In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg dissects some of mankind’s best and worst habits, and breaks them down into the three stages of the “habit loop” – cue, routine and reward. Cues for a habit can include a specific place, time, a preceding action or feeling.  The routine consists of the habitual behavior itself. And the reward is of course what keeps us coming back again and again.

            Take one habit I was luckily able to shake – smoking. By the time I quit, I had an infinite number of "cues" for my habit, tiny moments in the day that would trigger a cigarette craving. The smell of coffee, the act of exiting the subway to the street, a feeling of stress, or a sip of an alcoholic beverage would have me reaching inside my pockets for my pack and my lighter. To this day, driving through my hometown is like hearing an old lover’s favorite song; I can’t experience it and not think about what’s missing. As soon as I buckle in and turn out of the driveway, I’m flooded with nostalgia and a longing for some marlboros.

            And as for rewards, smoking provided many. In addition to satisfying your nicotine addiction, smoking gives you oral and tactile stimulation, a “cool” (and artistic) self-image, a temporary distraction, and an opportunity to brood or to socialize. I used smoking to get away from paintings I was having difficulties with, to kill time during long shifts waiting tables, to escape from the people I didn’t want to talk to at bars and to interact with the people that I did. While the habit certainly did its damage to my health, my wallet, and my work ethic, I also made friends with people I may never have spoken to if I didn’t need a light.  

            So the central question then, the reason someone would purchase a book like Duhigg's, is of course – how do you go about hacking such an ingrained habit? Duhigg suggests we first observe and document the behavior, which in itself requires a dose of mindfulness and self-awareness. Once we better understand what triggers our routine and what “reward” we get out of it, we can begin experimenting with replacement routines that scratch the itch in another, ideally healthier, way. One example cited in the book was how AA participants, many of whom started drinking as a way to socialize, are required to call their sponsor whenever they have a craving. Doing so provides the reward of bonding and blowing off steam without all the binge drinking.

           Even though I’m no longer a smoker, I picked up The Power of Habit knowing there are habits I want to build and quite a few I’d rather not have. Actually, “a few” is a massive understatement. I’m a nail biter, an alarm snoozer, a face picker, a complainer and a chocoholic. I unintentionally replaced my smoking habit with an addiction to (usually caffeinated) beverages, so that now whenever I want a distraction from something I’m working on, I go and make myself a coffee, or a cup of tea, before getting back to work and often neglecting the drink it until it’s cold, and so I leave to warm it back up when I need a distraction again.  For habits like this, figuring out the cue and the reward isn’t terribly difficult. My beverage addiction gives me a break from my work and satisfies my caffeine craving. I usually bite my nails out of boredom and it gives me a way to fidget. And as gross as it may be, there is a definitive sense of satisfaction and relief in popping an awful zit, even if I make my face a swollen and bloody mess in the process.

            But then there are those habits we all have that are not so easily dissected. What “reward” does one get out of nagging a spouse over something trivial, or getting the last word in an argument? Around the world are parents and teachers and leaders who continue to act and to communicate in ways that we know are ineffective, that rarely, if ever, deliver us the desired “reward,” but something keeps bringing us round the loop again and again and again – we cuss at the guy that cut us off, we hoard our wealth, we raise our voices, we go to war.  

           And just noticing the cues for our habitual ways of communicating with each other in times of frustration and stress, and figuring out what behaviors to replace them with, is much easier said than done. Meditation is my personal prescription for distancing myself from some of my less-than-stellar behaviors, but progress is slow and old habits die hard. And even when I'm able to carefully sidestep an undesirable loop and take a different path, I’m still left with questions like,

"What reward exactly did I think this behavior would bring me?"

"Why on earth is this a habit in the first place?"

"Did I learn this from my parents?"

"Is this genetic?"

"Can I really overcome this pattern with the aid of meditation apps and self-help books, or is my behavior a deeply ingrained aspect of my personality that I am destined to teach to any child I bear who cares to mimic it?"

            When questions like these pop into my head, I have to check my Ms. Critic and remember that all people are capable of remarkable change. Duhigg rightly dedicates nearly an entire chapter to the idea that, in order to change a habit, we first need to believe that change is possible. “If you believe you can change,” he writes, “ if you make it a habit – the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. Once that choice occurs – and becomes automatic – it’s not only real, it starts to seem inevitable…”

So right now I'm training in the habit of faith, removing doubt from the loop, and making a conscious choice to believe in change. 

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope one day you will join us, and the world will be as one.” – John Lennon