today. In Matthew 6:33 Christ said to "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

He encourages His disciples, His students, to seek the "righteousness" of God in the way they live their lives. By doing so, we are seeking the Kingdom He came to announce. The decisions we make, however small they may seem, are part of what enables us to seek "His righteousness" and ultimately inherit His Kingdom.

Seeing the link between our habits today and our destiny tomorrow, we should ask ourselves an important question: What kind of habits am I cultivating? VT