The Power of Habit

Over the years, I’ve worked to eradicate certain undesirable habits of my own, as well as watching as my coaching clients tried to do the same. I’ve learned some things about habits along the way – for instance that a habit that took years to take hold can’t be quickly gotten rid of, or that one should try to interrupt habits by identifying that critical moment when you are about to launch in to the habitual behavior (e.g. instead of coming home and turning to the right towards the kitchen, see what happens when you turn left towards the closet where your sneakers are kept instead). Still, I never really felt I was comfortably versed in the science behind these practices.

A new book remedies that situation. I just finished Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business and feel like I have a much better understanding of how habits are formed in individuals, organizations and societies. While the entire book is a fascinating look at the nature of habits, with intriguing illustrations from science, history, sports, business, etc., it was the Appendix that really brought it all together in practical, easy-to-follow steps (hence its subtitle: A Reader’s Guide to Using These Ideas). The coaching exercise for this post comes from that appendix.

Habits aren’t all bad. Flossing one’s teeth, exercising, and telling the truth are all good examples of more healthy habits. And, if we didn’t have some habits in place, we’d have to make a lot of extra decisions each and every day. The fact that we do some things routinely makes life simpler and more efficient. What’s important is making sure that the habits we do have are serving us well.

All the best,

~ Sophie 

COACHING EXERCISE

I can’t really do the book justice, but I can suggest just one exercise from the Appendix of The Power of Habit here. This exercise focuses on isolating the cue to some of your more destructive habits. This is the third of four steps to replace one habit with another.

If, as research suggests, cravings, and habitual behaviors that satisfy those cravings, are cued by one of five different factors, you can isolate the cue leading to your habitual behavior by tracking your responses to these five questions each time the craving to do something hits you (e.g. flop down on the couch, smoke, say “How was school?”, pick an argument):

• Where was I when this craving hit? (location)
• What time of day was it when this craving hit? (time) 
• How was I feeling when I first noticed this craving? (emotional state)
• Who was around when this craving came upon me? (other people) 
• What had just happened when this craving hit (immediately preceding action)?

If you track answers to all five of these questions over the period of several days or weeks every time the urge to perform this habit comes over you, you will see patterns emerge. It allowed the author to see that he craved cookies at the same time of day and to create new habits during that same time period. It allowed one of my clients to see that it was being around a certain friend that triggered her overspending / shopping habit, and allowed another to see that she overate when she was aggravated following certain types of meetings at work.

I haven’t quite made this work for me yet (so far, I’m seeing that having one sweet food is what cues me to take another one, but not getting at what makes me have that very first one). If you have more success in figuring out a pattern for your cues, I’d love to hear about it!

QUOTES I LIKE RIGHT NOW

• “A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them fortune.” ~ Richard Whately, English rhetorician, logician, economist, and theologian
• “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle
• “Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters.” ~ Nathaniel Emmons, American theologian
• "Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones." ~ Benjamin Franklin