The Power Of Habits By Charles Duhigg

Everyone has habits that they would like to change or even improve; however, people don’t know how to. The book The Power of Habits, by Charles Duhigg, explains how habits could be changed or improved with the habit loop. Habit loop is a three-step process. The first step is a cue, then a routine and last is a reward. If one of these steps is missing, the habit could not be changed. I had to use the habit loop method to be able to change one of my habits, so I could succeed in my education this semester.

Over time, this loop will become more and more automatic. The cue and reward become intertwined until a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges. Eventually, a habit is born. When a habit is born, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so it focus on other tasks. So unless you deliberately fight a habit and find new routines, the pattern will unfold automatically. It’s important to understand that habits don’t disappear, but they could be changed. Steven Handel mentioned in his article “Identify Your Habit Loops” the importance of forming a plan to help change unhelpful habit loops. Handel also mentions that if people plan to act in a certain way at a certain time and place, it makes it much more likely that they are going to commit to that new behavior, “which is called implementation

For example, when people are bored, they start doing pointless things. Another example will be when teachers ask if someone has a question or a comment, I would ask all the doubts I had regarding the assignment. I would start my assignment, and if there was a problem while working on it, I would immediately send a message to get help. With consistent use it will become a routine, and with time it will transform into a habit. For this step to work, I need to think about what the reward is going to be at the end to get motivated and continue making it a