"Successful people are simply those with successful habits."
Brian Tracy
Many of us thought briefly last month, and as the New Year began, if there were any bad habits we wanted to break. We thought of losing weight, eat healthier, making more social connections and possibly saving more money, etc. These positive thoughts were often short-lived because we didn't fully understand how we developed the bad habits in the first place. In the book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, the concept of a habit is broken into four simple stages:
1) A cue or trigger event
2) A routine we follow
3) A reward
4) A craving that develops from experiencing the reward
Let me give you two examples. My first is the tough-to-break habit of smoking which follows these four steps beautifully. The cue or trigger event can be as simple as a meal, watching television or having a cup of coffee. The routine that follows is finding a cigarette, lighting it and inhaling the nicotine. The reward is the "high" or sense of calmness that follows from the nicotine. The craving of this calmness can begin to overpower a person at the cue or trigger stage to the point of actually experiencing the calmness without the nicotine.
Let's look at another example. Many of us need time to focus on large projects or complicated problems at work, and in the process, we become bored with the work and look for a distraction. One popular distraction is checking our email. The cue or trigger is a sound or vibration from our computer or cell phone. The routine we follow is to click on the email, open it and read it. The reward is knowing something quickly or getting a jolt of adrenaline from the discovery of new information. The reward can also be the distraction from the tediousness of our critical project. The craving can then become the anticipation of hearing that sound from your computer or cell phone and feeling the "high" of reading something new and exciting from our distraction.
According to The Power of Habit all we need to do to break these bad habits is change the routine we follow and keep the cue and reward the same. So how does this look with the examples above?
If smoking is the bad habit, find something else to do between the cue (eating, watching television or drinking coffee) and the reward (sense of calmness). The smaller the routine change, the easier to sustain. Instead of reaching for a cigarette, lighting and smoking it after a cue, instead reach for a carrot or bread stick, dip it in a sauce and slowly draw on it. I do not mean to imply this is simple but this actual change in routine over time will allow you to calm down just like nicotine. The point is to become aware of the cues, rewards and cravings you receive and change the routine to something similar and healthier.
In the example of email, you have the option of turning the cues or triggers off and only opening your email in the morning, before lunch and as you leave the office. Some workers, however, have the need to check email without the obvious triggers of sound. They simply get bored (cue or trigger) and open their email (routine) as a stimulant or distractor (reward) from being bored. In this case, when boredom strikes, get another cup of coffee, stretch at your desk, move to a different work area,,.... anything to change the routine that will get at the same reward of creating a brief distraction but still allowing you to quickly get refocused on the complex project that needs your full attention.
Question for You:
Do you have a bad habit you would like to kick this New Year?
Action for You:
Breaking a bad habit is not simple. It takes a willingness to try the process outlined above for an extended period of time and believe that the change is possible. Start by identifying the bad habit you want to change and what cues or triggers launch this habit. Write out the routine you take and the reward you receive. Identify any craving for the reward and when it occurs. Replace the current routine with a new, similar one while keeping the cue and reward the same. Practice this new routine until it becomes ingrained in your brain and.... becomes your new habit.
"A change in bad habits leads to a change in life."
Jenny Craig
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