Dear Souls & Hearts Member,
A year ago, back on August 12, 2024 in my reflection titled Writing your personal vision statement as a Catholic, I emphasized how a personal vision statement is “your expression of the future state of who you seek to become, who you are called to be in the future.”
Vision statements are all about “being” and “becoming.”
The “doing” in the service of that “being” is captured in your personal mission statement, as I discussed in the January 13, 2025, reflection titled Your Personal Mission Statement: Who, What, Where, When, and Why?, “A personal mission statement is your expression of the means you will use in the present to realize your personal vision in the future. It focus on “how” you will work toward your vision, guided by your values.”
So your vision as about “being” and your mission is about the “doing” that flows toward helping you realize that state of being.
Today, I want to discuss goals, habits, and virtues in the context of the doing inherent in mission, to help us write our personal mission statements, separating the doing from the being.
Goals
According to Dictionary.com, a goal is “the result or achievement toward which effort is directed; an aim or an end.” This definition is important, as it highlights that a goal is an achievement, something that brings efforts to a successful end.
Most of us are familiar with goals and goalsetting. A to-do list for the tasks of the day is essentially a list of goals. Numerous books have been written on the topic of setting and achieving goals. Goals define the “doing” of so many Catholics’ lives, and they are focused on the end achievement.
Goals can be little or quite grand. Here are some examples of various goals:
- Finishing reading the novel before I have to return it to the library at the end of the month
- Cooking a new Thai dish that I’ve not tried before
- Giving up smoking and drinking during Lent
- Saving enough to buy a used Honda Accord outright, with no auto loan
- Being promoted at work before the end of the year
- Getting married
- Retiring at age 55
Habits
Habits go beyond goals. James Clear, in his fascinating book Atomic Habits, defines a habit as “a routine or practice performed regularly; an automatic response to a specific situation.”
John Hardon’s Catholic Dictionary defines a habit as:
“A quality that is difficult to change and that disposes a person either well or badly, either in oneself or in relations with others…. Habits of acting are acquired by constant repetition, and lost by disuse or contrary acts. Good moral habits are virtues; evil ones are vices.”
And most people have a general sense of a habit, that a habit consists of acting in accord with what is ingrained in us, like second nature. Interestingly, Fr. Hardon describes how habits can dispose one well or badly within oneself, in one’s own inner world, which is consistent with parts and systems thinking and inner multiplicity.
Because habits are ingrained and a consistent quality within us, they represent a form of being. When we act in accord with a habit, our “doing” is flowing from our natural “being,” as I discussed in the last reflection from July 28, 2025 titled Doing Flowing from “Being With,” Grounded in Identity.
Examples of various kinds of habits include
- Playing three games of solitaire each night before bed to “unwind.”
- Walking briskly for two miles each day.
- Drinking three beers at a bar on the way home from work each night
- Always pausing before replying to another person to be more thoughtful and attuned in one’s response
- Making the sign of the cross for the souls of the departed when passing a cemetery
- Seeking to have the “last word” in any argument with another person
- Instantly praying for another person when I notice I am inwardly critical of that person
Virtues
Fr. Hardon’s definition of habit (see above) defines good moral habits as virtues. Thus, a virtue is a particular kind of habit. He defines a virtue as “A good habit that enables a person to act according to right reason enlightened by faith. Also called an operative good habit, it makes its possessor a good person and his or her actions also good.”
In agreement with Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that “Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man’s own will.” Plato described the preciousness of virtue in saying “All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.”
In the September 11, 2024 reflection titled Understanding Values More Deeply, I discussed the difference between a virtue and a value. For the purposes of this reflection, it is important to remember that a person can value all kinds of things that are not morally virtuous.
Focusing on habits instead of goals
James Clear in his book Atomic Habits writes that “Prevailing wisdom claims that the best way to achieve what we want in life—getting into better shape, building a successful business, relaxing more and worrying less, spending more time with friends and family—is to set specific, actionable goals.” [p. 23] Among other models, Clear is referring to SMART goals, goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
“Nope,” says James Clear. He argues that we should not focus on goals, but rather on processes, on habits. Why? Because the achieving of a goal provides only a momentary change. He writes that “What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results. When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. In order to improve for good, you need to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.” [p. 25]. For years, I have summarized this view by saying “Good process leads to good outcomes, but we don’t get to pick the outcomes.”
Clear brings in systems thinking, and seeks to organize systems around good habits. He sums up his position here:
“The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.” [p. 27]
But it’s more than the commitment to the process that determines your progress; it’s also the vision that you are seeking, the “becoming” of your person. So we need both: we need the direction of a clear vision, our “shining city on the hill” and we need the systems and habits built into our mission, the means by which we will draw ever nearer to our vision.
Bringing in identity
In my reflections titled The Key to Personal Statements: Getting God’s Identity Right First and Self Images and Identity from March of 2025, I emphasized the importance of getting identity questions right. For a Catholic, the direction needed for a good personal vision statement derives from a solid understanding of the identities of God, myself, and my neighbor. And in the following several reflections (see here for the archive), I walked through the different identities each Catholic has.
James Clear understands this. He writes:
“True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. Anyone can convince themselves to visit the gym or eat healthy once or twice, but if you don’t shift the belief behind the behavior, then it is hard to stick with long-term changes. Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.
- The goal is not to read a book; the goal is to become a reader.
- The goal is not to run a marathon; the goal is to become a runner.
- The goal is not to learn an instrument; the goal is to become a musician.” [p. 34]
Clear advises us to “…build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become.” [p. 31]
“Who we wish to become” is our vision for ourselves, articulated in our personal vision statement of “being”. The habits we seek to develop (which are virtues) are the means expressed in our personal mission statement, which defines the “doing” in the service of our vision of “being.” And both of these are grounded in our God-given identities.
Habits flowing from identity
One final point that Clear makes is that “…your habits are how you embody your identity. When you make your bed each day, you embody the identity of an organized person. When you write each day, you embody the identity of a creative person. When you train each day, you embody the identity of an athletic person.” [p. 39].
I would nuance this passage to say that our habits embody our self-image, not our identity. Your identity, as I make clear in the March 24, 2025 reflection titled Self Images and Identity is given to us by God. Your self-image, on the other hand, is “who you feel yourself to be in a particular moment. Self-images are much more emotionally driven, much more intuitive, subjective, and they vary much more from moment to moment than your self-concept.” And these self-images influence your behaviors. The more consistent a self-image is, the more impact it has on habit formation.
Now, after having worked through personal vision and values statements, and getting some clarity on the “doing” of a mission statement, I feel I am ready to write mine, after all this preparation. Look for that in the next reflection, coming out on August 25, 2025.
Calling all formators! Final weeks to join fall FEGs
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Check out the Resilient Catholics Community
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Warm regards in Christ and His Mother,
Dr. Peter