[book] The Power Of Habit By Charles Duhigg (9/10)

[Paul McCarthy]

This is a very interesting book about how we can form new positive habits and even modify existing ones.   Here's a summary of what I learned in the book (with some videos included)

Why are habits important?

• Habits are stored in a different part of the brain called the basal ganglia. The significance of this is that once a behavior is encoded in the basal ganglia then it becomes a lot more automatic and easier to do.  
• To illustrate this, when you brushed your teeth this morning, it was pretty easy for you to do.  You didn't have a wrestling match in your head to get yourself to do it. That's because it's habitual and pretty much automatic for you at this stage.  
• So, the great news is that we can something that we currently find hard to do, like going to the gym, and force our brain to turn it into a habit.  This will make it easier for us to follow through on positive behaviors and increase the changes of it sticking for the long term.

Some key points about habits:-

• Brain uses them to become more efficient (by grouping sets of behaviors and diverting it out of consciousness)
• Behaviors require less effort to do and more automatic once habitual.  Therefore requiring less willpower.
• A habit loop can't be removed.  You can only modify one habit into another habit.  Therefore you're more likely to replace a smoking habit then just try to remove it.  
• Without habit loops our brains would have to shut down and be completely overrun by minutiae

How habits are formed:-

 

• There are three R's to habit formation.  The reminder (or trigger), routine and reward.
• The reminder can be anything from an event, a smell, an activity, a place a time.  This is the trigger for the behavior.  
  • Example:- having your morning coffee
• The routine is the behavior itself.  
  • Example:- going to the gym
• The reward is the reward for completing the behavior.   This tells the brain "this behavior is worth doing again".  This must immediately follow the behavior.
  • Example:- having a smoothie that you enjoy immediately after.
• So, in this example, you are cultivating a habit going to the gym by having a morning coffee (trigger), immediately training afterwards and then immediately drinking the smoothie (reward).

In short:- All habits are sandwiched between a trigger and a reward.  

An important point to note is that the reward must be a genuine reward that you can look forward to receiving.  When the trigger occurs (drinking a coffee) it should initiate a craving for the reward (the smoothie).

Keystone Habits

 

• Some habits matter more than others.  They can kick off a chain reaction of other habits.
  • A common example is exercise.
    • It's quite common for people that manage to successfully build a positive exercise habit to also form the habit of eating healthier, sleeping better, working with more focus.
• Identifying your keystone habits and paying attention to those can have a massive cascading effect on your life.

Willpower

 

• Willpower can be used to create habits but is finite in its capacity so should be used carefully
• Willpower is like a muscle that can be strengthened with use
• Use your willpower carefully to create habits that become automatic.  
• Only try and form one habit at a time to make sure you don't burn through all your willpower and increase your chances of success
• Once you've formed one positive habit, you can then stack others on top.  

How long does it Take to Build a Habit?

 

• The idea that it takes 21 days to build a habit popularised by Maxwell Maltz in his book "Psycho Cybernetics" is misleading
• The most in-depth study we have about this suggested an average of 66 days to form a habit, but the range was from 18 days up to 254 days
• In short: we don't know how long it takes for habits to stick and is largely dependent upon a number of factors including the type of the habit, genetic traits, how we try to build the habit and so forth...
• The important point to realise is that if you do a behavior for a long enough period of time then it will eventually start to become habitual

How do we measure habits?

• There isn't really a very reliable way of measuring the degree to which behaviors are habitual
• The best method we currently have is called the SHRI (Self Habit Reporting Index) which is a serious of statements that the subject must rate corresponding to how it defines a certain behavior
• The higher the score, the more habitual the behavior has become.

How to Change Habits:-

• Once a habit loop is formed, it can't be removed.  So trying to remove a habit is a bad strategy.  Instead try to change existing habits.
  • So, if you're a smoker, try and replace the smoking habit with something else.
• Must learn new routines that draw on the old triggers and provide a familiar relief.
• Change might not be fast and it isn't always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.
• Once you're aware how your habit works, once you recognize the cues and rewards, you're halfway to changing it.  
• the brain can be reprogrammed but you just have to be deliberate about it.

[veqsms]

I'm almost done with this one, I can say with confidence that the power of habit is the single one most important book I ever read till now for self improvement.

Now try to put these insight in practice.

[Paul McCarthy]

On 8/18/2017 at 5:05 AM, veqsms said:

I'm almost done with this one, I can say with confidence that the power of habit is the single one most important book I ever read till now for self improvement.

Now try to put these insight in practice.

 

On 8/22/2017 at 1:31 AM, K VIL said:

I read that one a while ago. Appreciated it.

 

 

I agree with both of you on this - it's really highlighted for me how I can be a lot more prolific in what I do on a daily basis.