Confession - I have a habit, some call it a bad habit. I love ice-cream! For years, I would have a bowl every night. I am also lactose intolerant. So people could not tolerant me when I hung with my good friend, chocolate vanilla swirl. It was a hard truth to swallow but ice-cream is my enemy. It was a bitter sweet breakup but I had to face reality. Its creamy goodness was not good for me. Ice cream every night was a bad habit. The point of my confession is to say, Habits can be the best of friends or the worst of enemies.
Are your study habits, are they your friends or your enemies? If your answer is, 'well we are kind of "frenemies".' I would encourage you to consider the fruit of your Cerebral habits. It is in facing the consequences of our habits that we see the good from the bad. Hopefully with God's help and by this wider vision we gain the insight to cultivate new habits.
Build Good Habits
Success in most activities is to develop effective skills. An integral part of developing effective skills is practice. Practice builds skills. Athletes develop athletic skills; musicians develop musical skills; managers develop managing skills; learners need to develop learning skills. Developing skills means building good habits. Bible study is no different. Skillful study is successful study. Here are 5 habits that encourage effective study.
1. Develop the Habit of Mental Self-management.
One good habit we should develop is mental self-management. It is the art of planning, monitoring and evaluating the learning process. Here are some areas for self-management.
A. Identify your best learning styles - visual, verbal, kinesthetic, deductive or inductive. How do you learn best?
B. Monitor and improve your learning skills – reading, writing, listening, time-management, note-taking, problem-solving.
2. Develop the Habit of Wonder
Wonder is the key to enjoying learning and persevering in accomplishing goals. Without this habit of thinking knowledge will remain fact without life. The Spirit plays a critical role in this habit being form in us.
3. Develop the Habit of Hierarchical Thinking.
Hierarchical Thinking opens us to properly setting priorities and practically it helps in v time management. We use it for summarizing ideas and for organizing information. This is my weekest habit for years i struggled with organization becasue my creative thinking would sees the web-like connections between things making hierarchical difficult. If you struggle like i did, take heart, on any of these habits with time and effort you can develope your skill.
4. Develop the Habit of Creative (imaginative) and Critical (logical –analytical) Thinking.
Such thinking is for making decisions and solving problems. Such thinking styles help in worldview formation and the synthesizing and creating of new associations - the foundation of thinking theologically and ethically.
5. Develop the Habit of Asking Questions.
This habit is most directly important in the study of a text. Asking Questions helps in identifying main ideas and supporting evidence. It also is important in generating interest and motivation. This habit will also help in focusing concentration and studies have shown it helps in improving memory.
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