Habits can be hard to break, and good habits can be even harder to make routine in our lives. But by using a framework called a habit loop, we can train our brains to build better routines. 

The term “habit loop” was introduced by Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit in 2012. Duhigg claims in the book that almost 47% of the time, we are working on autopilot. That implies that nearly half of our existence is driven by passive decision-making – actions or habits conducted automatically, beneath conscious awareness. These habitual choices occur without active deliberation; they occur reflexively. 

In his research, Duhigg found that there are three key parts to habit formation: a cue, routine, and reward. For something to become a habit, it must go through these three phases.

The Cue

A cue happens in the external environment, and it is something you cannot change. A cue can be triggered by a time of day, location, emotional state, people around you and your last action. Here are some examples:

  • Time: “It’s 10am on Saturday so it’s time to go to my yoga class.”
  • Location: “When I walk by the employee lounge and smell coffee, I pour myself a cup.” 
  • Emotional state: “I’m feeling nervous, so I start to bite my nails.”
  • People around you: “When we finish a hard day’s work, we stop at the local tavern for a drink.”
  • Your last action: “I just flushed the toilet, so I wash my hands.”

The cue is what sets the habit in motion.

The Routine

The routine is the actual habit or repeated behavior. Once your brain is triggered by the cue, it moves to the next action, whether that is scrolling social media because you are bored or brushing your teeth before you go to bed. 

The Reward

Rewards are what help build habits because your brain will remember this habit loop in the future. We naturally want habits that make us feel good so that can be a dopamine rush after exercising or messaging your partner good morning. 

Habit Loops in Play

Habit loops can be as simple as turning on your tea kettle in the morning to enjoy a cup of tea before starting your day. They can also be complex such as continued communication with your ex, which could be a comfortable space for you but could also be holding you back from pursuing a relationship with someone new. 

Related: 10 Habits that Hinder Performance

Break the Cycle

Change is possible, but it is likely to be a bit more complicated than just simply trying to quit the behavior. To break a habit loop, you will need to:

  1. Identify the routine, or the habit that you want to break. 
  2. Try different rewards. Thinking about what your routine does for you can help you experiment with other rewards that offer the same type of satisfaction. 
  3. Explore your triggers. Write down anytime you catch yourself repeating the routine you want to break and what prompted it. Do this for a few weeks so you can determine patterns. 
  4. Develop a work-around for those cues. 
  5. Give yourself grace. Just because you identify a new habit loop and try it does not mean it is going to stick right at first. You will ignore your cues from time to time and that is normal. 

We often engage in self-sabotaging habit loops because of the thoughts we tell ourselves. Someone may feel that they need to eat a brownie right now because they are stressed, or they need to spend an evening on the couch because they had a big day and have no brainpower for anything else. That could very well be true, but we take a closer look at those thoughts. How true are they, really

In coaching, we are looking at the emotions involved as well. If people are stressed or annoyed, they will not have any bandwidth for creativity or feelings of possibility. So, we examine the payoff that the bad habit provided and how it may no longer be serving you. A lot of times we are using these bad habit loops because they worked at some point in our lives. It provided some sort of relief, satisfaction, or comfort. Now you want to replace it with another form of comfort, but it really relates to your awareness. You recognize that your behaviors are producing diminishing results over time, so you are looking for how you can get the results you want with different behaviors. That is probably why you sought out coaching in the first place! 

Thumb Sucking Dilemma

The time it takes to form a habit can vary, which reminds me of a time when my children were younger. The dentist told them they were in danger of having to get braces unless they stopped sucking their thumbs at night. He predicted it would take 30 days to break them of this habit, so we made calendars to check off days and had a serious conversation that night. 

My husband and I asked them where they would like to go on a family trip. Colin was studying national parks at the time, so he answered the Grand Canyon. Alexis loves animals so she chose the San Diego Zoo. We explained to the kids that if we had to spend our money on orthodontics, we would not be able to take these fun family trips. It took just three days for them to kick the thumb sucking habit! 

We were able to go on those trips as a family because they were old enough to understand the reward component of the habit loop, as well as the repercussion if they did not stop sucking their thumbs (i.e. no family vacations). 

Habit Loops in Coaching

In the coaching world, we use habit loops to bring more awareness to how our clients are reacting to certain situations and changing that reaction. One of the exercises I have been doing with my clients for over 20 years is to ask them to write out the word “reactive.” Then, I tell them to cross out the “c” and move it to the front of the word. It is a visual exercise to help them understand that instead of being reactive in any situation, they can be creative. 

When I am working with career coaching clients, I often see clients procrastinate when it comes to doing research into the different careers that could be options for them. I also see it with clients who are feeling apprehensive about using networking in their job search. 

But I also see it in with my executive coaching clients as well. I recently worked with a client who got stressed every time budget season rolled around. The cue is budget season which cannot be avoided so we changed the routine response. I had the client ask himself these questions:

  • How else can I experience this time of year?
  • What are some other thoughts and emotions I can have in this budget season situation? 
  • How can I approach budget season with enthusiasm rather than dread? 

Another client came to me saying she wanted to be a better leader and make more time for her direct reports. She had a habit of constantly cancelling meetings with those reports because something more urgent came along. She justified it because she knew they would understand how busy she was and how important her time was. 

So, we looked at the cues she experienced when she wanted to cancel those meetings and we worked on replacing them with different thoughts and emotions. We talked about what she wanted to get out of these meetings and what she believed her direct reports wanted to get out of them as well. 

Of course, the bigger picture reward is fostering better relationships and strengthening your team. But sometimes you must give yourself a smaller, more frequent reward as you make progress toward your goal. So, we made a list of rewards she considered benefits, from getting a mocha after a direct report meeting to a massage after completing several meetings. 

Habits begin with awareness and understanding the cues and behaviors to form new neuropathways in our brain and therefore, develop new habits. When you work with a career or executive coach, we bring awareness to the reactivity to your cues and the urge to act and replace it with other thoughts and behaviors to better benefit you. 

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