From last time, we understood that both good and bad habits are formed and maintained in similar ways. For Christians the human centre is the heart [soul,
spirit] out of which 'springs the issues of life' (NKJV). The spirit
that inhabits the heart, be it righteous or unrighteous, influences the character of human habit.
The image of a clock-face with the hands set at 9 o'clock and a seconds sweeping-hand can be used to illustrate the parts of any habit, good or bad.
The centre of the clock represents desire (strong attraction) according to Duhigg's model which is fuelled by imagining, thinking and willing for things such as food, drink, excitement, 'a high', stomach fullness, entertainment, sexual experience and so on.
That being accepted, the '9' on the clock-face represents the cue upon which the desire has fixed. For example, most of us have desires for food but some of us have desires for food that exceed our daily requirements if the obesity rate is to be believed. So the thought or image or opportunity to buy or eat sweet, fatty confectionery can be a cue to carry out a routine (represented by '12') which is a sequence of actions to satisfy the desire. On putting the confectionery into our mouths, eating and swallowing it we begin to feel satisfied and that is a rewarding sensation. The reward provides positive feedback for the cue to continue to act as a cue.1
If however, eating becomes a problem can be use the above sequence to break our habit? Can we also use this sequence to develop a good habit such as doing more walking?
To find the cue, ask, WHEN do you do the habit? Habits usually have a strong temporal or situational cue. For example, smokers may tend to smoke with meals or with morning and afternoon tea.
Other smokers may only smoke when they feel stressed. Their smoking habit is associated with unhappy feelings.
To manipulate the reward -at this point Duhigg re-examines the craving or desire- identify the craving that the habit appears to satisfy and then, substitute a better action to meet that craving.
If you were overeating, what might be the craving involved? It might be loneliness, or a sense of disconnection with others and with God himself, or a sense of emptiness, or all of these things. Depending of the intensity of the overeating, a range of solutions may be considered. These should be tested to see if they are in fact dealing with the particular desire. Using different foods might be a place to start perhaps and buying a set of scales to weigh yourself every morning. Third, now having the cue and the reward we need to change, we now require a new routine. Duhigg outlines all this in a helpful diagram.
The footwear beside your bed and the new day itself act as cues for developing a routine on getting up and dressing in order to go walking first thing. Oh, the change you'll first experience is perhaps not so positive but even so, we begin to feel something good happening to us in our mood level if not yet in our physical side.
Changing habits is not easy and creating new ones isn't easy either. And probably the more realistic estimates for the time required to establish a good habit are around 65 days. Hence, dealing with our habits takes persistence and resourcefulness; it also calls for a reliance on God (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) for the power to change.
1. In one sense, nothing is new about any of this. The behaviourists of the early 20thC (B. F. Skinner for one) catalogued this 'operant' conditioning model in great detail. What is different about Duhigg's books are the examples he gives for the general reader to enjoy. Moreover, the behaviourists would not have generally labelled the inner craving as desire or lust whereas Duhigg believes that craving is a pivotal experience for the issue of habit formation.
The image of a clock-face with the hands set at 9 o'clock and a seconds sweeping-hand can be used to illustrate the parts of any habit, good or bad.
The centre of the clock represents desire (strong attraction) according to Duhigg's model which is fuelled by imagining, thinking and willing for things such as food, drink, excitement, 'a high', stomach fullness, entertainment, sexual experience and so on. That being accepted, the '9' on the clock-face represents the cue upon which the desire has fixed. For example, most of us have desires for food but some of us have desires for food that exceed our daily requirements if the obesity rate is to be believed. So the thought or image or opportunity to buy or eat sweet, fatty confectionery can be a cue to carry out a routine (represented by '12') which is a sequence of actions to satisfy the desire. On putting the confectionery into our mouths, eating and swallowing it we begin to feel satisfied and that is a rewarding sensation. The reward provides positive feedback for the cue to continue to act as a cue.1
If however, eating becomes a problem can be use the above sequence to break our habit? Can we also use this sequence to develop a good habit such as doing more walking?
To Break A Bad Habit
Duhigg presented a strategy in which one analyses one's bad habit (the one that needs changing) in terms of the sequence of cue -routine -reward.To find the cue, ask, WHEN do you do the habit? Habits usually have a strong temporal or situational cue. For example, smokers may tend to smoke with meals or with morning and afternoon tea.
Other smokers may only smoke when they feel stressed. Their smoking habit is associated with unhappy feelings.
To manipulate the reward -at this point Duhigg re-examines the craving or desire- identify the craving that the habit appears to satisfy and then, substitute a better action to meet that craving.
If you were overeating, what might be the craving involved? It might be loneliness, or a sense of disconnection with others and with God himself, or a sense of emptiness, or all of these things. Depending of the intensity of the overeating, a range of solutions may be considered. These should be tested to see if they are in fact dealing with the particular desire. Using different foods might be a place to start perhaps and buying a set of scales to weigh yourself every morning. Third, now having the cue and the reward we need to change, we now require a new routine. Duhigg outlines all this in a helpful diagram.
To Develop A Good Habit
The same approach implied in the diagram he gives can be used to develop a good habit from scratch. Have you been thinking that you should go for a brisk walk every morning before breakfast to increase your fitness? To do that, you need to prepare the night before so that your walking gear is handy when you wake up. (You might also need to buy new footwear for this new habit.) You need to plan a route that isn't too arduous to start.The footwear beside your bed and the new day itself act as cues for developing a routine on getting up and dressing in order to go walking first thing. Oh, the change you'll first experience is perhaps not so positive but even so, we begin to feel something good happening to us in our mood level if not yet in our physical side.
Changing habits is not easy and creating new ones isn't easy either. And probably the more realistic estimates for the time required to establish a good habit are around 65 days. Hence, dealing with our habits takes persistence and resourcefulness; it also calls for a reliance on God (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) for the power to change.
1. In one sense, nothing is new about any of this. The behaviourists of the early 20thC (B. F. Skinner for one) catalogued this 'operant' conditioning model in great detail. What is different about Duhigg's books are the examples he gives for the general reader to enjoy. Moreover, the behaviourists would not have generally labelled the inner craving as desire or lust whereas Duhigg believes that craving is a pivotal experience for the issue of habit formation.
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