Great straight forward explanation about how habits work from the appendix of Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit.

It’s simple:

THE FRAMEWORK:

Identify the routine

Experiment with rewards

Isolate the cue

Have a plan

Of course, building a house is also simple, if you have the time and energy and materials.

In my search for the holy grail answer of the question “HOW DO WE CHANGE OURSELVES”, I realize that I’ve been looking in the wrong place.

I was looking for an answer that was about the size of a menu.

But the answer may actually be of the size of a 2-year college education.

I was looking for an answer that was about as difficult as learning how to build a lego house.

But the answer may actually be about as difficult as building a real house.

I was looking for an answer that cost about $100.

But the answer may cost about $10,000.

I was looking for an answer that anyone could do, just like anyone can write a blog post.

But the answer may only require the same amount of dedication, time, and energy as writing a book.

There’s no super secret to it all (after all, Charles Duhigg lays it all out in easy to understand steps). After all…

“Anyone” can get a 2-year college degree, “anyone” can build a house, “anyone” can buy something that costs $10,000, “anyone” can write a book.

“Anything” is possible, but in the real day-to-day where we have to prioritize and budget our tasks with the actual resources available to us, the steps are sufficiently complicated, time-intensive, mentally-taxing, and physically draining that only a small subset of people will find that the REWARD of changing a behavior is worth the COST of changing it.

Seems pretty obvious, in hindsight.