21 Jan The technique that will allow us to change the habits we do not like (CHARLES DUHIGG) | Part A ‘
The difficult thing about studying the science of habits is that most
people, when they hear about this field of research, want to know the
secret formula for quickly changing any habit. If scientists have
discovered how these patterns work, then it stands to reason that they
must have also found a recipe for rapid change, right?
If only it were that easy.
It’s not that formulas don’t exist. The problem is that there isn’t one
formula for changing habits. There are thousands.
Individuals and habits are all different, and so the specifics of
diagnosing and changing the patterns in our lives differ from person to
person and behavior to behavior. Giving up cigarettes is different from
curbing overeating, which is different from changing how you
communicate with your spouse, which is different from how you
prioritize tasks at work. What’s more, each person’s habits are driven
by different cravings.
As a result, this book doesn’t contain one prescription. Rather, I
hoped to deliver something else: a framework for understanding how
habits work and a guide to experimenting with how they might
change. Some habits yield easily to analysis and influence. Others are
more complex and obstinate, and require prolonged study. And for
others, change is a process that never fully concludes.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t occur. Each chapter in this book
explains a different aspect of why habits exist and how they function.
The framework described in this appendix is an attempt to distill, in a
very basic way, the tactics that researchers have found for diagnosing
and shaping habits within our own lives. This isn’t meant to be
comprehensive. This is merely a practical guide, a place to start. And
paired with deeper lessons from this book’s chapters, it’s a manual for
where to go next.
Change might not be fast and it isn’t always easy. But with time and
effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.
THE FRAMEWORK:
• Identify the routine
• Experiment with rewards
• Isolate the cue
• Have a plan
The MIT researchers in chapter 1 discovered a simple neurological
loop at the core of every habit, a loop that consists of three parts: a
cue, a routine, and a reward.
To understand your own habits, you need to identify the
components of your loops. Once you have diagnosed the habit loop of
a particular behavior, you can look for ways to supplant old vices with
new routines.
As an example, let’s say you have a bad habit, like I did when I
started researching this book, of going to the cafeteria and buying a
chocolate chip cookie every afternoon. Let’s say this habit has caused
you to gain a few pounds. In fact, let’s say this habit has caused you to
gain exactly eight pounds, and that your wife has made a few pointed
comments. You’ve tried to force yourself to stop—you even went so far
as to put a Post-it on your computer that reads no more cookies.
But every afternoon you manage to ignore that note, get up, wander
toward the cafeteria, buy a cookie, and, while chatting with colleagues
around the cash register, eat it. It feels good, and then it feels bad.
Tomorrow, you promise yourself, you’ll muster the willpower to resist.
Tomorrow will be different.
But tomorrow the habit takes hold again.
How do you start diagnosing and then changing this behavior? By
figuring out the habit loop. And the first step is to identify the routine.
In this cookie scenario—as with most habits—the routine is the most obvious aspect: It’s the behavior you want to change. Your routine is
that you get up from your desk in the afternoon, walk to the cafeteria,
buy a chocolate chip cookie, and eat it while chatting with friends. So
that’s what you put into the loop:
Next, some less obvious questions: What’s the cue for this routine?
Is it hunger? Boredom? Low blood sugar? That you need a break
before plunging into another task?
And what’s the reward? The cookie itself? The change of scenery?
The temporary distraction? Socializing with colleagues? Or the burst
of energy that comes from that blast of sugar?
To figure this out, you’ll need to do a little experimentation.
obvious aspect: It’s the behavior you want to change. Your routine is
that you get up from your desk in the afternoon, walk to the cafeteria,
buy a chocolate chip cookie, and eat it while chatting with friends. So
that’s what you put into the loop:
Next, some less obvious questions: What’s the cue for this routine?
Is it hunger? Boredom? Low blood sugar? That you need a break
before plunging into another task?
And what’s the reward? The cookie itself? The change of scenery?
The temporary distraction? Socializing with colleagues? Or the burst
of energy that comes from that blast of sugar?
To figure this out, you’ll need to do a little experimentation.
STEP TWO: EXPERIMENT WITH REWARDS
Rewards are powerful because they satisfy cravings. But we’re often
not conscious of the cravings that drive our behaviors. When the
Febreze marketing team discovered that consumers desired a fresh
scent at the end of a cleaning ritual, for example, they had found a
craving that no one even knew existed. It was hiding in plain sight.
Most cravings are like this: obvious in retrospect, but incredibly hard
to see when we are under their sway.
To figure out which cravings are driving particular habits, it’s useful
to experiment with different rewards. This might take a few days, or a
week, or longer. During that period, you shouldn’t feel any pressure to
make a real change—think of yourself as a scientist in the data
collection stage.
On the first day of your experiment, when you feel the urge to go to
the cafeteria and buy a cookie, adjust your routine so it delivers a
different reward. For instance, instead of walking to the cafeteria, go
outside, walk around the block, and then go back to your desk without
eating anything. The next day, go to the cafeteria and buy a donut, or a
candy bar, and eat it at your desk. The next day, go to the cafeteria,
buy an apple, and eat it while chatting with your friends. Then, try a
cup of coffee. Then, instead of going to the cafeteria, walk over to your
friend’s office and gossip for a few minutes and go back to your desk.
You get the idea. What you choose to do instead of buying a cookie
isn’t important. The point is to test different hypotheses to determine
which craving is driving your routine. Are you craving the cookie itself,
or a break from work? If it’s the cookie, is it because you’re hungry?
(In which case the apple should work just as well.) Or is it because you
want the burst of energy the cookie provides? (And so the coffee
should suffice.) Or are you wandering up to the cafeteria as an excuse
to socialize, and the cookie is just a convenient excuse? (If so, walking
to someone’s desk and gossiping for a few minutes should satisfy the
urge.)
As you test four or five different rewards, you can use an old trick to
look for patterns: After each activity, jot down on a piece of paper the
first three things that come to mind when you get back to your desk.
They can be emotions, random thoughts, reflections on how you’re
feeling, or just the first three words that pop into your head.
Then, set an alarm on your watch or computer for fifteen minutes.
When it goes off, ask yourself: Do you still feel the urge for that
cookie?
The reason why it’s important to write down three things—even if
they are meaningless words—is twofold. First, it forces a momentary
awareness of what you are thinking or feeling. Just as Mandy, the nail
biter in chapter 3, carried around a note card filled with hash marks to
force her into awareness of her habitual urges, so writing three words
forces a moment of attention. What’s more, studies show that writing
down a few words helps in later recalling what you were thinking at
that moment. At the end of the experiment, when you review your
notes, it will be much easier to remember what you were thinking and
feeling at that precise instant, because your scribbled words will
trigger a wave of recollection.
And why the fifteen-minute alarm? Because the point of these tests
is to determine the reward you’re craving. If, fifteen minutes after
eating a donut, you still feel an urge to get up and go to the cafeteria,
then your habit isn’t motivated by a sugar craving. If, after gossiping at
a colleague’s desk, you still want a cookie, then the need for human
contact isn’t what’s driving your behavior.
On the other hand, if fifteen minutes after chatting with a friend,
you find it easy to get back to work, then you’ve identified the reward—
temporary distraction and socialization—that your habit sought to satisfy.
By experimenting with different rewards, you can isolate what you
are actually craving, which is essential in redesigning the habit.
Once you’ve figured out the routine and the reward, what remains is
identifying the cue.
The power of habit
CHARLES DUHIGG
