Understand habit loops from "summary" of The Power of Habit: by Charles Duhigg | Conversation Starters by dailyBooks
Habits are an important part of our daily lives and understanding how to create and break them can be beneficial. A habit loop is a cycle of three steps - a cue, a routine and a reward - that determines how and why habits occur. Understanding these steps can help people build habits that can lead to a more productive and successful life.- Changing our habits can be challenging if we don’t understand how they work. To do this, it’s important to first familiarize ourselves with the habit loop, which is a three step process of cue, routine and reward.
- Finally, there is a reward - the gratification we feel after completing the desired action. This reinforces the habit cycle, making us more likely to repeat the same behaviors in similar circumstances.
- At its core, developing lasting habits involves changing our mindsets and noticing when our negative behaviors are taking over - so that we can recognize them and make conscious decisions about which routines would serve us better instead.
- This cue then leads to our performing an action (or ‘routine’) such as eating chocolate when feeling stressed or always watching TV when getting home from school.
- Cues act as triggers that tell us when it’s time for a certain behavior. Common cues are typically things like thoughts, emotions, or people/places/activities that make us want to start doing something.
- Learning to identify our trigger points makes it easier to steer towards actions that will benefit us long-term, rather than just becoming locked into routines that may offer short-term pleasure but could potentially cause harm.
