Interrupt the "Habit Loop" to Change Behavior

It is hard to think about the impending holiday season without recognizing the power of habits. We reach for a second helping even though we’re full, avoid shopping until the last minute, bake 20 dozen cookies to package for friends, hunt for that perfect live Christmas tree, serve the classic family side dish that no one really eats.

We act as though on autopilot and in many respects we are. That’s how habits take hold, whether good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, productive or procrastinating. Many habits are seasonal but our day-to-day habits know no season. They drive how we get dressed, how we work, how we respond to unhappy customers, how we transition from work to home at the end of each day.

“The Power of Habit,” by Charles Duhigg, takes a close look at the neurological process that creates habits, including why breaking habits we don’t like is so difficult. Take a look at Callibrain's short video review of the book.

A deeper understanding of how habits work gives us greater ability to change them.

Habit is a way for our brains to conserve energy. When a routine becomes a habit, our brains don’t have to work as hard. The key to building new habits or breaking old ones is interrupting the process with intention.

Duhigg frames habit formation as a “loop,” with a cue, routine and reward. We finish breakfast and coffee, apply toothpaste to our brush and clean our teeth. We don’t even think about it. The cue is finishing breakfast; the routine is brushing our teeth; the reward is feeling fresh and ready to face the day.

Or, at the end of a long day, we settle in for some television and reach for the bag of potato chips. The TV cues our brains that it’s time slow down, we take our favorite spot on the sofa and start snacking. Is the reward the salty taste of the chips? Or is it that we can now relax?

The habit of snacking creates a craving. Change the habit by creating a different reward. For example, stop buying bags of potato chips and stock up on a healthier option - yogurt or flavorful herbal tea. Rewire your habit loop with this new reward. Even better, wait an hour before cueing up the Netflix and read or dispense with a household chore. Now you’ve changed both the routine and the reward.

Of course this is a simple example. The process of change is the same, regardless of the complexity or context of the behavior. 1. Identify the habit/behavior. 2. Determine the cue. 3. Give name to the reward. 4. Decide whether to keep or “overwrite” the habit. Brushing teeth is a good habit. Eating a bag of potato chips before going to bed probably is not.

“The Power of Habit” applies this methodology to organizations as well. Creating “keystone habits,” such as a morning accountability check-in, helps build a transparent company.  Individuals can rewire responses to irate colleagues or customers by inserting “take a deep breath and wait a second or two before responding” into a habit of getting triggered by anger.

The common denominator is willpower. And, as Duhigg notes, willpower is both a learnable skill and a muscle. The best way to strengthen it is to make it habit.

Sameer Bhargava has led and turned around IT organizations in multi-billion dollar companies as well as created world-class start-up R&D teams. He is CIO of Onlife Health and founder of Callibrain, a cloud-based software platform that drives higher performance by strengthening alignment, communication, collaboration and employee engagement. Views and opinions expressed are the author’s alone and should not be attributed to Onlife Health or anyone within the organization.