Creating New Money Habits, the Easy Way
Use the cue-routine-reward loop
Forming new habits, and breaking old ones, is hard. Especially if you don’t know how habits work. It can be particularly hard to ‘break a habit’ or ‘drop a habit,’ and somewhat easier to ‘change a habit.’
Breaking a habit involves a mindset, for example, of “I will not snack on junk while watching Netflix after dinner every night.” Changing that habit might be more like “I will go for a walk around the neighborhood after dinner every night,” or maybe “I will walk on my treadmill while watching Netflix after dinner every night.” See the difference?
Cue-routine-reward
The other thing to note about habits is that they go through what Charles Duhigg describes in his book The Power of Habit, as a cue-routine-reward loop.
In the above example finishing dinner and turning on Netflix is the cue. The original routine is snacking on junk, while the new routine is walking either inside or on the treadmill. Consequently, the rewards will change too, of course.
The loop applies to most habits, good and bad, and can be used to help change, create, or improve them. The way it applies to your habits around money may take a little self-examination, but once you’ve worked it out, the path to installing…
