How to Change a Habit and Transform Your Life

Are you determined to break a bad habit but powerless to do so? Are you unable to keep that New Year’s resolution you make every year? Stop the shame and self-blame—it’s your brain! Instead of breaking a bad habit, change your brain, change a habit, and transform your life. 

What are habits?

The brain converts a sequence of actions into an automatic routine. Like putting toothpaste on the toothbrush before you brush your teeth. Or looking behind you before backing out of a parking spot. Our brain is on autopilot because of habits.

Why do we need habits?

The brain strives to be efficient and save effort. As a result, the brain creates these automatic actions to conserve energy for other actions that take a lot more brainpower.

Therefore, habits are essential to life, but bad habits can be detrimental to our health and wellness.

Consider this—if we thought about every small action we perform daily, the enormity of this would overwhelm the brain and it could not function. However, how do we intentionally change habits?

What is the habit loop?

Charles Duhigg depicts the habit loop in his excellent book “The Power of Habit.” ¹

He describes three steps in the habit loop: cue, routine and reward.

First, identify the cue or the trigger. What is the time of day, location, activity, or emotion when you perform the habit? Or who are the people around you?

Second, identify the reward you receive by performing this habit. When you think about performing your routine, you must crave the reward already. What are you craving when you think about your habit?

And last, the routine is what you do in response to your craving for the reward.

Example of a habit loop

I describe my loneliness and depression after recovery from cancer in this post, how yoga saved my life. My cue was coming home to an empty house after a stressful day at work. I craved a way to relax and forget about the stresses of the day. Opening a bottle of wine became my routine. Here is a diagram of my habit loop.

Change the routine

Next, after you identify the cue and the reward you are craving, find a new routine to insert into the loop or another reward that satisfies the craving. This step may take some experimentation to find the routine that works for you. The brain is already programmed to perform automatic action, so it requires the initiative to change the routine. But after you accomplish the change, the new routine becomes a habit and saves energy for the brain again.

In my case, yoga relieved the stresses of the day and allowed me to relax. Over time, I no longer needed wine to relieve the stress of the workday.

Summary

Instead of breaking a habit, break it down into your cue, routine, and reward. Change a habit by replacing the old routine with a new one. And transform your life!

Be sure to read next week’s post outlining in more detail the secrets to changing a habit and maintaining the change long term. Click the button below to sign up for our email list so you will not miss it!

Reference

1. Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2012.