Habits follow a 3 step loop.
Cue
Routine
Reward
The cue is the trigger for your behaviour.
It acts as a reminder and the instigator of the sequence. It could be triggered by sight, sound, smell, sensation, emotion, environmental. It can even be the people we are with or the time of day.
Eg. It’s 7 am.
See a chocolate bar
Smell fresh bread from the baker
Stressed from work or seeing the inlaws
The routine is the behaviour we practice immediately after the cue.
Following the examples above.
7 am - coffee time
See Chocolate Bar - feel the urge to eat it.
Smell Fresh Bread - start to feel hungry.
Stress/In-Laws- feel the need for a drink.
Finally, we have a reward. This is how our habits are reinforced. Rewards are increases/decreases in pleasant/unpleasant sensations, emotions or thoughts.
As a result, we practice the response until it becomes a reliable and automatic habit.
It locks the habit loop in place and the more it’s reinforced with the reward, the strong the link. The stronger the link, the harder the habit becomes to change.
Examples of rewards from above:
Amazing tasting coffee
Craving satisfied with chocolate
Hunger fulled after eating bred
Stress relief after a drink
Repetition triggers long-term changes to the brain’s structure. These then become learned behaviours.
With time, the brain begins to expect and crave the reward as soon as the cue arises.
Every time we smell the fresh bakery bread we feel hungry. When we anticipate stress we crave that drink. When it’s 6:59 am we have a yearning for that rich aromatic blend of coffee.
Whether intentionally or by accident, whether good or bad, the habits we’ve formed follow this sequence.
Now that we know the anatomy and structure of habits and how they are formed, we can use this to build new habits and break old ones.
Find The Cue
The cue is the trigger for your behaviour. It acts as a reminder and the instigator of the sequence
The cue is what triggers you to do the habit, for example sitting at the kitchen table and grinding salt and pepper onto your meal before you start. The cue is sitting down with the plate in front of you.
How do we figure out what actually triggers us to do a certain behaviour? (Especially if we want to try and break or replace a habit)
We need to Find the Cue
Most habit cues fall into one of 5 categories:
- location
- time
- emotional state
- other people
- immediately preceding action
To change a habit:
To find out what your cue is for a certain behaviour, answer these questions every time you practice that behaviour for 1-2 weeks. (or however long it takes to identify the cue).
The one (or more) that remain consistent are likely to point to the cue.
Where were you?
What time was it?
How were you feeling?
Who were you with?
What happened beforehand?
Examples:
Time: If you tend to crave a sweet treat at 3pm every day
Location: If you pull into Maccas because you drive past it on your way home
Emotion: If you drink too much when you’re stressed
Preceding event: If you head to the fridge every day when you walk into the house
People: If you tend to overeat or indulge with a certain person/group
Once we have the cue, we can work on the plan. The plan is simply to then think ahead and figure out what your choices are when the cue occurs to rewire the habit loop.
What are your cues for a habit you're currently trying to change?
To build a habit, we can use cues as triggers.
Select one of the following cues:
Time: At 7am I will..
Location: When I drive past “x” I will
Emotion: When I feel stressed I will
Preceding event: When I walk in the front door I will
Other people: When I am with Dave, next time I will
The cues are our anchors that we attach our routines to.
We’ve identified or created the cue.
The next step in the sequence is the routine.
The routine is the behaviour we practice immediately after the cue.
This is the habit we are trying to build or change.
It’s the drinking the coffee, the stress eating, the eating protein at breakfast, the stretching, the journalling, the sleep routine, etc.
If we want to change a habit, we can follow the principle of “Replacing Ryan”.
Sometimes it is difficult to change our cue, so our next best option is to replace the routine.
Take Replacing Ryan for example.
Everyday at 3 pm (his cue), he craves a piece of chocolate. Since Ryan struggles to control his portions of chocolate, he wants to replace his behaviour. He is also trying to build a habit of having more protein in his diet so Ryan decides to replace his chocolate with a Protein Mousse his coach Josh told him about.
Examples:
Time: If you tend to crave a sweet treat at 3pm every day, can you be prepared with a piece of fruit?
Location: If you pull into Maccas because you drive past it on your way home, can you drive an alternate way home?
Emotion: If you drink too much when you’re stressed, can you find a replacement behaviour when stress is triggered?
Preceding event: If you head to the fridge every day when you walk into the house, can you leave a note near the door reminding you to do something else?
People: If you tend to overeat or indulge with a certain person/group can you communicate with them and find an alternative activity that doesn’t involve food?
When trying to build a new habit:
Time: At 7am I will write in my journal
Location: When I drive past Maccas I will get in the furthest lane to prevent drinking in.
Emotion: When I feel stressed I will call a friend
Preceding event: When I walk in the front door I will get changed straight into my gym clothes
Other people: When I am with Dave, next time I will meet him at a cafe instead of a pub.
When we have a new routine or a replacement in mind, try to plan it out and mentally rehearse yourself practicing it. You can also write down the steps of the sequence to help reinforce the chain events.
That’s Cue and Routine, next is the reward.
Reward is the reinforcer.
This is what locks in the habit loop and makes it a continuous circle likely to be repeated.
What gets rewarded gets repeated.
The reward is how habits are built and the stronger this link gets, the harder it becomes to change them.
Our rewards are the taste, the satisfaction, the stress relief, the filling of a void, the enjoyment, the happiness, the dopamine rush, etc.
Rewards are increases or decreases in pleasant or unpleasant sensations, emotions or thoughts.
Consequences can also be used as the opposite of the reward in order to try and break a habit.
If we consciously or subconsciously enjoy a reward, we naturally want to experience the reward again. A message is sent to the brain saying “that is good, give me more of that”. So it reinforces the habit loop including the Cue and the Routine. It remembers all the parts of the sequence.
If the opposite occurs and we don’t enjoy a consequence, the brain will send a message saying “nope, I do not like that, let’s not do that again” and it will also remember the Cues and Routines in order to avoid them in the future.
The rewards/consequences can occur naturally or we can create them.
In the habit building or breaking process we want these to be immediate as they will have a greater impact on the habit loop. Long term rewards such as weight loss, improved health, improved sleep or long term consequences such as weight gain, poor health, poor sleep, etc don’t seem to be as effective because they are delayed.
We want to bring the rewards forward, make them more instant.
Think of the carrot and the stick.
The carrot is the treat, the reward:
Treat yourself in a way that is aligned with your goals and reinforces the habit. It might be ticking it off your list, giving yourself some points or a high five.
Be thoughtful about what new habits this reward itself might create.
Publicly show that you’re proud of your action.
If you have a great support network, tell them about it and check in with them to keep you motivated.
Visualise your desired outcome and remind yourself of it often. Tell yourself you’re moving towards your goal every time you practice the habit.
Track progress and celebrate all your wins.
Small wins reinforce the behaviour and increase your self confidence.
Set up some sticks
What will happen if you practice your undesired behaviour? 100 burpees? Write and read a poem on Instagram?
Create a contract with yourself. The threat of breaking it can be a simple yet powerful motivator.
Make a public commitment to people whose opinion you care about but who are not so close they won’t judge you if you fail.
You can either create a reward to build a new habit or add a consequence to break an old one.
This is how the habit loop is created or broken.
The 3 steps are now complete.
You have your cue.
You have your routine.
You have your reward.
Now we need repetition.
Repetition triggers long-term changes in the brain’s structure (learning).
The structural changes that lay the foundation of our habits are triggered only by extended, consistent practice.