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  • Imagine for a moment that you have a habit that you really want to change.

  • Let's say, for instance, you go up to the cafeteria every afternoon and eat a chocolate

  • chip cookie.

  • This habit has caused you to gain a little bit of weight.

  • In fact, this habit has caused you to gain exactly 8 pounds, and your wife has started

  • making some pointed comments.

  • And when I say you, what I really mean is mebecause this is a habit that I had, that

  • I just couldn't kick.

  • To understand why that habit was so powerful, and what it would take to change it, I had

  • to learn how habits work.

  • Every habit functions the same way.

  • At first, there's a cuesome type of trigger that makes the behavior unfold automatically.

  • Studies tell us that a cue can be a location, a time of day, a certain emotional state,

  • other people, or just a pattern of behaviors that consistently triggers a certain routine.

  • To figure out the cue for my craving, I spent a few days tracking exactly when the urge

  • to eat a cookie hit.

  • And what I noticed pretty soon was something interesting.

  • The cookie craving always hit between 3:00 and 3:30 in the afternoon.

  • That was my cue: It was a certain time of day.

  • The next part in the habit loop is the routinethe behavior itself.

  • And for me, that was pretty easy to figure out.

  • Every day between 3:00 and 3:30, I'd get this craving for a cookie.

  • I'd get up out of my chair, I'd walk over to the elevator, I'd take the elevator up

  • to the 14th floor, I'd get out, I'd buy a cookie, and then I would eat it while talking

  • to my colleagues in the cafeteria.

  • The last part of the habit loop is the reward.

  • And in some respects, the reward is the most important part, because that's why habits

  • existso that we can get the rewards that we want.

  • But figuring out a reward is kind of tricky.

  • To figure out what reward was driving my habit, I did a little bit of an experiment.

  • One day when the cookie urge struck, instead of going up to the cafeteria, I went outside

  • and I took a walk around the block.

  • Then the next day, I went up to the cafeteriabut instead of buying a cookie, I got a candy

  • bar, and then ate it at my desk.

  • And then the day after that, I went up to the cafeteria again, but I didn't buy anything.

  • Instead, I just talked to friends for about 10 minutes.

  • You get the idea.

  • But what I was trying to do was test different hypotheses to figure out what reward I was

  • actually craving.

  • And what I figured out pretty quickly was it had nothing to do with cookies.

  • It had to do with socializing.

  • Nowadays what happens is, at about 3:30 in the afternoon, I absentmindedly stand up.

  • I look around the office, I see a friend, I'll walk over and we'll gossip for 10

  • minutes, and then I'll go back to my desk.

  • The urge to go get a cookie has completely disappeared.

  • The new behavior has become a habit.

  • And I've lost about 12 pounds as a result.

  • Studies have shown that if you can diagnose your habits, you can change them in whichever

  • way you want.

  • So what are the cues, routines, and rewards in your life?

  • What habit do you want to change?

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

  • Learn More at ThePowerOfHabit.com.

Imagine for a moment that you have a habit that you really want to change.

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