Why you should read The Power of Habit

If you’re curious about how habits work, why you sometimes switch to auto-pilot, or the even greater question: How can I get rid of bad habits and make good ones?, then The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg) will help answer those questions.

When I picked up this book, I wasn’t so interested on a step-by-step guide to building habits, as I personally think that comes more from willpower, discipline, and self-accountability, but rather desiring to learn more about how we develop habits and what areas of our brain are used.

I became curious because I was a classic case of Student XYZ entering university and losing all self-discipline and developing bad eating, sleeping, you-name-it habits. I’m only slightly exaggerating when I say it was common for me to sleep from 4am-8am, go to class, maybe the gym, then sleep from early afternoon to evening, eat dinner, then write or watch movies from 10pm-4am. Repeat over and over again.

Fortunately I was at least using my time “productively” and wrote a few novels and a collection of short stories, but in return I was always mentally buzzed, suffered from mood disorders, and was perpetually plagued with stomach aches and horrible eczema. Nocturnal schedules may work for some people, but it didn’t for me although you’ll still find me nostalgically claiming some of my best writing came at twilight.

Now, putting aside there were a host of other factors that played into those bad habits (e.g., living in a new city, loss of identity, personal issues), when I finally committed myself to writing seriously, I knew things had to change. A healthy body and mind produced good quality work. It took me almost 2 years for everything to fully shift — sleeping early, waking early, exercising daily, eating the correct macros, and of course, writing.

And you know what? Call me a convert. Everyone who says they can operate on less than 7–9 hours of sleep (excluding the small numbers that can actually do this), that buzzed adrenaline you have all day? Not normal. You’ll be surprised the mental clarity and calmness you can achieve. And as someone prone to melancholia, routine is essential.

But how to maintain this routine? Habit. Good ol’ habit.

Here’s where Charles Duhigg comes in. I wondered how the motivation to build habits work — is it singular like writing creating a series of chain reactions down my daily routine, or is it purely rote decisions you make over and over again until it’s seared into your brain?

Turns out a little bit of both. Here’s 5 key things I’ve learned from this book:

  1. Habits consist of 3 parts: a cue, the action, and the reward.
  2. You don’t really “break” bad habits; you simply replace bad habits with good ones. That’s why there’s the saying that “Old habits die hard” because it’s true. Instead, you take the formula above and replace the action with the good habit. But for the habit to stick, you need to ensure the cue and reward remains the same. Example: If you’re used to having cake after dinner because the sugar gives you a slight rush or you still want to eat after dinner, but you’re gaining weight from it, you should replace the cake with fruit or yogurt (if sweetness is want you want) or a protein shake (to help satiate the desire to eat) or even gum (if it’s simply the act of chewing you want). As long as the cue and reward remains the same, you’ll have a much easier time replacing the bad habit.
  3. Identifying the “cue” and the “reward” in the habit cycle is key. You won’t be successful in making good habits if you can’t identify why you’re doing the bad habit. For me, I had to find the very start of my bad habit cycle — where did it all begin? It was sleeping for me. So I worked slowly — sleeping at 2am first, then 1am, then 12am, and so on. I knew my body wouldn’t fall asleep at 10pm if I usually slept at 4am.
  4. It’s a myth that it takes 21 days to break or make a habit. In reality, it depends on the habit. How ingrained is it? How complicated is the habit cue/action/reward? So don’t feel bad if you don’t feel going to the gym 3x a week is “normal” after 21 days if you’ve been sedentary for years. Plus, visible changes to the body for most people takes up to 6–12 months! (Read this NYT article.)
  5. Willpower is a muscle. Also discussed in Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow, you have 2 systems of thinking and willpower is your “System 2" — the slower, more analytical engaged system. The takeaway from this is don’t try to change too many habits at once. It takes willpower to enforce a habit and if you’re trying to enforce 10 habit changes on top of working at your job or studying and trying not to get mad at your spouse when they keep walking around in the house with shoes on, you’re doomed for failure. Fortunately, though, you can train that part of your brain to be stronger at willpower. And the more you enforce habit changes, they gradually transform into actual habits where you don’t even need willpower anymore to enforce them.

Duhigg covers much more than what I’ve listed. He provides a lot of examples — from personal stories to the workflow in large businesses — to show how habit works everyday in our life. So whether you actually want to change habits or simply understand them better, I recommend The Power of Habit.

Other books I may cover in future posts (and are great to read in conjunction with Duhigg):

Sybil Lam

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