The Power Of Habit

The Power Of Habit helps you understand why habits are at the core of everything you do, how you can change them, and what impact that will have on your life, your business and society.

Roughly 40% of what you do happens on autopilot.

Habits are your brain’s way of saving energy, so given you spend around 6 of your 16 waking hours doing things you’re not aware of, it might be worth understanding what happens here.

Duhigg discovered that at the root of all habits, like drinking your coffee every morning, lies a simple 3-part loop.

The cue is what triggers you to do the habit, for example sitting down at your kitchen table to have breakfast every morning at 7 AM.

The routine is the behavior you then automatically engage in, which, for drinking coffee, might be to go over to your coffeemaker, turn it on, and press the “large cup” button.

Lastly, you’ll receive a reward for completing the routine, such as the rich smell of your coffee, it’s hearty taste and getting to watch the steam rise from the cup as it sits on your kitchen table in the sunlight (I really love coffee, can you tell?).

Note: My friend Sam Thomas Davies created an excellent blog post with a beautiful visualization of the loop.

Your brain’s activity only spikes twice during this loop. At the beginning, to figure out which habit to engage in, and at the end, when the link between cue and routine is reinforced (here’s a graphic from the book).

Wait, reinforced?

Aha!

That’s how habits are built and the stronger this link gets, the harder it becomes to change them. But you can still do it.

Naturally, the more often you reinforce a habit, the more embedded in your brain it gets.

In case of the coffee, you might crave it the second you sit down at your kitchen table, and when you can’t have it that day, because the machine broke, you’ll probably get very grumpy and buy one later at work.

The trick to changing a habit then, is to switch the routine, and leave everything else in tact.

Duhigg calls this the golden rule.

If you’re trying to get off caffeine, the tweak is incredibly simple: switch to decaf (like my “friend” Replacing Rick).

You’ll still have the entire experience from A to Z, but instead of pressing a button you’re now pouring hot water over decaf coffee powder, and voilà, you won’t miss caffeine for even a single day.