The Power of Habit

Points clés

• Every habit runs on a loop of cue, routine and reward that the brain automates
• Craving for the reward is what makes a habit stick or fall apart
• Keep the cue and reward but swap the routine to change a habit
• Keystone habits like exercise or family dinners start chain reactions across your life
• Willpower works like a muscle: it tires, it strengthens and planning saves it

À l'intérieur de ce bit

1. Your brain runs on loops

   Think about the last time you drove or walked a familiar route and arrived with no memory of the journey. Your brain had handed the job over to a habit.

2. Cue, routine, reward and craving

   Every habit, Duhigg argues, has three parts. A cue triggers it: a time, a place, a feeling, a person or a previous action.

3. Swap the routine, keep the rest

   You cannot easily delete a habit, but you can rewrite it. Duhigg calls this the golden rule of habit change: keep the old cue and the old reward, and insert a new routine between them.

4. Keystone habits and willpower

   Some habits matter far more than others because they set off chain reactions. Duhigg calls these keystone habits.

5. Habits of companies and crowds

   Organisations have habits too, and they are mostly unwritten. Duhigg describes a hospital where nurses had a habit of not questioning surgeons, until a series of avoidable mistakes forced a change, and a rail station fire that spread because no department felt responsible for the gap between them.

6. Passez à l'action

   Pick one habit you want to change and, for 3 days, write down the cue each time it fires: the time, place, mood, people and what you did just before. Then test rewards.