Pursue Sanctified Goals

In 2009, University of Miami researchers Michael McCullough and Brian Willoughby did something weird. Well, at least it seemed weird to their fellow academics. They published a paper on the link between religion and self-control. “For a long time it wasn’t cool for social scientists to study religion,” McCullough explained. But when they started looking, they found “some researchers were quietly chugging along for decades.”[1] McCullough and Willoughby examined these studies, and found “remarkably consistent findings that religiosity correlates with higher self-control.”[2]

The studies went back nearly a hundred years. One from the 1920s found that children who went to Sunday school scored higher on tests measuring their self-discipline. McCullough and Willoughby also analyzed a dozen other studies showing that religious beliefs and practices boosted self-discipline, and not just for Sunday school kids. The positive impact cut across all age groups and socioeconomic strata, from “adolescents, university students, community-dwelling adults, and convicted drug offenders.”[3]

So how did religion increase self-control?

A Spiritual Lens

Some of the explanations were hardly surprising. McCullough and Willoughby cited the influence of religious practices and rituals. Anyone who has sat through a long sermon on a hard pew understands the character-building value of such experiences. Then there was the benefit of having behavioral guidelines and accountability. But there was something more: what researchers call “sanctified goals,” the tendency of believers to give spiritual significance to their endeavors. According to McCullough and Willoughby, this dynamic was powerful. “Goal sanctification of this nature appears to energize goal striving and, possibly, influence successful goal attainment.”[4]

One self-identified “heathen,” writing in The New York Times, was so impressed with McCullough’s and Willoughby’s findings he wondered, “If I’m serious about keeping my New Year’s resolutions. . . . should the to-do list include, ‘Start going to church’?” But McCullough burst his bubble, explaining to him that only true believers reap the benefits. “Religious people are self-controlled . . . because they’ve absorbed the ideals of their religion into their own system of values, and have thereby given their personal goals an aura of sacredness,” McCullough told him. “The belief that God has preferences for how you behave and the goals you set for yourself has to be the granddaddy of all psychological devices for encouraging people to follow through with their goals.”

It turns out that this “granddaddy of all psychological devices” exerts influence on just about every area of life. Studies show that couples who view their marriages as “manifestations of God” have better relationships and do better at resolving conflict. People who view their bodies as a “gift[s] from God” have healthier lifestyles. Workers who see their careers as a calling work harder and perform better at their jobs. It turns out that seeing your life through a spiritual lens has massive practical benefits.

It turns out that seeing your life through a spiritual lens has massive practical benefits.

To get a better understanding of this phenomenon, I talked to Sarah Schnitker, a professor of psychology at Baylor University who studies virtue and character development. Schnitker isn’t surprised that religion boosts self-control. Though she’s a psychologist, she’s quick to point out that character building has religious roots. “Virtue formation historically wasn’t the domain of psychology, because we didn’t have psychology until modern times,” she told me. “It was done in the context of the church. And it had an overarching purpose. It was about honoring God, benefiting community.”

Schnitker speculates that many attempts at developing character suffer by neglecting this heritage. “Secular efforts to build self-control have been ineffective because they don’t have the spiritual telos [purpose],” she said. “When people are pursuing sanctified goals,” she concluded, “they pursue them differently.”

But why exactly do people pursue sanctified goals more effectively?

Identity and Purpose

Schnitker pointed out one reason that seems pretty obvious, what I call the “God-is-always-watching” factor. “Beliefs about God affect the way people perform on self-control tests,” Schnitker said. “If you believe in an omniscient, watchful God, you perform much better on temptation-resistance tests.”

However, the power of sanctified goals isn’t all due to the watchful eye in the sky. “Sanctification of even mundane goals changes the way people engage in goal pursuit,” Schnitker explained. “So take a goal, say being a good parent. It’s not necessarily a spiritual goal, but if you imbue that goal with sacred meaning, and say that God cares about this calling, you pursue goals related to that role with more effort.” That’s a benefit you don’t get if you are motivated by more self-focused concerns. “We find that when you pursue happiness for your own sake, it often doesn’t end well,” Schnitker said. “You need another reason for why you’re developing character.”

Sanctified goals are actually easier to pursue. I talked to Elliot Berkman, a University of Oregon psychologist who specializes in the study of goals and motivation. “There’s a deep connection between identity and motivation,” he said. “A behavior that holds greater subjective value for a person will be relatively easy for them to complete versus tasks of lesser significance. These identity-linked goals are more likely to be successful.”

Not only is training our imagination to focus on our ultimate purpose thoroughly biblical, it will also strengthen our willpower and fortify our resolve.

In other words, we have an easier time pursuing goals when we believe they have an ultimate purpose, one that is closely aligned with our identity. That makes sense to me. I’ve known a lot of people who see their job as a calling, something with significance beyond earning a paycheck. They’re the same people who report that their work doesn’t feel like work. Sure, it can still be difficult. But because they believe it’s important, it doesn’t feel  like a grind—and that belief in what they’re doing keeps them motivated and focused.

The Christian Perspective

I was intrigued by the idea of sanctified goals. I was convinced that seeing goals through a spiritual lens was thoroughly biblical. As Christians, all of our pursuits should ultimately be for God’s glory—and no activity is too small or insignificant. As we’re commanded in Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” Furthermore, as the studies show, there are enormous practical benefits to having sanctified goals.

All too often I miss out on those benefits. I fail to consider what I’m doing through a spiritual lens. It’s not that I pursue bad goals; I just have a tendency to leave God out of it. I go to church on Sunday, maybe even attend a prayer meeting or Bible study during the week—and then go back to living my “regular” life. Rarely do I pause to reflect on how everything I do—from attending meetings to returning emails to teaching my daughter how to ride a bike—connects to spiritual reality.

It’s a little frightening to consider how good I am at compartmentalizing life into sacred and secular categories. I’m starting to realize this is a dangerous dichotomy. If I’m not careful, I can live as a functional atheist, blind to the supernatural light illuminating the world. I need to train my imagination to see the eternal dimensions of my everyday life.

Not only is training our imagination to focus on our ultimate purpose thoroughly biblical, it will also strengthen our willpower and fortify our resolve. It will give us the passion we need to press on when things get tough. It will equip us to resist the temptations that threaten to distract and derail us along the way.

[1] John Tierney, “For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It,” The New York Times, December 29, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/science/30tier.html.

[2] Michael E. McCullough, quoted in ibid.

[3] Michael E. McCullough and Brian L. B. Willoughby, “Religion, Self-Regulation, and Self-Control: Associations, Explanations, and Implications,” Psychological Bulletin 135, no. 1 (2009): 72.

[4] Ibid., 78.