1 Corinthians 15:58 "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."

Steadfast - not a trait we often talk about. "Resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering." A word we would more often use today for similar meaning is constant, or consistency.

This post is going to talk about building good habits, by starting small and staying consistent.

To build a good habit more quickly, do it consistently, and expect of yourself a level you can consistently accomplish.

Let's take push-ups for example, from a starting point where you are a couch-potato. You might be able to get through 30 push-ups in one day broken up into a ton of sets. If you put a lot of will-power on the line, and you'd be sore the next day, so you couldn't do it again, or it would be much harder to do it again.

But - you could do five push-ups, and it wouldn't take too much effort. So you start there, and you do that 6 days a week. Every week for a long period of time. Maybe a month, maybe two months. You should feel it getting easier slowly, physically of course, but also more importantly mentally. Now you have a small habit built, and your foot is firmly placed in the door.

Now, take that habit and consistently improve upon it, add a push up to it everyday until you hit the point where you can't add another one daily anymore. Then repeat at that level from that point on (you can also taper the improvement slowly to continue building this habit, e.g. one extra push-up every two days). Now you've built a consistent habit, and made it stronger.

Over time, this habit will get easier, until it takes little or no will-power at all, and you are at a new normal.

Then, add another good habit. Let's say reading your Bible. You know that if you read a few chapters at once you will get tired while reading, and can't pay attention anymore.

Once again, start small, let's say 5 verses a day. It will take you less than a minute. And you once again do that everyday for a long period of time, until it takes no effort at all. Then add more verses daily, one at a time.

Eventually you will get to a point where you can't add another verse everyday without losing focus, and you leave your daily reading at that level from that point forward.

From this point, you can keep adding more habits, or attempt to transform these good-habits into higher-level good-habits.

For instance, with the push-ups example, you could turn that habit into going to the gym everyday, and you would already have your foot in the door to start building a higher level habit. You are already used to exercising, and that's the platform that helps make this easier.

The key here is instead of jumping head-long into a difficult good-habit that you would be inconsistent with (or already have been inconsistent with in the past) - you train your mental muscles before you charge in. With something simple that you can easily accomplish everyday, so that you have no excuses.