Exploring the Power of Habit
Tags: Charles Duhigg, Habit Building, Book Club

“Habits are powerful, but delicate. They can emerge outside our consciousness, or can be deliberately designed. They often occur without our permission, but can be reshaped by fiddling with their parts. They shape our lives far more than we realize — they are so strong, in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense.” ― Charles Duhigg, The Power Of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business

Part 1 — The Habits of Individuals

I was a little confused with the start of this one. What did the story of H.M. have to do with habits? It felt more like a callback to the movie Momento (which is great in case you haven’t seen it). Quickly, the purpose came into view. Habits are so ingrained in our brains that we can forget everything else about our lives, and we’ll still fallback to them.

So how do we form habits? The habit loop:

Cue → Routine → Reward

For me, it would look something like this:

Cue — Stressful situation

Routine — Bite my nails

Reward — Relief of stress

This was, obviously, not a habit I wanted or knowingly created. However, we can use this same system to build a new habit — like exercising.

We also can hijack this loop to change a habit. I related quite a bit to Mandy, who was a chronic nail biter as well. She was told to identify her cues first. Then when she noticed the cues, she was to actively change the routine to still be rewarded without tearing apart her cuticles. My take? This is easier said than done. That’s where the concept of willpower comes into play.

“Willpower isn’t just a skill. It’s a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there’s less power left over for other things.” ― Charles Duhigg, The Power Of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business

This quote from Power of Habit accurately described why you shouldn’t go about trying to change too much at once — you’ll exhaust yourself. If you’re trying to change a negative habit or introducing a new one, take it slow.

Another key to making this work? Believing that the habit can change.

Part 2 — The Habits of Successful Organization

I’ve always thought of this more as the “culture” of an organization, rather than “habits”. However, the substance of this section is interesting. Firms should learn from their mistakes, especially when catastrophic in nature. Firms should celebrate their small victories to build into something bigger. Firms should create those “keystone habits” that create a structure and help other positive habits develop.

This section also delves into companies using habits as a means of manipulation. This is certainly an ethical gray-area when it comes to marketing, but we as consumers cannot be as naive to think companies aren’t collecting very personal information on all of us.

Part 3 — The Habits of Societies

Continuing on the idea of responsibility for habits — companies or the individual — we get an overview of the gambling habits of Angie Bachmann. One could argue that Angie is fully responsible for the debt she assumed because she knowingly chose to gamble (“chose” at least the first few times). One could also argue that Angie bears little to no responsibility given Harrah’s actions.

To me, comparing Angie to the tragedy of Andrew Pole isn’t remotely close and does a disservice of passing off the blame we as individuals should carry for forming bad habits. That’s not to say Angie is 100% responsible in my eyes, but the two situations are not alike.

Additionally, this section tracks small actions that caused entire movements in our history as a society. Rosa Parks was not the only person to refuse to give up her seat on a bus, but her actions sparked many to get involved. Charles Duhigg calls this affect the power of weak ties. Once again, I’ve always thought of this more as “societal peer pressure” rather than anything habit related.

Conclusion

The book itself is a good and fun read. As an NFL fan, I enjoyed hearing about Tony Dungy’s philosophy (even if I’m a diehard Texans fan). Duhigg uses numerous examples to keep the narrative flowing and create an interesting story. Yet, I can’t help but feel the book could have been shorter and included more analysis on the stories provided. As it is, the book makes it seem as though forming or changing a habit is easy.