Habits rule our lives! We have habits to get us up and going in the morning. There are habits that help us end our day. Habits have been studied by behavioral scientists for many years. Researchers agree on one simple fact and that is the best way to form a habit is to change an existing habit. Neuro-pathways in our brains form over time. Eliminating a habit is much more difficult than tweaking an old habit to have a new impact. Think about it this way. To create a path through the woods, you have to travel the same path repeatedly until the path is well worn. If you travel the same path for a time, adding a slight change here and there, dimension is added to that basic path without starting something entirely new or erasing what was already there. The same is true of our brains when it comes to habits or learning, for that matter. You really can’t unlearn something, but you can change or shape it to be what you need.
Pulitzer prize winning author Charles Duhigg discusses the concept of the Habit Loop in his book The Power of Habit. Each habit consists of a feedback loop in three parts centered around a craving. For example, an individual who craves caffeine at 2:00pm may have developed a Habit Loop that looks like this:
STEP 1: Pick a habit to tweak. First, you must understand what need the habit meets for you. For example, you want to stop buying coffee after work. The habit you want to break is spending money on coffee every afternoon.
STEP 2: Use an old trigger to create a craving for the new element of that habit. So change your route home to avoid the coffee shop where you like to stop and bring a drink you like for the route home.
STEP 3: Practice your new routine every time you are presented with the cue. If your cue is the end of your work day, take your new route home and enjoy your homemade lowfat latte on the ride home.
Sounds easy, right? Actually, changing a habit requires consistency and hard work. The more often you rehearse the feedback loop, the more likely you will be to maintain your new habit. While the craving and reward remain the same, the conscious decision to follow your new routine when cued will allow you to adjust your habit to a more productive behavior.
Janet Myers
