Cut outs of some of the interesting passages of the book Habits by Duhigg. Used as a base for discussion on the book. Non-commercial use only - buy the book, its excellent!

1. Book by Charles Duhigg
Presented by Tomas “KLepo” Klesken at LIC BB 2013

2. “All our life, so far as it has definite
form, is but a mass of habits.”
William James, 1892

3. “More than 40 percent of the actions
people performed each day weren’t
actual decisions, but habits.”
Duke University research, 2006

4. Creation of the habit loop

5. Creation of the habit loop
What is the
doing?
1. At first, brain is working nonstop.
2. After some repeating the mental activity
decreases. Brain starts thinking less and
less, it knows what it does.
3. After a week – not even “memory” part of
brain is working. Brain learned the task so
well that it nearly does not think at all.

6. Creation of the habit loop
“Chunking” - zhlukovanie

7. Creation of the habit loop
Remember Pavlov dogs? :)

8. The habit loop

9. Creation of the HABIT LOOP
So what do we know?
a) Brain is lazy :D
b) Is it repeated? = routine -> make it a habit
(so brain can focus on other things)
star
So why doesn’t it kills us?
Because behavior chunk
ts or en
(btw: Don't repeat what you don’t want to do forever.)
ds

10. Creation of the habit loop
“Chunking” - zhlukovanie

11. Fearing the habit loop
Habit => brain stops decision making and thinks about other things.
If you don’t stop them in doing so,
patterns will form automatically.
Breaking the habit loop
1. You can change its parts (cue, routine, reward).
2. Habits never really disappear (they just sleep).
3. Brain can’t tell the difference between
bad and good habits.
4. Your bad habits are always hiding there,
waiting for the right cues and rewards.

12. Habit loop: Addiction
 As the habit becomes stronger and stronger brain begins anticipating
reward and is “happy” before it comes –> when the trigger comes.
 If strong, the happiness will come even if the reward doesn’t come.
 And if it is strong enough, no distractions or other rewards, will work.

13. Habit loop: Addiction

14. Habit loop: Changing habits
Want to change a habit?
You can change its parts (cue, routine, reward).
Find a simple obvious cue and clearly define the reward.
Often its not about thinking about how to get rid of a bad habit, because we are used to
it and its part of our daily reality and subconsciousness (what we do without thinking).
What we need is a strong reward we will crave for at the end.

15. Habit loop: Changing habits
Golden rule of habit change:
“Keep the Cue and Reward, replace the Routine.”

16. Habit loop: Changing habits
Why do we fail?
1. Stress (under stress we think and selfcontrol less)
2. The original Cue returns and the Routine is back
Supporting the chances of success:
1.
Identify the loop
2.
Do a first step immediately upon deciding
3.
Belief (that change is possible) makes a difference
4.
Group/Team creates belief
(seeing the good examples & peer pressure & .their trust/support in you)
5.
Acting becomes reality (because the group believes in it)
6.
Do something for someone else (don’t be self centered)
7.
One good change will bring a general change – it makes you a better . .
.person by making it easier to adopt other good habits
8.
Adopt small habits (small wins), that will build the big goal
9.
You can not 100% plan the steps, you find them on the way
10. Radical changes are hard to keep, it needs to be long-term

17. IQ vs. self discipline
“Highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on
every academic-performance measure.”
“Students who exerted high levels of willpower were more likely to earn higher
grades. They had fewer absences and spent less time browsing internet and
more hours on studying.”
“Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does
intellectual talent.”
“The best way to strengthen willpower and give people
an advantage is to make it into a habit.”
“Sometimes it looks like people with great self-control aren’t working hard—but
that’s because they’ve made it automatic.”
Research of University of Pennsylvania, 2005

18. IQ vs. self discipline
Only 30 % are strong enough :P
If you knew how to avoid the temptation of a marshmallow as a preschooler, it
seemed, you also knew how to get yourself to class on time and finish your homework
once you got older, as well as how to make friends and resist peer pressure.

19. Self discipline has its limits
The story of
Coooooooooookieees
Onion
Unsolvable puzzle
…and willpower

20. Willpower is a muscle
Willpower is a:
1) Skill (you can learn it)
2) Muscle (it gets tired and can be trained).
Can I increase it? Yes!
Good habits “spill over”, remember? Just like belief and willpower:
If you make yourself stick to one good thing, other good habits will come.
Why? You’re changing how you think:
1. You get better at regulating your impulses (ignore cues).
2. You learn how to distract yourself from temptations.
3. And once your brain has exercised the willpower training,
it is also practiced at helping you focus on a goal.

21. Creating habits of an organisation
Plan the problematic points:
- Create routines that will help people deal with the situations and
- so help them by training to deal with situations where their willpower will be used,
- or they need to do something difficult.
Problem? Habit is a solution :)
Does it always work? Not if you are an asshole to your people!
You have less willpower and
it lasts longer if:
You have less energy and your willpower
muscles get tired much faster if:
you feel good
you feel bad
it’s your choice
you don’t want to do it
it’s something you enjoy
you are following orders
it helps someone else
you have no autonomy
“People want to be in control of their lives.”
(Soldiers are people with broken autonomy, their willpower comes from outside.)

22. Organisational habits
1. Organisational decisions = employees’ independent decisions
2. Organisational behavior = mostly unofficial rules
3. You can not change an organisation by inventing new
values, competences, rules or motto. Its people “know what the
should be doing” in good and bad.
4. Changing an organisation = changing individual habits of people.
5. Often a hard crisis/shock or generation change is needed.
6. Organisations with less written rules tend to be more productive.
7. “If you don’t give your employees freedom, they create their own.”
An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, 1982, Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter, Yale

23. Organisational habits

24. Making a big change
We want to get what we know, what we are familiar with
(we in fact really like songs that we know, not the ones that are actually really good).
Peer pressure – when we follow the lead of others. That’s why it is
important what the role models do, but also any of us can become
the person who will be followed, because we did act in a way.
(Social) acceptance of a behavior takes only 3 people we see do it.
Kill the “I almost made it” feeling, it just stops you from changing.
Change it from “I nearly won” to “I nearly lost” (or other way
around, depends what are you changing.

25. Making a big change
If you believe you can change
(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—the change not only becomes
real, it starts to seem certain that it will happen.
Just like in “Secret”…oooooh :)

26. Making a change
So to sum it up, how to change a habit:
• Identify the routine
• Experiment with rewards
• Isolate the cue
• Have a plan