“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
- Olympic track star Jim Ryun
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg features stories from people such as athletes, coaches and entrepreneurs who attribute their success to habits—building and sustaining patterns of behavior that become automatic in response to certain cues. For a football player, the cue may be the word “Hut!” at the beginning of a play, sparking the execution of a familiar, well-practiced routine. For tooth brushing, the cue may be waking up and feeling the filmy feeling in your mouth. “More than 40 percent of the actions people performed each day weren’t actual decisions, but habits,” asserts Duhigg, referring to a 2006 Duke University study.
Lately I’ve been cuing my writing sessions with a 25-minute timer on my phone. As soon as I set the timer, I get in the zone. It still takes motivation to set aside time to write daily and launch my cue, but my hope is that I’m building a new habit. The less energy we spend on making decisions or deliberating with ourselves, the more energy we have for other things.
Lately I’ve been cuing my writing sessions with a 25-minute timer on my phone. As soon as I set the timer, I get in the zone. It still takes motivation to set aside time to write daily and launch my cue, but my hope is that I’m building a new habit. The less energy we spend on making decisions or deliberating with ourselves, the more energy we have for other things.
What habit would you most like to develop? What cue can you use?
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