Charles Duhigg: The Power of Habit

Simple 3-Step loop:

First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future.

 

Habits are formed out of the laziness of our brain. 

When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard, or diverts its focus to other tasks. So unless you deliberately fight a habit--unless you find new routines--the pattern will unfold automatically. 

Example:

"Consider fast food for instance. It makes sense-when the kids are starving and you're driving home after a long day-to stop, just this once, at Mcdonald's or Burger King. The meals are inexpensive. It tastes so good. After all, one doss of processed meat, salty fries, and sugary soda poses a relatively small health risk, right? It's not like you do it all the time. 

But habits emerge without our permission. Studies indicate that families don't intend to eat fast food on a regular basis. What happens is that a once a month pattern slowly becomes once a week, then twice a week-as the cues and rewards create a habit-until the kids are consuming an unhealthy amount of hamburgers and fries.

Every Mcdonald's, for instance, looks the same-the company deliberately tries to standardize their stores architecture and what employees say to customers, so that everything is a consistent cue to trigger eating routines. 

The Craving Brain: How to create new habits

Craving makes cues and rewards work. Craving powers the habit loop. 

First, find a simple and obvious cue

Second, clearly define the rewards  

Third, start an insatiable craving

The Golden Rule of habit change - why transformation occurs

To change a habit, you must keep the old cue, insert a new routine, and keep the old reward. You can't extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it. 

Belief is the ingredient that makes a reworked habit loop into a permanent behavior. Without belief, without faith, the loop falls apart in times of high stress. It can be belief in the system, belief in a higher power, or even belief in a community that has done it before. 

For habits to change, you must believe the change is feasible. 

Individuals have habits. Groups have routines. Routines are the organizational analogues of habits. 

The best agencies understood the importance of routines. The worst agencies were headed by people who never thought about it, and then wondered why no one followed their orders. 

Keystone habits are habits that influence other areas of life. 

Ex. Alcoa made company safety a habit and subsequently improved efficiency and product quality.  

Ex. Making exercise a habit in your life makes you more likely to eat better and less likely to smoke. Exercise is a positive habit that spills over into other areas if life to make other positive habits. 

Ex. Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger skills at sticking with a budget. 

These are known as 'small wins'. Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage. Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win. Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach. 

Willpower is the number one indicator of success. Willpower isn't just a skill. Its a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there's less power left over for other things. 

Willpower becomes a habit by choosing a certain behavior ahead of time, then following that routine when an inflection point arrives. Planning for adversity makes willpower habitual and in more abundance. 

When people are asked to do something that takes self control, if they think they are doing it for personal reasons-if they feel like it's a choice or something they enjoy because it hells someone else-it's much less taxing. If they feel like they have no autonomy, if they're just following orders, their willpower muscles get tired much faster. 

When people are treated like cogs, not humans, it takes a lot more willpower to complete the tasks asked if them. 

Giving employees a feeling they are in control can radically increase how much energy and focus they bring to their jobs. 

Habit Change (Easy/Simple)

Step 1: Identify the routine

What exactly are you doing to complete the habit loop?

Step 2: Experiment with rewards

Find out what drives the habit loop and possible replacements. If your habit is to eat a cookie, try eating an apple (hunger reward) or socializing (social reward/physical reward). 

Step 3: isolate the cue

Habitual Cues:

Location

Time

Emotional State

Other people

Immediately preceding action

Once you've found the cue make a plan, get the conscious mind involved again. Begin making choices again. 

Once you've diagnosed the cue, the routine and the reward, you've gained power over your habit.