The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
9. Juni 2022 | von Danica Zeier
Who is Charles Duhigg and why is he important for us?
Charles Duhigg is a journalist at The New Yorker Magazine and a Pulitzer Prize winner. In his two books, Charles writes about questions every human asked themselves at least once – how to be more productive and how to understand and change our habits.
Habit = automatized decision
Every hour of every day, we are faced with making decisions. We have to choose what to eat for breakfast, or what route to take to get to work… But the truth is, most of those decisions are not decisions at all, not really. Most of the time, we are only following our automated and well-known routines that once proved useful and rewarding – we follow our habits. Eating similar things for breakfast or automatically choosing the best route to work in the morning are ways our brain “de-complicates” our lives and makes our decision-making processes faster and automatized, so we get to save our energy for more important tasks.
There is a caveat, though. Just like it can adopt good habits, brain can easily adopt bad habits too. For example, smoking, drinking or checking social networks whenever boredom hits are habits many people have. Doing those things can feel rewarding for a short period, however, it is not really useful. In fact, it is just the opposite. We try to change and do better, but changing those habits is sooo hard! Or is it?
In his TEDx talk, Charles Duhigg gives you just what you need to succeed in changing those bad habits – the key is to understand the principle they work on!
„Habits—even once they are rooted in our minds—aren’t destiny. We can choose our habits, once we know how.“
Key takeaways
It is easier to replace a bad habit, than to erase it completely. Whether you will replace it with a better one or an even worse one is completely up to you!
To change your bad habit, first you have to recognize it. Try to be mindful about the things you do through the day and what triggers you to do them.
Be prepared – think of the ways to deal with the trigger beforehand, so you can avoid getting stuck in your habit again.
