There are 2 popular books about habits. I wrote a review of the other book, ‘Atomic Habits’, 2 years ago. (I just checked and it was posted on this day in 2022 omg)
This book explains how our brains work to build, break, and maintain habits for individuals, organizations, and societies. ‘Atomic Habits’ gives more insights and methods for individuals to build habits. In contrast, this book provides some interesting information and stories like how supermarkets use our habits to sell more products. Everyone wants to break the bad habits and create good ones. I will explain why we do what we do, what tricks we can use, and some parts of the book that I liked.
The more you do a habit, the more automatic it gets. We might not remember the experience we created a habit, but once it is lodged within our brains it becomes automatic. We do things unconsciously without making decisions because our acts are influenced by those automatic habits we somehow created.
For athletes, they have to do the same thing for so many times. They do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. There’s no time to think and make decisions during a game, they follow the habits they’ve learned.
The bad news is that habits never disappear and our brains can’t differentiate between good and bad habits. If you have ever had a habit of smoking, it is still there in your brain even after decades. If you want to break those bad habits, you need some tricks.
- Habit loop
The habit loop is how we create habits. There are 3 steps: cue, routine, and reward.
Cue tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. It makes you crave the reward. The craving is what powers the habit loop. Find a simple and obvious cue, then clearly define the reward.
When we associate a cue with a certain reward, the craving emerges in our brains.
If you want to hike every morning, place your clothes next to your bed before you sleep. Your reward can be tracking how many calories you burn or the feeling that your legs are tired after hiking. When your brain starts expecting and craving the reward, wearing your clothes after you wake up will be easier.
- Changing habits
Why do I want to drink alcohol? I feel sad (cue) and I want to forget about my problems and laugh (reward). But do I crave the taste of alcohol? No. I only crave the reward. By shifting the routine (drinking alcohol) while keeping cue and reward the same, I can change my habit and still get what I want. Instead of drinking, I can just talk to my friends, dance, or travel to get the reward of forgetting my worries.
If you use the same cue, and provide the same reward, you can shift the routine and change the habit.
- Keystone habit
Some habits have the power to influence other habits. Keystone habits start a process that, over time, transforms everything. For many people, exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change. When people start exercising, they change other patterns in their lives like eating healthier and sleeping earlier, often unknowingly. Keystone habit makes other good habits easier. Try to find your keystone habit.
Victory is full of small wins. Tiny changes convince people that a big achievement is within reach.
- Willpower
Willpower is the most important keystone habit for individual success. Some people have a hard time focusing for 30 minutes, but some people with good self-control are so efficient and they don’t seem working hard. They’ve trained their willpower to focus and they made it automatic.
As people strengthen their willpower muscles in one part of their lives, it becomes stronger and influences other parts. That’s why signing kids up for any activity is important. It has nothing to do with creating a good football player. If a kid can follow the ball for 10 minutes, he will become a good student who can start his homework on time.
Willpower isn’t just a skill, it’s a muscle. It gets tired as it works harder.
I always exercise after I wake up. My workout clothes are on my site, next to my bed. This cue triggers me to crave the reward of feeling sweaty and calm after the workout. If I forget to exercise in the morning, I don’t have enough willpower later in the day to do it.
- How companies use our habits
Visualize the supermarket you usually go to. The first thing you see is most probably vegetables and fruits. If you buy healthy things first, you are more likely to buy unhealthy things when you encounter them later on. Seeing vegetables in your cart makes it easier to put an ice cream on them. Also, most people turn right when they enter a shop. The right side of the store is filled with the most profitable products. This way, supermarkets use our habits to sell more products. More than 50% of purchasing decisions occurred at the moment a customer saw a product on the shelf. Their habits are stronger than their intentions.
The book takes an example of Target. Customers use Target credit cards when they purchase. The statisticians and computer programs track their purchases and assume if they have kids, their diet and if they are pregnant. The programs can conclude “This customer sometimes buys cereal but never purchases milk — which means that he must be buying it somewhere else. So we should give them coupons for milk”. Target tries to guess what you habitually buy and then convinces you to buy from Target.
When consumers go through major life events such as divorce or moving out, their shopping patterns shift. People who get divorced start to buy different brands of beer without noticing.
- Our habits of listening
Our brains crave familiarity in music because familiarity is how we manage to hear without becoming distracted by all the sound. The areas that process music look for patterns and familiarity.
Much of the time, we don’t choose if we like or dislike a song. We react to the cues — “This sounds like the other songs I like”.
Once, a radio station tried to make the song “Hey Ya” hit. They sandwiched it between people’s already favorite songs, and it became a hit. If you dress a new something in old habits, it’s easier for the public to accept it.
Belief is the ingredient that makes a habit loop into a permanent behavior. We should believe that things will get better, we can cope with stress without alcohol, and change is possible. Even if they’re rooted in our minds, habits aren’t destiny. To modify a habit, you must decide to change it and believe that you can do it.
Do a thing with difficulty for the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-consciously, or with hardly any consciousness at all.
2024.01.14 First review of this year
