How To Create Good Habits

Have you ever wondered why you do what you do? Some decisions are conscious choices, but more than 40 percent of the things we do aren’t. They are habits. This explains why we snack on unhealthy foods, smoke cigarettes or always are late to meetings.

How do you stop bad habits and develop good ones? It is much harder than it seems, which is why only 8 percent of people reach their New Year’s resolutions.

According to Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, you can’t change habits by “powering through” them. Your willpower is like a muscle, and it gets exhausted throughout the day. This is why, at the end of the day, it is much harder to keep to your diet than in the morning, when your willpower is fresh.

Many people make the mistake of trying to change or start just the habit or behavior. Instead, you first have to understand how it is formed and what it is made up of.

A habit is not just one action, but a loop. It is made up of a cue, a routine and a reward. If you want to change a habit, you need to work on the cues and rewards that keep the habit going.

* Cue: This triggers the habit and behavior. It switches your brain to automatic mode. There are five types of cues: a place, a time of day, a certain person, a certain emotion or a ritualized behavior.

* Routine: This is the habit or behavior you find yourself doing unknowingly – it can be physical, mental or emotional. Just like getting in your car in the morning to drive to work, you don’t think of every step or decision you make.

The more you do it, the less attention you need and the more automated it becomes. The habit takes over, freeing up mental space and conserving as much willpower as possible.

* Reward: This is the pleasure you get from the habit. The reward “burns the habit into your memory,” so it becomes the go-to habit the next time the cue takes place.

If you want to curb a bad habit, you want to find your cue and reward. Duhigg, from his personal experience, found that he had been eating a cookie every afternoon at 3 and had gained eight pounds. He thought the reward was to satisfy his sweet tooth, but after experimenting, he found the reward actually was socializing with his peers. He was using the excuse of getting a cookie to talk to his coworkers. After recognizing this, instead of eating cookies, he headed over to a colleague, talked for 10 minutes and then went back to work, eventually losing 12 pounds! It was a matter of teaching his brain to associate a reward with the appropriate habit.

If there are any habits you want to change, you have to properly diagnose and then change them. For more examples on using rewards to start good habits and stop bad habits, visit