The Power of Habit Book Summary
Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Book by Charles Duhigg
Summary
The Power of Habit illuminates the science behind habit formation and provides practical strategies for transforming habits in our personal lives, organizations, and society.
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1. The Habits of Individuals
The 3-Step Habit Loop
Habits are formed through a 3-step process called the "habit loop":
- Cue: An environmental trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and prompts a habit
- Routine: The actual behavior or action you take, which can be physical, mental or emotional
- Reward: The benefit or pleasure you gain from doing the behavior, which helps your brain determine if the loop is worth remembering for the future
Over time, this loop becomes more and more automatic as the cue and reward become neurologically intertwined. Eventually a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges, and the habit becomes ingrained.
Section: 1, Chapter: 1
MIT Researchers Discover the Habit Loop
In the 1990s, MIT researchers began studying the neurological patterns of rats running through mazes to understand how habits are formed in the brain. They discovered:
- As the rats learned to navigate the maze, their mental activity decreased. The behavior became more and more automatic, with minimal thought required.
- Habits are stored in a part of the brain called the basal ganglia. When a cue is encountered, the brain essentially "chunks" the routine behavior together into an automatic unthinking response.
- This evolutionarily ancient part of the brain plays a key role in recalling patterns and acting on them, while the rest of the brain goes into a sleep-like state when a habit is occurring.
Section: 1, Chapter: 1
The Craving Brain
Once a habit is formed, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard, or diverts focus to other tasks. So unless you deliberately fight a habit—unless you find new routines—the pattern will unfold automatically.
Habits never really disappear. They're encoded into the structures of our brain, which is a huge advantage for us, because it would be awful if we had to relearn how to drive after every vacation. The problem is that your brain can't tell the difference between bad and good habits, so if you have a bad one, it's always lurking there, waiting for the right cues and rewards.
The brain's dependence on automatic routines can be dangerous. Habits are often as much a curse as a benefit. The key is to learn how to observe the cues and rewards that drive our behaviors, so we can change the routine that occurs in between.
Section: 1, Chapter: 1
Claude Hopkins - The Father of Modern Advertising
Claude Hopkins, one of the most famous advertisers of the early 20th century, created a national toothbrushing habit through his ads for Pepsodent toothpaste. His key insights:
- Find simple and obvious cues (like the tooth film that continually forms on teeth)
- Clearly define the rewards (like beautiful teeth)
- And claim that using your product is the best way to achieve those rewards
Through constant advertising, people began expecting the reward of a tingling clean feeling in their mouths whenever they encountered the cue of tooth film. As the cue and reward became linked in people's minds, brushing with Pepsodent became a daily habit.
Hopkins showed how new habits can be cultivated by focusing advertising on the cues and rewards that drive behaviors. But there was another component he didn't realize - the power of cravings.
Section: 1, Chapter: 2
The Power of Craving
Simply knowing the cue (like tooth film) and the reward (beautiful teeth) wasn't enough to make the Pepsodent habit stick long-term. Hopkins had also inadvertently tapped into the third component of the habit loop - craving.
Pepsodent contained citric acid, mint oil and other chemicals that created a cool tingling sensation in the mouth. This provided a subtle neurological pleasure, that over time became linked with the other cues and rewards of using Pepsodent. People began craving that slight irritation, the tingling sensation that signaled their mouths were clean. If it wasn't there, their mouths didn't feel right.
Cravings are the key that make cues and rewards work. Cravings power the habit loop. The routine occurs because the craving emerges, in anticipation of getting the reward to satisfy it. Countless studies have shown how powerful cravings can be in driving behavior. If we can identify the cravings that drive habits, we gain a huge advantage in changing behavior.
Section: 1, Chapter: 2
How to Create a Craving Where None Existed Before
When Febreze first launched, sales were abysmal. The product eliminated odors, but it had no scent of its own. People with smelly houses couldn't detect the bad smells that should have cued them to use Febreze. There was no existing craving driving the habit.
Then P&G marketers made a key insight - they needed to create a craving to use Febreze, even when smells weren't noticeable. They did this by:
- Adding a subtle new perfume to the product
- Showing commercials with women spraying Febreze at the end of a cleaning routine, as a final touch
- Portraying Febreze as a mini-celebration - a pleasant moment that brought joy and satisfaction after household chores
Section: 1, Chapter: 2
The Golden Rule of Habit Change
According to studies, it's very difficult to simply extinguish bad habits. Habits are so powerful because they create neurological cravings - the cues and rewards become hardwired in our brains. But you can change habits by applying the Golden Rule of habit change:
Keep the same cue. Provide the same reward. Change the routine in the middle.
If you use the same cue, and provide the same reward, you can shift the routine and change the habit. Almost any behavior can be transformed if you keep the cue and reward but insert a new routine. The cravings drive the habit loop, but as long as the loop provides the same cues and rewards, the routine in the middle can be altered.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
How Alcoholics Anonymous Leverages the Golden Rule
Alcoholics Anonymous is so effective because it helps alcoholics use the same cues and get the same reward, but shifts the routine. Researchers found:
- The cues that triggered an alcoholic's drinking (certain locations, social situations, emotional states) are identified through the AA 12-steps
- The rewards of drinking are also explicitly spelled out - escaping anxiety, relaxing, socializing, etc.
- AA then provides new routines to respond to those cues and rewards - going to meetings, calling a sponsor, meditating, praying, etc.
By diagnosing the habit loop, and then providing an alternative routine to satisfy the craving when cued, AA helps transform people's deepest habits. As long as the cues, rewards and cravings remain the same, a whole new set of routines can be developed to change the overall habit pattern.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Changing Habits Through a Sense of Belief
When alcoholics start believing in a higher power through AA's 12-steps, it provides an essential element to changing long-term habits - a sense of belief. The AA members who successfully avoid relapse don't just practice new routines - they come to believe that those routines will provide the rewards they crave.
Studies show that while changing habits depends on keeping the same cues and rewards, having a sense of belief is critical. AA works because it provides a framework where people believe it's possible to change their cravings over time. No matter how strong the physical craving for alcohol, if an alcoholic believes their newly learned habits can satisfy those urges, they have a much greater chance of staying sober.
When people believe that change is possible, the power of habit becomes easier to grasp, and the only option left is to get to work. Groups create belief - if we surround ourselves with people whose habits we admire, it becomes easier to change our own. Belief is easier when it occurs within a community.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Champions and Habits
"Champions don't do extraordinary things. They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits they've learned."
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
2. The Habits of Successful Organizations
The Surprising Power of Keystone Habits
Some habits matter more than others - they have the power to transform our lives by creating a cascade of other positive habits and outcomes. These are called "keystone habits."
Keystone habits say that success doesn't depend on getting every single thing right, but instead relies on identifying a few key priorities and fashioning them into powerful levers. Keystone habits shape how people work, eat, play, live, spend, and communicate. They start a process that, over time, transforms everything.
When people start habitually exercising, even as infrequently as once a week, they start changing other, unrelated patterns in their lives, often unknowingly. They start eating better, becoming more productive, smoking less, showing more patience, spending less time watching TV and more time on homework. They use their credit cards less frequently, feel less stressed, and become better planners and communicators. It's not completely clear why, but for many people, exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change.
Section: 2, Chapter: 4
Paul O'Neill Transforms Alcoa
When Paul O'Neill became CEO of aluminum giant Alcoa in 1987, he surprised everyone by setting a keystone habit as his primary focus - improving worker safety. His goal: zero injuries.
Though many initially resisted, O'Neill's safety focus created a habit loop where:
- Cue = An injury occurs
- Routine = Managers report injury to O'Neill, conduct safety review, and recommend changes
- Reward = Promotions and praise for managers who take safety seriously
Within a year, Alcoa's profits hit a record high. By the time O'Neill retired in 2000, Alcoa's net income was 5X larger than before he arrived, and Alcoa went from 1.86 lost work days to injury per 100 workers to 0.2.
The focus on safety created an atmosphere where other keystone habits took hold, like extensive employee training programs and workplace communication systems, that improved efficiency and quality control. These keystone habits transformed Alcoa's entire culture.
Section: 1, Chapter: 4
Characteristics of Keystone Habits
Keystone habits share some common characteristics that make them so effective:
- Create small wins: Victories that are easy to achieve and build momentum. Small wins fuel transformative changes by encouraging more small wins.
- Help other habits to flourish: They establish new structures that help other habits to grow. The keystone habit of a daily family dinner can lead to regular discussions and planning about homework, chores, finances, etc.
- Create a culture where change becomes contagious: When keystone habits promote values that become ingrained, they make change easier. Excellence becomes a cultural value, not just a priority. Visible keystone habits signal key priorities and create shared experiences that reinforce those priorities.
The power of keystone habits is that they change our basic beliefs about ourselves and what's possible, setting off a cascade effect across every aspect of our lives.
Section: 2, Chapter: 4
The Power of Small Wins
"Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach."
Section: 2, Chapter: 4
Willpower is the Single Most Important Keystone Habit
Studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success. Willpower is a learnable skill, something that can be taught the same way kids learn math or say "thank you." Once willpower becomes stronger, it touches everything.
Willpower was more predictive of success than IQ or other metrics. Self-discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than intelligence. It also predicted which students would improve their grades and have fewer behavioral problems.
The best way to strengthen willpower is to turn it into a habit - to make it into a routine practiced at the same time each day. Willpower becomes a habit by choosing a behavior ahead of time and following it when required. It's best cultivated when people decide on a plan ahead of key inflection points where willpower typically breaks down.
Section: 2, Chapter: 5
The Willpower Muscle - Use It or Lose It
In a landmark 1998 study, researchers found:
- When subjects resisted temptations like chocolate chip cookies, they were less likely to persist on difficult puzzles.
- The more self-control subjects deployed, the more quickly their self-control "muscle" fatigued.
- However, willpower depletion was less severe for subjects who had practiced small but regular willpower exercises, like maintaining good posture, for several weeks leading up to the experiment. Their willpower muscles had been strengthened over time.
- There's only so much willpower to go around, so it's key to practice it regularly and develop willpower habits to build up strength and endurance.
Willpower is like any other muscle - it needs regular exercise to avoid atrophy. Habits of regular willpower practice help reinforce and strengthen our ability to exert self-control. The more we use the willpower muscle, the less quickly it tires. Willpower truly can become automatic with practice.
Section: 2, Chapter: 5
The Power of a Crisis
Destructive organizational habits can be found across hundreds of industries - inflexibility, poor communication, toxic internal competition, etc. But a crisis like a financial meltdown or catastrophic mistake provides an opportunity - a kind of "unfreezing" - where organizational habits suddenly become flexible in the face of existential fears. People become more open to radical change.
Studies of overcoming a history of bad habits at organizations have consistently found that a crisis is essential to spur change:
- Nurses who broke safety protocols out of competitive spite with physicians only corrected their behavior after a deadly mistake led to a scandal.
- A manufacturing plant couldn't break its cycle of poor quality control until overwhelming debts and contractual failures forced a complete overhaul.
- A dysfunctional government bureaucracy resisted adopting data-driven routines until a corruption scandal threatened its existence.
As economist Paul Romer puts it, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste." Savvy leaders use a sense of crisis to shake bad habits loose before they cause too much damage - or they manufacture a sense of crisis to unfreeze calcified habits before the real crisis hits.
Section: 2, Chapter: 6
How a Deadly Subway Fire Led to Organizational Transformation
The 1987 King's Cross fire in London was a horrific subway station blaze that killed 31 people and revealed the dysfunctional organizational habits of the city's transit authorities.
After the fire:
- A public inquiry created a sense of crisis, laying bare for all to see the organization's outdated and dangerous routines
- Routines and truces shifted to make passenger safety the explicit priority
- A change in collective habits that would have been impossible before the crisis took hold
In the heat of a crisis, organizational habits become malleable enough to both assign responsibility and create a more equitable balance of power. A crisis can provide the opportunity to replace dysfunctional and dangerous institutional patterns with more functional and productive routines. But the window for change is narrow - leaders must act quickly before the sense of crisis abates and habits calcify again.
Section: 2, Chapter: 6
The Importance of Familiarity
To change people's habits, new behaviors must be made to feel familiar
- Procter & Gamble couldn't get Febreze to sell until they positioned it as part of the familiar cleaning routine, rather than a way to remove bad smells
- The U.S. government couldn't get people to eat organ meats during WWII until they described them as "variety meats" and used them in familiar dishes like meatloaf
- Target made new parents feel comfortable buying baby gear there by placing familiar items nearby and putting coupons next to regular merchandise
Section: 2, Chapter: 7
Finding the Trigger Habit
Look for the "keystone habit" that can set off a chain reaction of widespread change
- For the Montgomery bus boycotts, it was Parks' close ties to the community that made her arrest a trigger point
- Find a keystone habit that taps into social ties and peer pressure to make change seem inevitable
- At Target, the keystone habit they tapped into was the habit of shopping for familiar, regularly used items at the store. Adding baby products to this routine made it a place new parents naturally shopped.
Section: 2, Chapter: 7
3. The Habits of Societies
The Three-Part Process That Fuels Social Movements
According to Duhigg, social habits drive successful social movements through a three-part process:
- The social habits of friendship and strong ties between close acquaintances
- The habits of a community, and the peer pressure that comes from "weak ties" between a broader group of people
- Leaders giving participants new habits that create a fresh sense of identity and feelings of ownership
Section: 3, Chapter: 8
Rick Warren's Five "Circles of Commitment"
At Saddleback Church, Rick Warren used a framework of "Circles of Commitment" to gradually alter churchgoers' habits:
- Community: Get people to see the church community as an integral part of their lives
- Crowd: Move people from just attending church to joining small groups
- Congregation: In small groups, teach new habits anchored in Bible lessons and reflections
- Committed: Ask people to volunteer, tithe regularly and make other bigger commitments
- Core: The inner circle of membership, where the new habits have become second nature
Section: 3, Chapter: 8
The Neurology of Free Will
During sleep terrors, the conscious parts of the brain shut down while areas controlling basic habits stay active. People having sleep terrors are not "choosing" their actions because the decision-making prefrontal cortex is not engaged. They fall back on ingrained "fight or flight" instincts without regard for consequences. This raises questions about how much conscious "free will" shapes our habits even when awake.
Section: 3, Chapter: 9
Differences Between Pathological Gamblers and Social Gamblers
Researchers did MRI scans of the brains of pathological gamblers vs. social gamblers while they used slot machines. Near-misses (where you almost win) activated the same reward circuitry as wins for pathological gamblers. For social gamblers, near-misses were processed the same as losses. This explains why pathological gamblers chase losses - their brain chemistry drives them to keep going.
Section: 3, Chapter: 9
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