Habit

“If more information was the answer, we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.” – Derek Sivers

More information is not the answer. Knowledge is not always power. This Sivers quote is as witty and comical as it is true and modern. Information is abundant; action is lacking. 

Without action, our learnings – the books we read, the courses we take and the subjects we learn – yield little fruit. Rather, they represent only potential energy. It is actions which give life to learnings. 

Bridging the gap between who we are and wish to become is predicated on active pursuit. To connect the gap – find the how – requires the assistance of habit formation. Our goals, dreams and aspirations demand actions plus the guidance of habits. Action to move us down the path and habit formation to effectively remove obstacles along the way. 

Habit formation is the seed of the QHP program because it is the origin of action, and we strive to be people of action. An effective habit sets us on the correct course. As Carl Jung said “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”  We want to use this wisdom and then take the reciprocal of it. Consciously find where we wish to go and implement habits which unconsciously direct us in the desired direction.

Habit formation is simple at heart. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, elegantly outlines a 4 step process describing how habits are established. It is as sophisticated as it is easy to follow. All habits originate in the brain and they follow cue, craving, response and reward. 

Habits start as a problem, or a cue and craving. A cue is an object in the environment that initiates a behavior. Most cues are visual – for example the remote on the coffee table. But all habits originate from the senses – see, smell, hear, taste and touch. Next, we feel the desire, or craving – to watch TV.  The craving creates agitation which motivates the brain toward seeking a solution. It propels us to take action and address the problem. 

In the solution phase, thanks to increased arousal felt from the craving, we seek a response and reward. The brain initiates the union of thought and movement seeking out the appropriate response that will garner the reward and restore calmness. The response and reward are straightforward; it is the action taken to solve the problem and the pleasure we receive from the experience.

Some habits, mostly biologically ingrained ones like food or sex, are inherently easy to establish as evolution has hardwired a strong reward. The less biologically predetermined, the harder the habit is to establish. These require some trickery.

But herein lies the power of habit formation: If we can successfully associate a reward with a cue, the more engaging and incentivizing the habit becomes – or as James Clear describes, “behaviors which get rewarded get repeated; behaviors which get punished get eliminated.” It becomes circular, and through habit formation, we are consciously capable of learning to enjoy that which is hard but necessary and effective.

Understanding the objectivity of habits is important. The words “good” and “bad” are purposefully absent. There are inherently no good or bad habits. All habits serve a biological goal. Instead, think in terms of ineffectiveness and effectiveness. If it is my desire to be healthy, then habits like poor sleep hygiene and alcohol consumption prove ineffective. But if I wish to be social, present and out-going, drinking and neglecting sleep will encourage me to stay out late and engage socially. In this situation, it becomes an effective habit. 

Now how we implement effective and eliminate ineffective habits depends entirely on aspirations. Therefore, it is pertinent we start with our goal as it is the guiding light. At the start, creating the new or eliminating the old is difficult because it requires increased energy, and we don’t like to expend valuable focus. 

To harness the power of habit, we use the 4 steps of habit – cue, craving, response and reward – and make effective habits obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying and ineffective habits invisible, unattractive, difficult and unsatisfying. 

There are unlimited examples, and we encourage all to personally explore how to implement the Laws of Habit Formation. But for clarity, let’s explore one relevant example: scrolling social media. 

We start with our goal: we spend too much time on social media and wish to reduce it. When eliminating habits always start with the cue; it is the most powerful. We delete all social applications on our phone. We also sike ourselves up by reading the negatives about mindlessly scrolling and the positives associated with improved time management. Notice here why removing the cue is more powerful; willpower, or biology, is removed from the equation. We have successfully eliminated the cue and made the craving unattractive. But wait, the brain is a sneaky bastard and we are now unconsciously logging into Instagram from the browser. To counteract, we place a screen time limit on the browser or have a friend change our passcode  – making it difficult, if not impossible without coercing our friend – and replace the free time with a productive habit like reading. We now read more books while engaging with meaningful material, and over time, view the scrolling increasingly less appealing. Social media is now invisible, unattractive, difficult and unsatisfying. 

To create an effective habit, like reading, we take the inverse and make the reward highly satisfying. We carry our book in a backpack or keep it on a desk nearby (obvious), read things which interest us (attractive), start by reading only 2 pages at a time (easy) and explore interesting topics which peak our curiosity while rewarding ourselves with a favorite snack upon completion (satisfying). We have established the feedback loop and the more we engage, the more we associate the cue with a juicy reward. To get the perfect abs and become rich, it requires action coupled with habit formation.