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How Can You Successfully Transform your Habits?

One paper published by a Duke University researcher in 2006 found that more than 40 percent of the actions people performed each day weren’t actual decisions, but habits. If we settle on 50%, we are on autopilot half the time. For this reason, our habits have a tremendous influence on our existence and our future.

What exactly is a Habit?

A Habit is a behaviour that starts as a choice, and then become a nearly unconscious pattern that we repeat in our daily life, For example, Swearing, Biting Fingernails, Smoking Cigarettes, Consumption of Liquor etc. Habits scientists say emerge because the brain is constantly looking to save efforts. Habits influence not only our routine activities but also our professional activities like Designing, Teaching, Presentations etc. So most of the Rational or Irrational decisions we make in a day might actually be influenced by our habits. 

The Cue-Routine-Result Process

As mentioned by author Charles Duhigg in his bestseller " The Power of Habit": A Habit is a formula our brain automatically follows: When I see the CUE, I will do ROUTINE in order to get a REWARD. Every habit - no matter how simple or complex – has the same structure, which we call the "habit loop." There is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional behaviour. Finally, there is a reward. Once you understand how habit loops work, you can start changing them.

All habits form by the same 3–step process. Cue, routine, reward. (Graphic based on Charles Duhigg's “Habit Loop” in The Power of Habit. Created by Manik Wanchoo.)


Things You Need To Know

  • Do not try to change everything about yourself at once. Take small baby steps. Concentrate on your efforts on fewer things at once whether that is writing more, going to a gym, learning a new language, Eating healthier or learning a new skill. Why? Because Research shows that Willpower is very much like a physical muscle which can be exhausted if overused.
  • Belief and Perseverance are the key ingredients for changing a habit. Without self-belief, it is almost impossible to transform your habits. Good things take time. You will falter sometimes as Habits do not change overnight, but keep persevering.
  • The Golden rule of Habit Change states that you can never completely eliminate bad habits. Rather, to change a bad pattern, you must insert a new routine into the habit loop. You can change almost every habit if Cue and Reward remain the same while somehow changing the routine.
  • Visualising what you want to achieve is the most powerful things you can do to help you actually make it happen.
  • Keystone Habits have this profound power to transform your life phenomenally. Some of them are Meditation, Making Your Bed in the Morning, Exercising, Tracking the Food you eat.
  • Reward yourself on small victories. This can help you maintain the momentum, and keep you on the upside of motivation.



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