The Power of Habit

Human beings are creatures of habit, aren’t we? As the

days go by and though you may think you're in control,
making decisions all the time, the truth is that most of the
time you're just repeating predetermined habits. In The
Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg highlights the impact of
your habits on who you are and what you are capable of
achieving. Habits are part of the foundation of our lives,
our companies and are responsible for a large part of the
results we get. For the 12' team, the cool part of reading
this microbook is to think about how to incorporate new
positive habits in your life. Are you ready for this journey?

How do Habits Work

Eugene Pauly was an elderly patient who had brain

problems caused by a viral cephalitis and therefore lost
the ability to use a part of his brain, the medial temporal
lobe. The rest of his brain kept functioning normally, but
his memory was impaired. He became unable to
remember anything that had happened after 1960, but he
remembered everything that happened before that. He
became a man unable to learn new things and, in seconds,
forgot what had happened the previous time. Eugene
 could not remember where his bedroom or kitchen was in
his own house.

Daily, to exercise, his wife would take him for walks

around the block. But one day, Eugene disappeared, and
his wife became worried. His loss of memory could make
him lose himself and never return home. Incredibly, in
just 15 minutes, following his daily route, he was able to
return home. A few days later, Eugene was able to make
the journey alone. This has led scientists to study and
discover that habits, their routine practices, are stored in
an area of the brain that is completely different from the
temporal lobe responsible for memory. This proved that
we learn and make unconscious decisions without the
need to remember the facts that lead to that decision or
learning. This is the power of habit.

Activating Habits

Our brain is a powerful machine. It is constantly finding

ways to work less and automate routines, just to save
energy. A habit works in a 3-step flow:

 Trigger: Something happens, and your brain

understands this trigger as a call to enter the automatic
mode and choose which routine to use;
 Routine: It is a physical, emotional or mental action that
is automatically triggered by the trigger;
 Reward: A positive stimulus occurs and says To your
brain that routine works and so it should be stored.
Understanding how habits are triggered is important
because it gives us control over ourselves. By
understanding triggers and rewards, we are able to
change, adapt, and create new routines.

How to Form New Habits

The main reason people study this topic is to learn how to

create new habits and reinforce positive ones. A relatively
new habit adopted by the population, for example, is the
simple routine of brushing teeth. Claude Hopkins, an
American publicist, encouraged this habit by tying it to a
common trigger in people's daily lives. In his ads, he said,
"Spend your tongue on your teeth. Do you feel a layer on
them? This layer causes your teeth to lose their color and
deteriorate." After the trigger, his ads said, "Pepsodent
toothpaste removes this layer and makes your teeth
cleaner and more beautiful." The great truth is that this
layer is natural and the Pepsodent toothpaste does not
remove it. The trigger, however, was so powerful that
people just licked their teeth and connected them with the
idea of brushing their teeth (routine) and reward
(beautiful teeth). Less than 10 years after this campaign,
the American population who brushed their teeth grew
almost 10 fold.
 Claude Hopkins' technique is simple and follows the 3
steps:

1. Create a new trigger in your mind (or people's minds);

2. Associate a positive routine with it;
3. Create a mental or physical reward associated with
maintaining this habit.

Change of Habit

American coach Tony Dungy had an unconventional and

extremely successful method to ensure that his athletes
had good results: he led his players not to automatically
respond to their opponents' moves. He did not want his
team to think before they acted.

Tony used to form habits that responded immediately, not

rational choices at every turn. The coach knew that habits
are not easily removed, they need to be transformed. And
they only change if a new routine can replace the existing
routine with the same trigger and the same reward. His
drills were based on tying existing triggers and rewards to
new routines. The new routines were simpler, gave players
less choice and more non-rational behavior. With his
method, Tony has won dozens of titles and has become a
legendary trainer.

Another extremely successful method of changing habits

is the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. The method
simply proposes new routines to trigger the physical need
to consume alcohol and uses the same rewards that
alcohol awakens in people, such as relaxation, need for
company, reduction of anxiety, etc. However, the AA
method, by itself, still has difficulties transforming
people's habits. That’s why it also dedicates time in
creating the belief that people addicted to alcohol need the
intervention of other people. Users need to believe that
more people are involved in their transformation so as not
to disappoint them. This faith is an essential ingredient
for changing habits since change occurs in society.

Small Wins Have Big Impacts

There are many habits in our lives that dramatically

influence how we live and how businesses work.

One positive habit leads to another and this creates a

chain of positive habits that work in unison. People who
start exercising, for example, naturally begin to eat better,
become more productive at work and, consequently,
reduce their stress levels. In your life or your business, it
is essential to identify a fundamental habit that needs to
be changed, and that will bring several improvements in
various other habits that impact your day-to-day.

Finding the fundamental habit is difficult and requires a

trial and error approach. The important thing is to
identify something that is small enough to be changed and
has positive impacts on the whole. In 2009, for example,
one study proved that the simple habit of keeping track of
food eaten during the day was able to help people identify
eating patterns, which made them better plan their food
and make them healthier. In this study, the group that
had the feeding diaries lost twice the weight of the other
participants.

The Role of Willpower

Scientists have proven that willpower is fundamental to

success, with far more impact than the person's
intelligence. This was proven in an experiment called the
marshmallow test. A candy was placed in front of the
children and those who resisted the temptation to eat it
for 15 minutes would gain another. The result is
impressive: children who managed to wait to earn the
second marshmallow scored the highest scores in high
school final grades, higher university access rates, and
improved academic performance. However, the human
being has a limited stock of willpower, and it also needs to
be exercised. When we develop our ability to "postpone
reward" through willpower training, we expand our
stockpile and become capable of reaching higher.

How Leaders Form Habits

All companies have institutional habits, which are
repeated daily by their members. Although a company
believes that it makes planned decisions on a daily basis,
the truth is that there is a machine of routines that lead to
the decisions of the organization. Successful companies
cultivate habits that balance power and peace.

In the early 2000s, for example, Rhode Island Hospital

was considered one of the best in the United States. But
with success, a toxic culture had set in. Doctors treated
nurses badly, and this led to ill-treatment of patients and
medical errors. The executive responsible for the quality
of the Hospital took simple actions that completely
changed their culture. Simple things like the use of
cameras in the offices, conference checklists for various
situations and the creation of a system of evaluations
allowed the nurses to prevent operational errors and any
ill-treatment. These simple measures formed new habits
that made the hospital regain its authority and win several
quality awards.

How Corporations Manipulate Habits

In recent years, with the advent of the internet and

computing, companies have been able to capture a high
volume of data on consumer habits to predict their
actions, create new products and analyze market
demands. This information has led them to discover that
habits are more important than the intentions of the
consumers in the buying process.

Each person has unique, personal habits. Therefore,

analyzing this high volume of data, companies that
understand the role of habit in the buying process are able
to customize their products and services to the habits of
the most common groups of people. With information
such as your past purchases, your age, your gender, and
the means of payment you use, companies can identify
groups of users who act in a relatively similar fashion. If
you buy lollipops and diapers every time you go to the
supermarket, for example, companies may find that you
have children of different ages. With this information, the
same companies can send you personalized product
recommendations and coupons.

Another common approach to marketing using data is to

take advantage of major events in people's lives, such as
first job, marriage or childbirth, creating opportunities for
people to form new habits. You need to understand that
companies follow their habits and use them as baits and
triggers to manipulate their consumption patterns and
must be ready to resist offers that take advantage of it.

Habits and Society: Creating Movements

In times of racial segregation in the US, one story stands
out: Rosa Parks, a black woman, challenged the system
and settled on the "white" part of the bus which was
divided between whites and blacks. This simple but
powerful gesture began a great wave that culminated in
the end of segregation. She was arrested and, almost
immediately, groups began distributing pamphlets and
boycotting the transport system. The boycott became a
new habit of the community, generated protests and
eventually the need for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the
United States.

Rosa was not the first person to do this, but this was not
just an act defying the system. She had ties and friends in
her community. Behaviors that occur without rational
planning, as with Rosa, are often the mainstays of major
changes in society. Movements like this happen because
there are habits related to the group of friends, neighbors,
and groups with regards to a cause. Rosa's action grew
because it was adopted by the community and members
wanted to demonstrate a new identity and participate in a
group that was united through the desire for civil rights.

The power of weak ties explains how a protest can grow

from a group of friends and become a strong social
movement. Convincing thousands of people to pursue the
same goal is difficult, but using the link between people to
create peer pressure tends to work to change the habits of
a society.

Are We Responsible for Our Habits?

In 2010, a neuroscience researcher discovered something

fascinating in doing MRI scans comparing the brains of
gambling addicts with casual gamblers. When they saw
the casino machines spinning, the addicts' brains always
reacted with a sense of victory, even when they lost, while
casual players correctly recorded their losses in memory.
This is a key point in forming habits. When the addict is
rewarded in a defeat situation, this creates a vicious circle
that leads to more moves and greater losses. Casual
players only record the reward when they stop playing,
and this avoids losing money. Charles wonders about the
morality of this. Is it right to form habits that destroy
people's lives? Is the addicted player responsible for
his/her bad decisions? Despite moral questioning and
being unable to judge who is to blame, according to
Charles, once you understand that the habit exists, you
have the ability to change it.

Change of Habit, a Practical Guide

Once we can understand the role of habits in our lives, our

main challenge is to transform them according to what we
want. Follow these steps to form healthy habits:
 1. Identify the routine: Although it is not always obvious
and often unconscious, the important thing is that you are
able to analyze your behaviors and plan how to change
them. Identify what you want to change before you move
on to the second step.

2. Try different rewards: If you can not change bad

routines for new ones, then you must play with the
rewards. If you are eating bad food and eating unhealthily
before bedtime, for example, then you should replace the
reward of this routine. Replace the food with a healthy
snack or just rest for a few minutes. After that, turn on a
timer, wait 15 minutes and ask yourself if you still feel the
same craving for fast food. If so, you have not yet
identified the trigger of the habit. Try different rewards
until you find out which trigger triggers that bad habit. If
by chance, in this example the trigger was your hunger,
understand that you can overcome hunger by eating
different things, such as healthy snacks. If the trigger of
this habit is fatigue, take a few minutes to rest.

3. Isolate the trigger: If you know which reward satisfies

that trigger, you still need to understand the trigger more
thoroughly. The most common triggers tend to be related
to 5 main categories:

 One place: Where do you find yourself when the routine

comes up?
 A time: When does this routine arise?
 An emotional state: How do you feel when this routine
arises?
 Other people: Who are you with when she shows up?
 A next clear action: When you have something to do,
and the routine is triggered. If you have a habit that you
need to eliminate, write down the places, times, feelings,
who you are with, and what the next steps are before that
routine appears. After a few repetitions, you will begin to
understand the pattern.

4. Create a plan: Once you have understood the 3 main

components of the habit, it is easy to plan a new routine
that brings you the same reward for the same habit. Be
alert until the trigger appears and act according to plan. If
it works and you have the willpower to repeat this new
conditioning, then you will be able to transform your
habits.

Final Notes:

Habits dictate much of your activities and say a lot about

who you are. Understanding them is the first step in being
able to transform your life, your productivity, and your
business results. You become better at what you
constantly repeat, and that includes your habits. Work to
know yourself, transform yourself, and exercise your
willpower to become a person with great self-control.
12min tip: Create a new habit, read a microbook here in
12min every day!