Are You Really In Control? The Power of Habits
By: Danilo Kreimer
Tags: Self Improvement, Habit Building, Awareness, Change, Coaching

Watch your thoughts, they become words;

watch your words, they become actions;

watch your actions, they become habits;

watch your habits, they become character;

watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

The preceding quote has been attributed to many people — the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Buddha, and even a supermarket magnate named Frank Outlaw, among others.

We come across similar “inspirational” phrases every day. They make us evaluate our present habits in a split second and think about the things we would like or need to change in our own life.

Even if you consider yourself to be very focused and determined, chances are you still struggle to adopt new behaviors in your everyday life.

Think for a second of your bad habits, from eating too much junk food (despite a commitment to lose weight) to constantly blaming others or the circumstances after a poor performance at work (playing the victim).

Recognizing that we act this way and wanting to stop doing it may have zero impact on changing the habit. Common sense is not common action.

What is the solution then? Understand how habits work. If you do, it becomes much easier to change them.

Our Automated Brain

Our brain is almost always in the “auto-pilot” mode — some researchers claim it can get to 98% of our time awake.

Purchase and consumption, for example, are repeated regularly and usually in the same context. We tend to buy the same brands of products across different shopping episodes, purchase the same amounts in a supermarket across repeated visits, and eat similar types of foods in our everyday life.

Meanwhile, retailers track all our buying behavior through credit cards and rewards programs. And the same happens in different contexts, from social media activity to health services.

As customization becomes increasingly powerful, it will become more and more difficult to break outside of our comfortable habits.

But why does our brain automate so much of what we do?

One word: energy. Our brain makes up only 2% of our total mass, but it consumes 25% of all the oxygen we inhale. It has to be very efficient, and that is why it is constantly looking for new ways to save energy.

Automating behaviors in the form of habits is one of the best ways to do so. Our brain classifies all the information it receives in different parts, which are then automated.

Have you ever learned how to drive? You have to plan and make every single movement intentionally. After a bit of experience, however, you could do it without thinking, requiring less brain activity compared to the first try.

As soon as a behavior becomes automatic, the decision-making part of our brain goes into a sort of sleep mode. It can almost completely shut down, and this is a real advantage because it means we have more mental activity to devote to something else.

That is why it is easy — while driving, for instance- to completely focus on something else: like the radio, or a conversation. And that is also the exact same thing that happens when we reach for a sweet after a meal — our brain just doesn’t consider it a task anymore — and we go on autopilot.

No Memory Required

Habits are much stronger than you think. And the reason for this lies in the structure of our brain.

You might think habits are the same as memory, but they are actually different processes in the brain. Researchers believe habits are formed and stored in the basal ganglia, located on the more “primitive” lower part of the brain.

This is why anyone can learn new habits — even people who are incapable of forming new memories.

In the 2000s, a patient named Eugene had a disease that destroyed a major part of his brain dealing with memory.

He had anterograde amnesia — he was incapable of forming new memories (like in the movie Memento). He would introduce himself to people dozens of times a day, and every day seemed entirely new to him. But surprisingly, Eugene was able to form new habits.

A researcher gave him two different colored objects, one of them marked with “correct” on the bottom. He was asked to choose one object and turn it over to see if it was the “correct object.” A person with intact memory would only need one try to learn what the correct object was.

Eugene didn’t have a memory, so he was slower — but eventually, after dozens of trials, he was able to habitually get it right anyway, with a 95% accuracy.

He never consciously remembered ever doing the experiment, and he couldn’t explain why he was choosing the correct object.

How could Eugene do all this without memory? They were habits, formed in a different part of the brain:

For the memory game, being presented with the objects was his cue;

He then executed the routine of flipping over the correct object;

And finally got the reward of the pleasure of picking the right object.

Subconsciously, this had been ingrained into his brain, without him ever articulating why he was doing what he was doing.

Habit start as a conscious decision, but ultimately the loop can reinforce itself. Over time, you may end up losing full control over your behavior — with a cue, your brain shifts to autopilot and executes the routine.

Mindset Matters — What Do You Believe In?

“Whether you think you can change it, or you think you can’t — you’re right”

One of the most successful examples of habit change is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Its famous 12-step program makes recovering alcoholics go through a few important activities to increase self-awareness and accountability.

The steps surely help, but they won’t feed the hard work. What makes the success of AA is belief.

The believe that you do have the power to make your new habit a permanent behavior. That you can cope with the stress of the craving without falling back to your old self. That things will get better. Where does it come from?

When the new guy comes to the meeting, sit together with the group and listen to the story of the other members. At some point, he looks around and thinks: “If it worked for that guy over there, why not for me?”

If you go to the meetings but don’t really believe you can do it, you have already sabotaged yourself — you won’t even try.

Our beliefs are like unquestioned commands, telling us how things are, what is possible and impossible and what we can and cannot do. As a result, changing our belief systems is central to making any real and lasting change in our lives.

Keystone Habits

In Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit, he discusses the idea of keystone habits.

These habits can have a domino effect — get one habit right, and many other good habits fall into place naturally. Here’s an example.

A study on weight loss tried to get obese people to follow a simple habit: write down everything they ate, at least one day a week. While difficult at first, it became a habit for many. Unexpectedly, this small habit rippled throughout their diet.

When forced to review what they ate, the study participants couldn’t help noticing when they snacked or when they had unhealthy dinners. They then proactively started to plan future meals so that when they wanted a snack, they reached for an apple rather than a chocolate bar.

The keystone habit of keeping a food journal created an environment for more healthy habits to thrive. Eventually, participants who kept a journal lost twice as much weight as the control group.

Some examples of keystone habits are:

Journaling: When I journal I feel more happy, creative and productive (to start you can enroll in our mindset challenge);

Exercising: According to research, exercise is correlated with better mood, less stress, more confidence, and better sleep;

Developing daily routines: Having consistency in our day is beneficial to our health and productivity;

Meditating: Besides a number of health benefits, meditating regularly is correlated with increased memory and awareness, reduced stress and anxiety, and increased goal-setting.

Other examples can include drawing, reading, and even making your bed every morning.

How to choose a keystone habit to work on? Use the inversion technique and ask yourself:

What are the results I want? What are the actions that someone who already achieved these results usually do? What do I need to believe in order to act / behave that way? What kind of habit that, if performed regularly, would made me believe in it?

The following quote from BJ Fogg, a professor at Stanford, sums this idea up nicely:

“If you plant the right seed in the right spot, it will grow without further coaxing. I believe this is the best metaphor for creating habits. The “right seed” is the tiny behavior that you choose. The “right spot” is the sequencing — what it comes after. The “coaxing” part is amping up motivation, which I think has nothing to do with creating habits. In fact, focusing on motivation as the key to habits is exactly wrong. Let me be more explicit: If you pick the right small behavior and sequence it right, then you won’t have to motivate yourself to have it grow. It will just happen naturally, like a good seed planted in a good spot.”

You don’t have to start big, but you must start somewhere. And journaling daily is scientifically proven as one of the most potent and powerful keystone habits you can acquire.