Summary

Studies indicate that we spend 43% of our day performing habitual actions. Wendy Wood describes how behavior is a combination of a person and their environment, the 4 building blocks of habit formation, and the special cases to look out for when forming habits.

Key Takeaways

• Thoughtfully structure your environment as behavior is a function of it / context
• Ensure reward to a habit is intrinsic or immediately extrinsic, not engineered

Notes

Part 1: How We Really Are

• Willpower → habits → persistence
• Habit: requires no space in conscious mind
• 40-50% of our daily actions are habitual
• Introspection illusion: Overconfident we’re acting on own beliefs + desires, not habits
• Chunking: binding bits of coherent info into a whole, single unit of memory
• Repeated actions / habits rewire brain, use different part despite same action
• Self-control determines success, health, etc
• Easiest way to practice self-control is to “hide the marshmallow”: avoid temptation in the first place; form good habits
• ^ Eg. remove cigarette ads, illegal at work

Part 2: The 3 Bases of Habit Formation

• Behavior = person + context (environment)
• Internal: goals, feelings, attitudes
• External: location, time, actions etc.
• Much more of our behavior is determined by our context / surroundings than we think
• Find ways to reduce friction (eg. distance)
• Eg. central apartment / work station
• Habit subconsciously takes over. Possibly 40-66 reps depending on study, habit type
• Uber uses habit engineering → 10 reps
• The reward to a habit is generally intrinsic or immediately extrinsic, not engineered
• Sign of a strong habit: diminishing / absent reward doesn’t impede habit prevalence
• Time is an ideal cue for habit consistency
• Unexpected rewards > expected rewards
• Eg. Gambling vs. paycheck
• Stacking: using an existing habit as a cue for a new behavior
• Piggyback marketing: carrier com.’s service becomes a cue for rider com’s product
• Swapping: cue from old habit can be used to trigger similar new one (eg. New mop)
• ↓ friction for good habits, ↑ friction for bad habits (eg. use cash → frugal, 30% less $$)
• 4 building blocks of habit:
• Create a stable context / environment
• Reduce friction (driving, restraining)
• Make it rewarding
• Repeat until automatic

Part 3: Special Cases, Big Opportunities

• Discontinuities / new context: biggest opportunity for new habit formation
• Stress / tiredness → habits take control (eg. stressed CEO → status quo, less risk)
• Eg. Stressed → relapse into bad habits
• Distraction → habits also take over
• Addiction: 40-60% relapse normally vs 5% relapse when in new context / environment
• Exposure leads to liking (familiarity)
• “Habits achieve our goals and become our goals, too”
• Ritual: habit with a self-imposed meaning / reward
• Calm nerves (eg. athlete superstition)
• Coping mechanism (eg. death “”)
• Nudge: alter to make desired actions easier
• eg. opt-in vs opt-out
• eg. live power meter to ↓ energy use