When the insanely insightful Amy Hoy is smitten with a book, I read it. And “The Power of Habit” did not disappoint!
It’s an entertaining journey through cases that helped scientists uncover how habits (and willpower) work and how you can change them. Understanding why and how our automatic actions play out is highly important, given that they govern about 40% of all our daily actions – A staggeringly high amount.
I highly recommend reading the book! As an appetizer, here’s an excerpt on how to change a habit by changing the routine within the Cue-Routine-Reward loop.
Let’s close with some quotes I highlighted during reading:
“But when students were treated like cogs, rather than people, it took a lot more willpower”
I knew it! Understanding the reasoning behind a rule makes it easier to adhere to it.
“If you dress a new something in old habits, it’s easier for the public to accept it”
Also helpful when learning new “habits” as a company.
Lastly an anecdote by David Foster Wallace, illustrating why it’s so damn hard to see your own habits for what they are:
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an
older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning,
boys. How’s the water?’And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then
eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is
water?’