There is such an incredible amount of habits in our daily life and we roughly notice any of them.
We brush our teeth, make lunch and drink our daily dose of coffee without even giving it a second thought and that’s great!
I mean, how tiring would it be if we had to be fully aware and focused on every single thing we did?
But wait, what exactly is a habit?
If you ask Wikipedia it tells you that a habit “is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.”
That is a great explanation but how does such a subconscious routine of behavior work?
I think that the best way to explain that is with the so-called “habit-loop”.
Let’s analyze the habit of eating breakfast to understand the loop.
You feel hungry. You eat. You feel full.
That’s the habit.
The habit loop documents these three steps and categorizes them into the cue, the routine, and the reward.
You are hungry, you are given a signal which makes you go and eat. That is the cue.
You eat your food. The routine.
And then you feel full. The reward.
The habit-loop looks like this:
Cue: Hungry
Routine: Eat
Reward: Full
The three parts of the habit-loop combined, build a habit.
So if you want to create a new habit, such as going to the gym every day, you will need those three essentials:
The cue, the routine, and the reward.
You won’t be able to build a sustainable habit without a cue because there will be no signal that reminds you of going to the gym.
Neither is a habit going to be built if you don’t have a reward, because the reward is what makes the habit enjoyable and purposeful.
And obviously, nothing is going to happen if you don’t have a routine because that would mean that you aren’t doing anything.
So your gym-habit could look like this:
Cue: Gymbag at the entrance
Routine: Workout at the gym
Reward: Feeling energized
Okay, so I guess we all got that, but what about already existing habits?
What if we want to get rid of an old habit?
Well, let’s picture a gaming-addict.
Gaming is his way of stress-relief.
And his habit loop probably looks similar to this:
Cue: Stress
Routine: Gaming
Reward: Stress relief
The person has unwillingly built the habit of gaming when stressed.
But now because of some reason he feels stressed out all the time.
And what does his brain tell him to do?
Play even more.
And he ends up getting addicted and playing for hours over hours.
Every. Single. Day.
Now there are two ways of how he could break the habit.
The first one works like this:
The guy puts his console out of sight and ignores the urge of gaming every time he feels stressed out.
This technique can probably work for some time, the guy even feels empowered and motivated because he is proud of his willpower and persistence.
But then sooner or later he gives up, he can’t ignore the cue anymore and falls straight back into his habit loop.
It’s often either lack of motivation and discipline or a stressful event that took place that shoots the people straight back into the old habit.
The point is that by this method the people got two things wrong:
1. Willpower is not an unlimited good.
For this method willpower is key. The gamer tries to ignore the urge for gaming. But as soon as the bottle is empty he finds himself right in the loop again.
So remember that you can be persistent up to a certain point but persistence is only a short term solution.
2. Habits don’t disappear.
A habit stays in your brain.
So even if a person hasn’t played any videogames in over 6 years their brain will still remember the habit and so if there comes a really strong cue, means the person is put in an utterly stressful situation, the brain will remember that old habit and that it has helped against stress and the person starts playing again.
But that doesn’t mean that you cannot get rid of a bad habit.
So let’s get into the second method:
Changing the routine
Our gamer-guy wants to stop gaming and what he does now is finding another way to cope with his stress.
Every time he feels stressed out instead of turning the game on he meditates.
So what’s happening now is that the person keeps his cue (stress) as well as the reward (stress relief) and only changes the routine, going from gaming to meditating.
And the habit loop turns into this:
Cue: Stress
Routine: Meditation
Reward: Stress relief
Instead of trying to get completely rid of the habit, he changes the habit.
In the beginning, he will use some of his willpower to meditate instead of gaming, and with time his brain starts getting used to the meditation, and at some point, he won’t feel the urge of gaming anymore because now the cue is devoted to the meditating.
And voilà the bad habit is gone.
So if this blog post has inspired you to change a bad habit, give yourself some time to analyze that habit:
What is your cue, what is your reward? And what can you use as a replacement for your current routine?
Please don’t give up right away, having a couple of backlashes in the process is natural and fine, just stick to your goal and sooner or later you will notice that your brain gets usage of the new habit loop automatically.
And if you want to create a new habit from scratch, remember that you need a cue, a routine, and a reward.
If you want to learn more about the theme I would highly recommend you read the book “The Power Of Habit” by Charles Duhigg.