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Ximena Garcia

English 1302-201

Judith McCann

23 March 2022

Changing Habits

A common misconception made by many people is assuming that someone cannot

change. Having the ability to change certain perspectives of one can transform one’s

characteristics. They are not looking at this in the right way. The question is not whether

someone can change, but if they want to change. There are several reasons why some would like

to modify or get rid of certain habits, characteristics, or costumes. Things like wanting to be

healthier, becoming a better version of themselves, or having a better lifestyle are some

motivations. For a person to be successful at changing, they have a will and place effort or else

no modifications will occur. Breaking habits is not an easy task to overcome, but that does not

mean it is impossible to complete. The ability to change habits is possible, one must just have a

purpose behind it, they must explore their motivations, conspire in a method, carry out their plan

and place an effort to succeed; the cause for changing can range from focusing on changing their

life surroundings for the greater, wanting to become a better version of themselves, or having a

healthier lifestyle.

Finding a cause behind the habit

To alter someone’s customs, one must find a cause. The author Crystal Raypole claims

this will stimulate someone to start working for that rewarding incentive in the end (Raypole 1).

It will not be an easy journey; they will struggle, but it takes time and their drive to see results.

For example, the author mentions how if someone’s habit is constantly showing up late, the
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person must find the reason behind why, such as snoozing your alarm too many times, sleeping

late causing you to oversleep, or procrastinating (Raypole 1). Then, they must consider creating

clear ideas of what they could do differently to solve this problem. This could include deciding

to sleep early, creating a daily routine to stay on track, or setting reminders to stay on task. Once

they have an idea of what to do, it is now time to create action for them to reach their goal.

On the other hand, author Charles Duhigg takes a different approach to finding a cause

behind someone’s habit. He begins with a person’s example, Mandy. As talked about in his

article, he focused on the effects Mandy would have due to an unwanted habit, such as biting her

nails. He mentioned her habits affected people’s surroundings, and Mandy’s own life. What

came next was for Mandy to be able to identify the triggers that caused her to bite her nails. The

question Duhigg recommended to ask herself was “what do you feel right before you feel the

urge to do your habit?” (Duhigg 1). Mandy was able to identify what she felt and what she did

before wanting to bite her nails. She mentioned that before wanting to bite her nails, she felt a

tingle on her fingers and began to rub her thumb along the edge of her nails. In the end, Mandy

concluded that the reason why she would bite her nails was when she wasn’t doing anything,

meaning she was bored. Unlike Duhigg, Raypole had focused on thinking of incentive one would

obtain once someone successfully got rid of their habits. Duhigg continues by talking how that

habit affected Mandy’s social life and her health (Duhigg 1). Which meant that Duhigg focus

was not on finding incentives, but rather focusing on how someone was being affected.

According to the author Kendra Cherry, it is our surroundings that affect the way we act,

including our habits (Cherry 1). The power of how the environment shapes people. Cherry states

that, not only habits, but also behavior, characteristics, and personality are also influenced by

people’s surroundings. Therefore, the surroundings of someone are the causes for their habits
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(Cherry 1). Once they find the roots on who or where it is they have been around and observing

similar habits, the person must eliminate those who influenced their bad habits.

Going through with the plan

Wanting to transform their habits will not happen by just telling themselves/s they want

to change. They must place effort from themselves to see changes. Therefore, the ideas they

thought of to resolve the problem of waking up late must be introduced as their new daily routine

(Raypole 1). Although many can commit to their goals, there are some who encounter difficulties

while trying to follow their path. If this were to happen, author Raypole recommended rethinking

the strategies they were previously doing and looking into new different ways that may work for

them (Raypole 1). Something to keep in mind in that people will not obtain their goal in one try.

There will be seconds, thirds, and maybe even fourth tries during their journey. People can fall

back into the same habits without noticing (Raypole 1). The author mentions an example where

someone is talking with their friend and begin to disagree on a topic. Their friend then begins to

tease to try and avoid conflict with them but accidently hurt their feelings. They then tell them,

and their friend agrees to stop, yet after two or three months, the friend begins to do it again

without noticing. What the friend then decided to do, was find another way to get rid of that bad

habit, therefore the friend began going to therapy in order to speak about the their own issues on

fears around conflict. In the end, the friend was able to identify their bad habit, try to correct but

was unsuccessful, change their routine a second time, and successfully dealt with their problem.

The science behind habits

The author Jaffe focuses on the neurological science behind why people have such a hard

time maintaining their new lifestyle to quit their bad habits. Starting off, habits are formed with
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character, actions, thoughts, and feelings. Over time, people do all these things in a certain way

that they eventually become habits and stay in their memory systems as well. The type of

memory classification that people are categorized in to use while acting on their habits, unaware

of what they do, is called procedural memory, (knowing how to do things) (Jaffe 1). According

to the author, procedural memory is one of the most important ways on how people form their

habits (Jaffe 1). With more research scientist found three different behavior phycological

domains that consist with procedural memory. Palvolian conditioning is the first behavior, where

the conditioning of someone is created when two stimuli are linked together creating a new

response (Jaffe 1). The second one is the operant conditioning, where behavior can be influenced

by a positive or negative reinforcement of people’s surroundings, for example, a reward of

punishment system (Jaffe 1). Lastly, is observational learning. This means that people will act a

certain way depending on what they see from others when observing their surroundings such as

behavior, attitude, or emotions (Jaffe 1).

Different Perspectives

Author Crystal Raypole focused on how people’s bad habits can affect others around

them and how to get rid them. While author Charles Duhigg centers his idea more towards how

one’s bad habit can affect once health and how to substitute their bad habit, into a different

action. Therefore, the authors ways to get rid of their bad habits will be different. Such as how

Charles Duhigg mentions that for people to eliminate habits they don’t want, they must substitute

it with a different action for someone to become too occupied or distracted, which will cause

them to not repeat their bad habit. Also, Duhigg focuses on the importance of their health and

how depending on what bad habit people have, it can affect them. For example, Charles Duhigg

states that if someone had the habit of biting their nails, if they keep up that bad habit, eventually
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it will become a problem of a higher scale and they will become a chronic nail bleeder which

will cause nerve damage on their fingers.

Conclusion

To conclude, the ability to get rid of habits people no longer want is possible but there is

a long process to follow. It takes time, effort, and consistent as well as desire, which leads to

having a cause. Because if someone does not have a cause behind doing something, they will not

achieve what they are trying to do. People need to find a reason why they do their action in order

to resolve their bad habits. Once they find the reasons, they create a new lifestyle to follow, and

must not quit on it no matter how many times they fail, because the journey will not be a breeze,

it will take time. But in the end, if according to the authors you follow their steps rights, they will

successfully achieve their goal of removing an unwanted habit. What you give is what you will

receive, therefore if someone does not like what they get from others, they must change what

they give. Because not only does it affect them and their health, but it also affects others around

them as well.

Why

- Impact your life in ways you cannot reverse

- Think before you do

Results

- Improves own character (it is a win for everyone)

- Change life surroundings for the better

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In contrast this other author claims

The other one showed how it can affect others, this one tells you how it can affect you