Good morning and happy Sunday!
When you woke up today, what did you do first? Did you hop in the shower, kiss your wife, or grab a muffin from the counter? Did you hit snooze, or did you jump out of bed? Do you tie your left or right shoe first?
Did you turn your phone on and check to see if the latest installment of Insights by Cooper was out?
Grab your coffee and get ready to learn about how habits prevented terrorism and what you can learn from Alcoholics Anonymous about changing yours.
A Demonstration of Habits in Iraq
By 2005 the US had defeated Saddam Hussein and had a significant but contentious presence in Iraq.
Anti-U.S. insurgency was spreading, and it was a dangerous place for American soldiers. Crowds of angry Iraqis would gather in demonstrations, and could snap and become violent at a moment’s notice, which often happened.
In the city of Kufa, a US Army commander believed that he had figured out a solution after analyzing videotapes of recent riots and finding a pattern:
Violence was usually preceded by a crowd of Iraqis gathering in a plaza.
Over a couple of hours, the group would grow in size, and food vendors would appear to meet the opportunity. Spectators would also begin showing up.
The crowd would chant and get more heated.
Then, someone would throw a bottle or rock, and all hell would break loose.
When he met with Kufa’s mayor, the army commander had a simple request: could the food vendors be kept out of the plazas?
The mayor complied, and a few weeks later, a small crowd gathered near the Great Mosque of Kufa. Throughout the afternoon, the group grew in size and began chanting angry slogans. The Iraqi police sensed trouble and radioed the Americans to stand by.
At dusk, the crowd was restless and hungry, but the Kebab sellers that might typically fill the plaza were nowhere to be found. The spectators left, the chanters became dispirited, and by 8 PM, the plaza was empty.
“Understanding habits is the most important thing I’ve learned in the army. It’s changed how I see the world. You want to fall asleep fast and wake up feeling good? Pay attention to your nighttime patterns and what you automatically do when you wake up. You want to make running easy? Create triggers to make it a routine.
I drill my kids on this stuff. My wife and I write out habit plans for our marriage. This is all we talk about in command meetings.
Not one person in Kufa would have told me that we could influence crowds by taking away the kebab stands, but once you see everything as a bunch of habits, it’s like someone gave you a flashlight and a crowbar and you can get to work.”
–The unnamed Army Commander from the story
Knowledge of habits is powerful as a leader, but it’s also powerful in your own life.
Your Habits run your Life
“All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.”
William James
When you drive to work, which route do you take? When you look at a menu, do you opt for the salads or the burgers? After a long day, do you pour yourself a drink, or do you lace up your running shoes and run a few miles?
We may feel like most of the decisions throughout our day are thought out and well-considered, but they’re not. They’re habits.
Each habit generally means little on its own. Still, over time, the routines that govern the meals we order, the money saved or spent, the time we exercise, etc., have tremendous impacts on our health, happiness, productivity, and financial security.
Habits allow you to function as a human being. They simplify complicated routines and will enable you to spend your attention elsewhere. Think about the first time you got in a car and backed out of a driveway.
It’s a pretty complicated routine of putting the car into reverse, looking around in all directions, making sure you turn the wheel in the correct direction, tapping the breaks or the gas, and not hitting the trash can on the side of the road.
Complicated tasks require a lot of focus and energy when they are new, but after backing up becomes habitual, you can continue your conversation with your spouse or sing along to your music without missing a beat while you back out of the driveway.
If you had no habits, you would have to consider every decision you make consciously, and basic things like remembering to brush your teeth or driving to work would exhaust you.
That being said, poor habits that you barely consider can have some pretty adverse effects. For example, if you have a habit of going to the vending machine at work when you get bored in the afternoon, then your little pattern might be adding an unnecessary 400 calories to your daily routine.
In short, your life is a summation of your habits. Successful people succeed because they live their lives manifesting constructive habits, and unsuccessful people do not because they live their lives manifesting destructive habits.
Changing Your Habits (How AA Works)
Alcoholics Anonymous may be the most successful habit-changing organization ever created. Since its inception in 1934, it has helped over 10 million people achieve sobriety.
Alcoholics don’t generally drink so much simply because they like to feel intoxicated. Alcoholics crave a drink because it offers escape, relaxation, companionship, the blunting of anxieties, or an opportunity for emotional release. For example, some alcoholics drink when they get sad. The alcohol makes them feel better.
Feeling sad is the cue, consuming alcohol is the routine, and feeling comforted (for a little bit) is the reward.
To change a habit, you must attack it with the entirety of the habit loop in mind (see the images above). It is not as simple as saying “I will stop drinking” and then practicing self-restraint. Every habit has a cue that triggers a routine and results in some reward.
Alcoholics Anonymous succeeds by accepting the cue, changing the routine, and giving its adherents the same reward they sought at the bottom of the bottle.
One way Alcoholics Anonymous works is that it gives its practitioners a sponsor to call when they feel tempted to drink. For the guy feeling sad and lonely, calling a sponsor and talking to them for an hour will give them the same reward of feeling comforted and better.
Over time, alcoholics will overwrite their reaction to the cue that made them drink and thus change their destructive habit.
TL;DR
You are a product of your habits. If you consciously engineer your habits to be constructive, then you will succeed.
The habit loop runs your habits. There is a cue that triggers a routine, and you get a reward from the routine. By understanding the habit loop, you can change your practices effectively.
Habits are powerful, and if you want to change yours, it helps to understand how they work.
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg offers a lot of excellent insight into both why we do what we do and how to change our lives by engineering our habits to align with our goals.
Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
Cooper