What does the science say about resolutions? Do they work? Every New Year I see my friends, coworkers, and relatives make resolutions—and then often follow through for as much as two weeks! And then, as we all know, they often fall back into their old habits. I’ve done the same thing myself—and so I’ve stopped making resolutions altogether. But maybe we’re all just doing it wrong. What can a person do to turn a resolution into a habit?

Signed,
Irresolute

Dear Irresolute,

I get it. It’s common to lose hope when we try to make a change—and then find ourselves, after the first rush of excitement, falling back into our old ways. And changing an entrenched habit is hard—particularly the kinds of habits we all tend to target when a new year rolls around. We start January with big dreams. We’re going to eat better! And exercise more! And get on top of our finances! And willpower often sustains these ambitions for a while—but then, the kids go back to school, and the idea of running again (I went two days ago!) seems unfair, and we’re sick of dieting. And so our willpower falters. And then falters again. And eventually we give up. We’ve all been there. It’s okay.

A major misconception around habits is that willpower is the source of sustained change. It is easy to see others who have healthy, effective, rock-solid habits and assume they have unnatural reserves of self-discipline. But research has shown that willpower is like a muscle; it gets tired when exerted for extended periods of time. So, building new habits is less about grit and more about strategy. You’ll increase your chances of success by understanding how to break a habit into pieces—and then making a plan. Let me explain.

The Science Behind Habits

A habit is comprised of three parts: a cue, a routine, and a reward. The cue is the prompt, something that triggers you to do a routine. The routine is the behavior we commonly think of as the habit. And the reward is the payoff, the satisfaction we get from meeting some craving or need. These three components, when put together, are called The Habit Loop. And every habit follows it: cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward.

Become the Scientist and the Subject

It’s not hard to spot our habitual routines, but we’re generally unconscious of the cues and rewards that trigger and reinforce them.

For example, while writing The Power of Habit, I had a habit of eating a chocolate chip cookie every day. And this habit of eating a cookie was starting to affect my health. In fact, I had gained eight pounds, and my wife had begun to make pointed comments. I had tried to change this habit. But even the sticky note on my computer—“Don’t eat cookies!”—didn’t seem to deter me.

So, to change my cookie-eating habit, I first had to identify the cues and rewards. I got a journal and began recording what happened immediately before and after I ate the cookie—my thoughts, my feelings, things happening in my environment. I wasn’t yet trying to change my habit, rather, I just wanted to identify what was happening. After a few days, I discovered that my cue was the time of day. Every day, at about 3pm, I would get the urge to walk to the office cafeteria, buy a cookie, then eat it while chatting with coworkers.

Identifying the reward was more challenging, though. Was it the sugar rush from eating a delicious cookie? A break from work? So, I ran some experiments. One day, I ate an apple to see if that tamed the craving. The next, I took a break by walking around the block. Pretty soon, I figured out that the best part of getting a cookie was chatting with coworkers. That social interaction was the reward.

As you set out to change a bad habit or build a new one, think of yourself as both scientist and subject. Study your habit first. Get clear on the possible cues and rewards that are reinforcing your habit loop. Then go to work on changing your behavior.

Engineer Your Environment

Once you know what your cues and rewards are, you can swap routines. In my case with the cookies, I kept the cue of 3pm, but instead of my usual routine of buying a cookie, instead I walked to a colleague’s desk and chatted for a few minutes. And the reward stayed constant: social connection and a break from work. The cookie urge disappeared.

Isolating cues and rewards aren’t just useful for changing a bad habit. You can use it to build new habits, too. The writer Maya Angelou developed the habit of writing every day by paying for a hotel room. In the room she kept a dictionary, the Bible, and Roget’s Thesaurus. She forbade housekeeping from the room, and asked that all decorations be removed. Every morning at 6:30, she drove to her hotel room and wrote until mid-afternoon. She would then return home and enjoy a proper dinner in the evenings. Then she’d repeat.

In effect, Maya Angelou had engineered her environment—implementing helpful cues while removing herself from the distracting ones—to prompt the routine of writing. And for years, she kept a bottle of sherry in the room, and she’d give herself a reward after she’d finished a particularly tough bit of writing.

You can do the same thing. If you’re trying to build the habit of doing yoga every morning at 5am, for example, you might keep your yoga mat at the foot of your bed. Lock your smartphone in a kitchen drawer instead of on your nightstand so you’re not tempted by it.

And reserve your cup of coffee or tea—or a nice rewarding smoothie!—until after your Downward Dog and Triangle Pose. That’s your reward. And over time, you’ll find it easier and easier—more habitual—to stretch every morning.

Experiment

Finally, keep experimenting until the routine sticks. Changing habits is tough. Failing the first or even the second time doesn’t mean you’re incapable of change. Rather, it means you are making progress, and you are learning something from your experiment. Look again at your cues and rewards. If you forget to do your new routine, chances are the cues aren’t noticeable enough. If you remember to do your new routine but aren’t motivated, ask if you need a better reward. Even better, delay gratification of the guilty pleasures you already have. Binge on Netflix after your evening bike ride and games with the kids.

Good luck,
Charles

The post How to Turn a Resolution into a Habit appeared first on Crucial Learning.

Why did you decide to research and write about habits?
I was good at a lot of stuff. I viewed myself as an intelligent person able to exercise control over my decisions and get things done. But I was frustrated, because no matter how much I wanted to lose weight, I couldn’t seem to exercise control over my fitness and eating patterns. I kept thinking, “I am a smart person. I should be able to exercise control over what food I put into my body and how and when I move my body. Why is this so hard for me?” I was truly bewildered.

Around the same time that I was experiencing a behavioral-change crisis, I was covering a story in Iraq as a journalist with the Army. While there, I observed that the Army is a habit change machine. People come into the military from all over the country bringing unique habits and behaviors and beliefs with them and when they leave the military, they have the same disciplined habitual responses to crises and routine. Soldiers are conditioned to have control over both their organizational and individual behaviors and I was fascinated with how an enormous body of individuals could exert the same behaviors simultaneously. I was so interested in how this behavioral sync was accomplished and puzzled about how the military could enlist such powerful change in thousands of individuals and I was still trying not to eat sweets. I knew there was a solution for me if I could spend more time researching the science behind habits.

How do chocolate chip cookies relate to habits?
Well, like I said: I have a sweet tooth. While writing The Power of Habit, I applied what I was learning to a personal habit, one of eating a chocolate chip cookie every afternoon. I mean, who doesn’t love chocolate chip cookies? It was still challenging, but I was able to change that habit by experimenting with cues, routines, and rewards. I think it’s an easy example to relate to when it comes to changing habits.

How do you know when a habit is holding you back?
Personally, I have conditioned myself to respond to being at odds with myself. When I feel like I have lost control over something that I should rationally and reasonably have control over, and I have a desire to control it, I look for the primary driver of that behavior to address it at its root. The brain is always at odds with itself. We know the habits that are keeping us from getting where we want to go, yet we ignore the rational part of our brain that is trying to help us get there. By looking for the cues and rewards that prompt and reinforce behaviors, we bring our near unconscious thinking to the pre-frontal cortex, so we are aware of it and can pay attention to it. Until we do that, any effort to change a behavior will be minimal and we will find ourselves still stuck in a habit loop.

Habits themselves are neither good nor bad. We determine whether a behavior is productive or counterproductive. We decide if the habit is beneficial or not. If the behavior takes us where we want to be, then we keep it. If the behavior constantly keeps us from moving forward, then it’s not doing what we want it to, and we get stuck in the lag. The point of this research and training is to put us back in control and arm us with a blueprint for diagnosing why we make the decisions we do, while giving us the tools we need to determine if our behavior is aligned with our goals.

Why are individual habits relevant to organizational success?
Habits are all around us. They are not good or bad until we determine if the behavior behind the habits are moving us toward a place we want to go. Everything we do in our jobs are habit-based; how we answer emails, how we check our inbox, how we schedule our day, how we prioritize projects, how we talk to our co-workers and how we utilize our meeting times. Our lives and companies both thrive and die by habits.

For example, let’s say you are part of a leadership team that wants to achieve a specific goal with your team. Your company meetings are often derailed by conversations unrelated to the intended meeting topic. Before long, time has flown by and the meeting ends not having moved any closer toward the goal. Now, there is nothing good or bad about that scenario. It just is what it is. The fact that you are trying to accomplish something specific in your meetings and you often feel frustrated at having lost control over making that happen indicates that there are individual and cultural behaviors within your team causing a lag. So, what would you need to do to help your meeting culture shift toward your goals? We are often prisoners of our cultural habits and until we can recognize them, explore the drivers behind them, and talk about how they are impacting us, we can’t change them.

How has The Power of Habit enhanced your life personally and professionally?
I used to constantly be bothered by the fact that even though I had control over so many other things in my life, there were still important things I wasn’t achieving because I couldn’t align my behavior with my desire. When you can’t control something that you believe you can, it wears you down emotionally, physically, and mentally.

The Power of Habit has influenced my life in every way possible. I no longer allow distractions to dictate my behavior. Exercise is easier, work gets done more efficiently, and my ability to focus on projects and the most important people in my life—my family—has just become so tight, like muscle memory. Understanding what motivates my habits, how the brain operates to create or change a habit, and what rewards I am seeking with my actions has enabled me to control my behavior, thoughts, decisions, health and wellness. I am no longer a prisoner of habits that do not align with my professional or personal goals. It feels great!

Click HERE to learn how The Power of Habit Training can help you create habits by design, not by default.

The post Five Questions with The Power of Habit Author Charles Duhigg appeared first on Crucial Learning.