The Power Of Habit Summary – Learn how to replace a bad habit

Day’s 40% of work gets done automatically by us because of our habits. That’s why we should make our habits very carefully. Otherwise, these habits will ruin you and your life. If unfortunately, you have any bad habits so don’t worry The Power Of Habit book and its summary will teach you how to replace your bad habit with a good one.

The Power of Habit summary

The famous quote of the power of habit book

“Change might not be fast and it isn’t always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.” 

– Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit

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The summary of The Power Of Habit Book 

When a person starts learning bike riding, he had to pay more attention to everything like how to use the clutch, how much to brake, and when to change gears, all these things on the road while giving attention to other vehicles.

After an everyday bike riding, the person gets used to it and now the person doesn’t have to pay that much attention to riding a bike. He automatically reaches his home while thinking about something else rather than the route, obviously, it’s wrong because we should pay attention while riding a bike but it happens when you get the habit of it. After day by day, it becomes this habit becomes strong.

Advantages of having a habit

When we start learning something new or doing something for the first time so our brain consciously pays attention and effort to do that work. As we start repeating that work then our brain makes a pattern of that work and store it in self. After that, we don’t need to pay that much attention to that work because now our subconscious mind does that work.

Advantages of having habit

For example, walking and thinking about something important, go to your house without paying attention across the road.

Wake up in the morning and directly go to the bathroom and start brushing our teeth.

Our brain does this to free the gray matter of our brain for other important and new things. 

Disadvantages of having a habit

The bad thing is our brain is unable to differentiate between good and bad habits. The brain just wants to make habits to save its efforts whether it is good or bad. This thing creates lots of problems for us because humans mostly repeat bad things rather than good things because of that we make only bad habits.

We should not forget that “Habits play an important role in one’s success or failure”.

That’s why we should replace leave those bad habits and make new good habits. 

The Habit Loop

Let’s talk about how habits are actually made? The author says that every habit creates in 3 steps.

  • Step-1 Que/Trigger –
  • Step -2 Routine
  • Step – 3 Reward
The Habit Loop

Que/Trigger

A trigger is something that brags you to do something bad or good work. For example, Lots of people start smoking when one of their friends encourages them because friends have more influence in their life that’s why lots of people start smoking by saying they will just try and then quit.  At the start, that friend brags them to start smoke but after getting the habit of it He himself starts smoking cigarettes with that friend. Now here is that friend is the Trigger/Que.

the trigger can be many types but every trigger comes in these 5 categories.

5 Categories of triggers:-

  • 1. Location – any specific place
  • 2. Time – any specific time 
  • 3. Emotions -sad, happy, bore
  • 4. Others – like meet with a friend, watch on a T.V
  • 5. Last action – Like after eating

Routine

After getting triggered the next step is routine. Routines can range from very small to very large. For Example, after meeting your friend You go to a shop and buy a cigarette there and then go to some specific place to light up the cigarette. These actions are in a routine.

Routine

Reward

The reward is the most main step because of which habits are made. In that example when people take the first puff of the cigarette they get a kick and dose of nicotine and that nicotine is a reward for them. 

Every good and bad habit is bound in these three stages and then it repeats and many times the habit gets strong. 

Getting rid of the bad habits 

Here comes the main question, how do we get rid of the bad habit? First of all, It is more difficult to abruptly eliminate any Habit of people. After repeating many times our habit gets stronger and It’s impossible to get over this completely. Maybe you have seen many times people try to eliminate their bad habits abruptly and they keep themself into control for a few days but then after getting a strong trigger they get into their old habit.

The best method is not to completely finish/eliminate that habit rather than the best method is to replace your bad habit with a new good habit.

For example, There was a guy who got a habit of eating a donut every day which made him very unfit and unhealthy. One day his friend recommend him The Power of Habit book and he decided to get rid of that habit of eating a donut every day. After reading and understanding the principles of the book, he started applying those rules to himself. 

First of all, he found that what is the three steps of his habit cycle. after observing thoroughly, he got to know, every day between 3:00 to 3:30 pm he gets a craving for a donut, and that ‘time’ was the trigger of his habit. After that, he didn’t take so much time to understand his routine. 

  • 1. Cue/Trigger – Gets bore between 3:00 to 3:30 pm 
  • 2. Routine –  Went to the office canteen brought donuts and eat while talking with their colleague.
  • 3. Reward – The taste of those donuts.

After knowing the process of his habit, he implemented the second step, the next day when he got the craving of eating donuts between 3:00 to 3:30 pm he went to the canteen but rather than buying donuts he bought chocolate and eat it while talking to his colleagues. 

The next day when again he got a craving for the donut, he went to the canteen but this time he didn’t buy anything and just talked with his colleagues for 15min and went back to his work.

He followed that process for many days and after some time he eliminated that habit from his life. While doing this he didn’t have to fight with his habit because he just changed the routine and was rewarded with another new routine and reward. 

Similarly, by following these 2 methods, you can finish these habits. You just have to follow to simple steps:-

Step 1. Find the trigger, routine, and reward.

Step 2. Replace the routine and reward with the other one.

Get Rid of Bad Habits

The Power of Habit Review

This book is based on habits. It has lots of things that make you understand how to make habits and eliminate habits. This book will also teach you, how habits are used in business for making a product a hit. 

Many multinational companies are using these methods to make their product a part of your habit.

  1. Deo after a bath.
  2. Talcum powder after sweating. 
  3. Cold drink with fast food. 

Through the summary of the power of habit book, you can also be able to understand that how habits work to make your life easy.

Wrapping up

This was the summary of the power of habit book. If you are keen to read book summaries like this so you can go to our book summary category and read a summary of your choice.

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