This interesting article ‘Strategies for creating (or destroying) habits‘ summarizes principles of habits change management and provides an applicable four-pronged model: cue, craving, routine, reward.
In more detail:
- How can I make it obvious? (Cue)
- How can I make it attractive? (Craving)
- How can I make it easy? (Response, Routine)
- How can I make it satisfying? (Reward)
The first step is to make our current habit conscious and visible, and understand how it gets triggered. The second step is to make the new habit particularly attractive by associating it with an expected outcome; in that area, benefitting from the right environment and social pressure is clearly an advantage. The third step is to ensure that is easy to trigger the new habit; and finally the fourth step is to reward the new behaviors.
Worth remembering that changing habits (once we are aware of the need) can be enhanced by a structured approach. It is worth reviewing it from time to time as we all have habits to change.
