The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business

What are the habits you do without thinking every single day?  What is your morning routine?  Do you brush your teeth first or check your email?  Our lives are based on a series of habits, most of which we have come to do so automatically, that we don't even realize the pattern or meaning related to our actions.

In his book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business, author Charles Duhigg begins by explaining his own personal experience in watching the power behind habits.  He was a newspaper writer stationed in Bagdad several years ago, when he had noticed a military general had not only built his life around various habits, but had also made it his job to study the habits of those around him, even to the point of preventing bombings in his area, simply because he watched and learned what habits surrounded certain activities.

Duhigg also describes an obese woman named Lisa who had begun smoking cigarettes as a teenager, and whose husband eventually left her.  At a low point in her life, she made a decision that she wanted her life to be different, and the only way she would be able to reach these self-made goals was to break old habits and nurture new ones to continue moving toward her goals.  Over a short period of time, she stopped smoking, started jogging, ran a half marathon, then a marathon, went back to school, bought a house, and became engaged.  Scientists were fascinated with her changes, and studied her brain patterns over a period of time, to better understand how changes take place.

"I want to show you one of your  most recent scans," a researcher told Lisa near the end of her exam.  He pulled up a picture on a computer screen that showed images from inside her head.  "When you see food, these areas"--he pointed to a place near the center of her brain--"which are associated with craving and hunger are still active.  Your brain still produces the urges that made you overeat.  "however, there's new activity in this area"--he pointed to the region closest to her forehead--"where we believe behavioral inhibition and self-discipline starts.  That activity has become more pronounced each time you've come in." 

Lisa was the scientists' favorite participant because her brain scans were so compelling, so useful in creating a map of where behavioral patterns--habits--reside within our minds.  "You're helping us understand how a decision becomes an automatic behavior," the doctor told her.  Everyone in the room felt like they were on the brink of something important.  And they were.

So why are these two examples so profound?  What makes them relevant to your everyday life, both personally and professionally?  Duhigg writes:

Each chapter revolves around a central argument:  Habits can be changed, if we understand how they work...In the past decade, our understanding of the neurology and psychology of habits and the way patterns work in our lives, societies, and organizations has expanded in ways we couldn't have imagined fifty years ago.  We now know why habits emerge, how they change, and the science behind their mechanics.  We know how to break them into parts and rebuild them to our specifications.  We understand how to make people eat less, exercise more, work more efficiently, and live healthier lives.  Transforming a habit isn't necessarily easy or quick.  It isn't always simple.

But it is possible.  And now we understand how.

We are all driven by habits.  The question that begs to be answered is whether we are willing to closely examine those habits to see which ones are leading us toward our goals, and which ones are diverting and distracting us from what we truly desire to achieve.

What one habit could you benefit from breaking?  
What one new habit could you adopt in its place?

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7 Habits of Highly Effective People

When you reflect on highly effective people around you, who do you think of?  You probably have already begun to go through the list of character traits and qualities that define them.  In his most famous book entitled The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey discusses core leadership principles that enable people from all walks of life, to take an honest personal inventory and examine the character traits that will either ultimately build them up or tear them down.  

Our character, basically, is a composite of our habits.  "Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny," the maxim goes.  Habits are powerful factors in our lives.  Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character and produce our effectiveness...or ineffectiveness. 

It is interesting to note that Covey is not focusing on what necessarily makes a person successful, likable, or financially well-off.  He is addressing the core of each of our beings, because the root of who we are lies in how we behave, not in what we say we believe.  Our actions (or habits, as he refers to them), do the best job at revealing our deepest beliefs about life and what we find to be necessary for happiness and success.  Covey elaborates on the principle of habits, in terms of what it means to cultivate effective habits.

The Seven Habits are habits of effectiveness.  Because they are based on principles, they bring the maximum long-term beneficial results possible.  They become the basis of a person's character, creating an empowering center of correct maps from which an individual can effectively solve problems, maximize opportunities, and continually learn and integrate other principles in an upward spiral of growth.  

Covey also gives a brief overview of what this book will explore.

Albert Einstein observed, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them"...We need a new level, a deeper level of thinking--a paradigm based on the principles that accurately describe the territory of effective human being and interacting--to solve these deep concerns.  This new level of thinking is what Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is all about.  It's a principle-centered, character-based, "inside-out" approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness.  

"Inside-out" means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self--with your paradigms, your character, and your motives.

What About You?  What habits have you cultivated, which guide your life from the inside out?

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The Power of Positive Thinking: Why It Works

In the words of Captain Jack Sparrow:

The problem is not the problem.  The problem is your attitude towards the problem.

Who knew that so much insight on life could come from a pirate?  Without giving him too much credit, the pirate's words seem to channel one of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's many famous quotes on the power of positive thinking:

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

Don't just glance over those words, but let them sink in for just a moment.  Really think about what would happen in your own life if you purposed to change the negative thoughts and replace them with positive, uplifting, life giving thoughts.

There is something in each of our minds that belittles our desire to grow, change, and succeed.  Every single person has experienced the assault of hammering thoughts which seem to scream out, "You can't do it - Just Give Up."  While everyone has undoubtedly heard these condemning thoughts, not everyone has chosen to believe them.  This is the basis of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's famous book The Power of Positive Thinking.

Even though it was published in 1952, it is still a classic and widely read today.  Dr. Peale shares personal stories of people he came across over the years, their sense of hopelessness and inability to understand the source of their misery in life.

The premise that is threaded throughout the book is that yes, you do have the power to overcome negative thoughts and therefore, you will be empowered to overcome negative life experiences.  This book does not promise to alleviate life's challenges and prevent personal failures, nor does it promote living in denial when bad things happen; rather, it provides the foundational tools for being able to assess each day, each circumstance with positive lenses, not losing sight of your goals and dreams.

What About You? What Keeps You Motivated In Spite of Difficult Circumstances and Failure?

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A Look At What Makes Ideas Stick And Spread

What is it that makes one idea spread like wildfire while another equally good idea remains stagnant?  Bestselling Authors (and brothers) Chip Heath and Dan Heath, introduce their book Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die with this story:

A friend of a friend of ours is a frequent business traveler.  Let's call him Dave.  Dave was recently in Atlantic City for an important meeting with clients.  Afterward, he had some time to kill before his flight, so he went to a local bar for a drink.  He'd just finished one drink when an attractive woman approach and asked if she could buy him another.  He was surprised but flattered.  Sure, he said.  The woman walked to the bar and brought back two more drinks -- one for her and one for him.  He thanked her and took a sip.  

 And that was the last thing he remembered.  Rather, that was the last thing he remembered until he woke up, disoriented, lying in a hotel bathtub, his body submerged in ice.  He looked around frantically, trying to figure out where he was and how he got there.  Then he spotted the note:  DON'T MOVE.  CALL 911.  

 A cell phone rested on a small table beside the bathtub.  He picked it up and called 911, his fingers numb and clumsy from the ice.  The operator seemed oddly familiar with his situation.  She said, "Sir, I want you to reach behind you slowly and carefully.  Is there a tube protruding from your lower back?" 

Anxious, he felt around behind him.  Sure enough, there was a tube.  The operator said, "Sir, don't panic, but one of your kidneys has been harvested.  There's a ring of organ thieves operating in this city, and they got to you.  Paramedics are on their way.  Don't move until they arrive.

You've just read one of the most successful urban legends of the past fifteen years...The Kidney Heist is a story that sticks.  We understand it, we remember it, and we can retell it later.  And if we believe it's true, it might change our behavior permanently -- at least in terms of accepting drinks from attractive strangers.

That was certainly a long introduction to pique your interest in this book, but the fascinating tale draws you in immediately, keeping your mind reeling with images with every twist and turn of the story.  This is the exact point the authors are making, that ideas (whether true or false) "stick" for a reason, and they invite you to explore principles they believe will help your ideas leave an impression on others. 

The authors go into the art of storytelling, is obviously a very successful way in presenting and passing along ideas, along with empathy and credibility, just to name a few.

What about you? What have you found to help make your ideas "stick?"

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