We have all heard it said: “Knowledge is power”.
So true. And I would add “Self knowledge is the greatest power of all”.
In his book on habits, Charles Duhigg unveils a potent bit of self knowledge, what he calls the “habit loop”. It is the basic structure of any habit – good or bad – and familiarity with it puts us back in the driver seat when it comes to starting new good habits or breaking bad habits.
It is not just a matter of willpower, as I have assumed throughout most of my life.
The habit loop is a system that operates within the brain to save it from the exhaustion of making and remaking thousands of little decisions on a daily basis.
In essence, if the brain recognizes a certain action regularly tends to pay off in a particular reward, it will place the routine on a loop that gets kicked off each time a particular cue presents itself.
We’re not too different from the lab rat placed in a box where a wall slides away with a click and the rat finds his way through a maze to a chunk of chocolate. The rat will quickly learn the maze and the click cue will trigger a craving for the reward and instantly engage the routine that will take the rat scurrying directly towards the reward.
The author illustrates it this way:
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