The Power of Habit

by Charles Duhigg
Read & Summarized by Brad Penney

… almost all the other patterns that exist in most people’s lives — how we eat and sleep and talk to our kids, how we unthinkingly spend our time, attention, and money — those are habits that we know exist. And once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom — and the responsibility — to remake them. Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the power of habit becomes easier to grasp, and the only option left is to get to work. pp. 271

Key Insights#

Habits can form consciously or unconsciously and govern a huge part of our everyday behaviour. The basal ganglia, the “reptile brain” often controls our habits.

Habits require three elements:

  1. Cue - circumstances that instigate a routine.
  2. Routine - physical or mental behaviour associated with the habit itself.
  3. Reward - whatever the individual gets from the behaviour (this may be unrelated).

Habits are controlled by cravings. Cravings are neutral—can be positive or negative—but cause a person to look for the cue to start a habit .

Habits are most successfully altered using two methods:

  1. Change the routine, but leave the cue and the reward the same.
  2. Believing change is possible, often associated with (new) membership in a group, has been proven to be highly effective.

Some habits are more important than others - these are known as “keystone habits”. Changing these can alter many other aspects of an individual’s (or an organization’s) routines. Daily exercise is a common example of a keystone habit - the effects ‘spillover’ into many other areas of a person’s life.

Willpower (self-discipline) is the most important habit to develop. Writing down a plan, preparing to confront obstacles, and then implementing the plan will grow the willpower “muscle” - the most important keystone habit that will affect every area of an individual’s life.

Organizations function by the routines (habits) they have established. These can be positive or negative, Wise leaders cultivate positive routines but left untended, negative and corrosive routines can form too. During a crisis, routines become malleable - crisis can be a catalyst for change.

Corporations seek to capitalize on the habits of consumers to sell their products. They conduct extensive research for this purpose.

Movements, political and otherwise, have three stages:

  1. Social habits of strong social ties of friends and family.
  2. Social habits of weak community ties.
  3. Leadership gives participants ownership and a fresh sense of identity.

While humans can sometimes unconsciously perform actions, such as those performed during sleep terrors, we need to take responsibility for the habits we form and consciously shape and correct them. As per William James, the power of water is the best metaphor for human habits, because it

… hollows out for itself a channel, which grows broader and deeper; and, after having ceased to flow, it resumes, when it flows again, the path traced by itself before.