Design A Better You: The Law of Habit Formation

Birds were flying low and puddles from last night's rain were still there as I took a stroll around the town square. That was unusual for me to take a morning walk at 6 AM, especially if it was drizzling. My old me would prefer to have an evening walk instead, thus I could watch Miss Sun goes to sleep and send her a little good bye. 

Surprisingly, guys.. I went to have a walk in a such rainy windy weather anyway. Ah, or if I.. really put a thought on it.. was it just me who don't want to break the healthy habit I've been struggling to build up? Yes, I've been struggling to be a morning person for these past three months. Although the initiation wasn't coming from myself neither, I had to wake up early from Monday-Friday to catch up the office hour for my internship. But hey see, I'm doing a pretty good now!

It raised up new question to me, "How is a habit formed?"

According to Practical Psychology, habits are routines and things that we do on a regular basis, some knowingly and some unknowingly. Habits can help to improve our lives, if we know how to manage it. It's basically things that we do on repeat. But are you mindful, before something eventually becomes a habit, it once could be a thing that we've never done before? That's why, there is a process behind any habit formation. It didn't happen just like that.

The process of building a habit can be divided into four-step pattern, they are; cue, cravings, response, and reward. This four-step pattern is strength of every habit, and your brain runs through these steps in the same order each time.

1. Cue is a thing that triggers brain to initiate a behavior. It is a bit of information that predicts the reward. Your mind is continuously analyzing your internal and external environment for hints of where rewards are located. Because the cue is the first indication that we're close to reward, it naturally leads into craving.
   
2. Cravings are the motivational force behind every habit. Every craving is linked to a desire to change your internal state. Cues are meaningless until they are interpreted. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into craving. For example: if you have a habit of watching favorite series for hours when you are stressed out, you actually don't crave the movies but you just crave the sense of comfortable and joy it's given to you from imagining typical scenario in your head.
3. Response is the actual habit you perform. In this process, you change your thought into action. Your response also depends on your ability. For instance, if you want to eat healthy food, but you actually had no resource for it yet, then chances for you to make it happen is probably low.
4. Reward is the end goal of every habit. Here is the thing, cue is about noticing the reward. Craving is about wanting the reward. And response is about obtaining the reward. We chase rewards because they serve two purposes; they satisfy us, they teach us. Your brain is a reward detector. Feelings of pleasure and disappointment are part of the feedback mechanism that helps your brain distinguish useful actions from useless one. Our habit is driven by the desire to solve a problem, we continuously repeat an action because our brain notice something good and want to obtain it. On the other hand, we stop doing something because our brain notice that we're experiencing pain and want to relieve it.

Let's dissect these four-step patterns based on the case of my new morning person habit.

• Cue: to be more productive and break the laziness.
• Cravings: when I am being productive in a day, it makes me feel good as I've been doing my best to manage it and turn it to something.
• Response: I keep on doing it because I can, since I'm able to sleep early each night so be an early bird is totally fine.
• Reward: I do better at reaching up my daily goals.

Interesting, right? If we recognize these patterns, then we can improve ourself at training our brain in terms of habit formation, hence we can achieve a better output in life. But how? Here are few notes from me~

1. Find a problem
2. Write down the solution and any resources available to resolve the problem
3. List the rewards
4. Identify your response 
   (i) does it satisfy you?
   (ii) what does it teach you?
5. Create a conclusion
   (i) if it satisfy you, then continue
   (ii) if it teach you pain, then release it

Alright, that's all. Hope this article helps to widen your knowledge. As a closing I would say, we are not always what we think we are. In case, your brain is stopping you from creating new positive habit or just get rid of the bad one.. remember you can always rewire your brain.

Cheers!