The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How to Change

by Charles Duhigg

there’s nothing you can’t do if you get the habits right.”

Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort.

This process within our brains is a three-step loop. First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future:

First, find a simple and obvious cue. Second, clearly define the rewards.

“Champions don’t do extraordinary things,” Dungy would explain. “They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits they’ve learned.”

A pattern emerged. Alcoholics who practiced the techniques of habit replacement, the data indicated, could often stay sober until there was a stressful event in their lives—at which point, a certain number started drinking again, no matter how many new routines they had embraced. However, those alcoholics who believed, like John in Brooklyn, that some higher power had entered their lives were more likely to make it through the stressful periods with their sobriety intact.

Belief is easier when it occurs within a community.

If you believe you can change—if you make it a habit—the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be.

I hoped to deliver something else: a framework for understanding how habits work and a guide to experimenting with how they might change.

Location Time Emotional state Other people Immediately preceding action