digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: To break a habit, keep the same cue and reward but replace the routine, after first identifying what the cue and reward really are by testing different hypotheses. The speaker used this approach to stop a daily cookie habit, and it is based on his own experience.
Key Points
- Every habit follows a loop of cue, routine, and reward, and the cue can be a location, time of day, emotional state, other people, or a pattern of behaviors.
- The speaker's cookie cue was a specific time window, between about 3:00 and 3:30 in the afternoon, identified by tracking when the craving hit over a few days.
- The reward is often the most important part of the loop, and it can be hard to identify because it may differ from what the habit appears to be about.
- Testing different hypotheses by changing the routine and observing what was still craved revealed that the speaker's real reward was socializing, not the cookie.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Track when the urge hits for a few days and note the time, location, emotional state, and who is around as possible cues.
- Write down the routine you follow when the urge hits, step by step.
- Test different hypotheses about the reward by changing the routine one piece at a time: for example, take a walk outside instead of getting a snack, buy a different snack, or simply socialize without buying anything.
- Notice which version you still crave and what you feel afterward; this points to the true reward.
- Once you know the reward, replace the old routine with a new one that delivers the same reward, keeping the same cue.
- In the speaker's case, the new routine was to stand up at about 3:30, walk over to a friend in the office, and talk for about 10 minutes, after which the cookie urge disappeared.
- The speaker reports losing about 12 pounds after the change, though this is his personal account, not professional guidance.
- He notes that the cookie habit had caused him to gain eight pounds, which was the motivation for the change.
- The speaker says studies show that diagnosing your habits lets you change them in whichever way you want, stated as a general claim without specific study details.
Bottom Line
Changing a habit works best when you first diagnose its cue and especially its reward through small experiments, then swap the routine while keeping the rest of the loop intact.
