Journalist Charles Duhigg (Pulizer Prize winner in 2013) argues that If you believe you can change, if you make it a habit , change becomes real.
The habits they play a very important role in our lives and often we are not even fully aware of it. To be able to replace a bad one habit with a good one you must become aware of the mechanisms that trigger it.
Charles Duhigg claims it's a habit is made up of 3 elements:
- a signal that automatically introduces habitual behavior.
- a physical or mental routine
- a reward which is what triggers the habit because it leads us to seek it again.
This is the so-called “circle of habit ”. The interesting aspect is that when a habit is born, the brain stops participating 100% in the decision process. It is a sort of pattern that is triggered automatically and whose existence we often ignore.
Let's take an example to better understand this habit cycle.
For example, if we want to stop eating snacks at work, we need to understand whether we do it because we are hungry or for other reasons. Very often we may discover that behind this habit, there is a simple desire to take a break from work. Boredom (signal) triggers the routine of going to the bar or to the place where the vending machines are located (routine) where we meet colleagues to chat with (reward). Once we understand that what we are looking for is a chat with other people, we just need to replace the routine and transform the circle of habit in the following way: boredom (signal), go to a colleague's office (routine) and have a chat (reward).
Becoming aware of this habit cycle will help us replace this routine with something else, increasing satisfaction.
When you want to change a bad one habit it is therefore essential to identify the trigger signal and the associated reward.
We often make the mistake of wanting to change too many habits at the same time. Better to focus on just one habit fundamental, also because we could still obtain benefits on different aspects of our lives.
Understand how ours work habits it will allow us to improve, manage our time better and achieve the changes we desire.
(if you want to learn more it's very interesting this article published by Internazionale).
