The power of habit

Day 262 / 365

I finished reading the book “The Power of Habit” today, and out of all the habit and self-discipline books that I have read, I found this one the most helpful. The book explains the concept of habit loops, and how we can work smart and replace our bad habits with good ones

The habit loop

Most of the actions we do daily are driven by our habits. You don’t think about which shoe to wear first, or how to tie your laces in the morning. It’s a habit now, and you can do it absentmindedly.

Each habit can be broken down into 3 steps, cue, routine and reward. This is known as the habit loop. The cue triggers the routine, and the reward justifies it.

For example, suppose you have a habit of going to the office cafeteria and eating a cookie or a chocolate every once in a while. Maybe it happens when you are bored, or when you are hungry for a snack. That would be the cue.

The act of going to the cafeteria and eating the cookie would be the routine. and the satisfaction you get hence would be the reward.

Breaking a habit

Most of us will try to fix bad habits like this by sheer will power. While that might work for a few days, it is not sustainable. Your will power on a given day is limited, and although you can increase it by practice, it is a slow and painful process. If you just try to force yourself to fix a habit, you will find that it affects other aspects of your day. You will feel more tired, and your performance at work might decrease.

So what’s the alternative then? You need to identify the habit loop and tweak it. All this will need a little experimentation.

First, find out what’s the cue for your habit. Does it occur at a specific time, or when you re feeling a specific emotion like sadness, or boredom.

The next part which is the routine is pretty straightforward. It’s the habit that you are trying to fix. You will need to replace this with another routine.

The last part is identifying the reward. What is it that gives you satisfaction after eating the cookie? is it the sugar, or just getting a break from work and chatting with friends.

Once you have identified these three things, you need to figure out a routine that will give you the same reward but in a good way. For example, if you eat cookies because you are craving sugar, you can replace that with eating fruits. Within a few weeks, the new routine will become a habit.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — Action cures fear