Atomic Habits Chapter 3: How to build better habits in 4 simple steps

A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.

The process of habit formation begins with trial and error. The first time you come across a problem, the brain is high in neurological activity. You are carefully analyzing the situation and making conscious decisions about how to act. You're taking in tons of new information and trying to make sense of it all. The brain is busy learning the most effective course of action.

As habits are created, the level of activity in the brain decreases. You learn to lock in on the cues that predict success and tune out everything else. When a similar situation arises in the future, you know exactly what to look for. There is no longer a need to analyze every angle of a situation. Your brain skips the process of trial and error and creates a mental rule: if this, then that.

Habit formations is incredibly useful because the conscious mind is the bottleneck of the brain. It can only pay attention to one problem at a time. As a result, your brain is always working to preserve your conscious attention for whatever task is most essential. Whenever possible, the conscious mind likes to pawn off tasks to the nonconscious mind to do automatically. This is precisely what happens when a habit is formed. Habits reduce cognitive load and free up mental capacity, so you can allocate your attention to other tasks.

The ultimate purpose of habis is to solve the problems of life with as little energy and effort as possible. Conversely, when you have your habits dialed in and the basics of life are handled and done, your mind is free to focus on new challenges and master the next set of problems. Building habits in the present allows you to do more of what you want in the future.

Any habit can be broken down into a feedback loop that involves four steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.

The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. It is a bit of information that predicts a reward. Because the cue is the first indication that we're close to a reward, it naturally leads to a craving.

Cravings are the second step, and they are the motivational force behind every habit. What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in state it delivers. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into a craving.

The third step is the response. The response is the actual habit you perform, which can take the form of a thought or an action. Whether a response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with the behavior. Your response also depends on your ability.

Finally, the response delivers a reward. Rewards are the end goal of every habit. The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward. We chase rewards because they serve two purposes: (1) they satisfy us and (2) they teach us.

The first purpose of rewards is to satisfy your craving. Food and water deliver the energy you need to survive. Getting a promotion brings more money and respect. But thw more immediate benefit is that rewards satisfy your craving to eat or to gain status. At least for a moment, rewards deliver contentment and relief from craving.

Second, rewards teach us which actions are worth remembering in the future. Your brain is a reward detector. As you go about your life, your sensory nervous system is continuously monitoring which actions satisfy your desires and deliver pleasure.

If a behavior is insufficient in any of the four stages, it will not become a habit. Eliminate the cue and your habit will never start. Reduce the craving and you won't experience enough motivation to act. Make the behavior difficult and you won't be able to do it. And if the reward fails to satisfy your desire, then you'll have no reason to do it again in the future. Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. Without all four, a behavior will not be repeated. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. This cycle is known as the habit loop.

We can split these four steps into two phases: the problem phase and the solution phase. The problem phase includes the cue and the craving, and it is when you realize that something needs to change. The solution phase includes the response and the reward, and it is when you take action and achieve the change you desire.

See this example:

Problem phase

1. Cue: Your phone buzzes with a new text message

2. Craving: You want to learn the contents of the message

Solution phase

3. Response: You grab your phone and read the text.

4. Reward: You satisfy your craving to read the message.

Grabbing your phone becomes associated with your phone buzzing.

The Four Laws of Behavior Change are a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are (1) cue: make it obvious, (2) craving: make it attractive, (3) response: make it easy, and (4) reward: make it satisfying. We can invert these laws to learn how to break a bad habit. They are (1) cue: make it invisible, (2) craving: make it unattractive, (3) response: make it difficult, and (4) reward: make it unsatisfying.

Saduran dari: Clear, James. 2018. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (Chapter 3).