Power of Habit: reading note

“Power of Habit” is a very interesting book of Charles Duhigg about how some core components of our life are made by habit and how to manipulate them to our will. This is some notes of mine when reading the book.

Part 1: How habit is created and how to affect them

• Habit is created based on 3 parts: the cue, the routine and the reward. Creating a completely new habit is quite hard, and it would be easier to change the old habit using the same cue and reward, only with the routine changed.

• However, it’s still hard to change a habit because our brain craving for something (not just the reward) from the habit. To change the routine, we must somehow still satisfy (or replace) the craving so that our brain have easier time working on a routine.

• With that, it’s still not enough, we also need the belief that we will succeed in changing our habit, or in the habit itself, or we’ll return to old habit (or forget the new habit) in dire time. Belief helps us get through tough time when training new habit. Community provides a great help in this.