*Yell-Free Year Weekly Habit Changer* MIT researchers have identified a simple neurological loop that is the basis of every habit: cue, routine, and reward. Last week we talked about identifying the rewards in this loop that support the routines. This week well work on identifying the cues that trigger the routines. Since yelling is an emotionally charged subject, its easier to look at an unrelated habit and then apply it to yelling scenarios once youve had some practice. Well see how this works with a mid-afternoon snack that you cant seem to do without. After (hypothetically) identifying that it was the delaying of the unpleasant task that came after the snack, we can start to find the cues for the grab an easy snack routine. To weed out the noise from all the other things that might be happening when the urge strikes, its helpful to focus on five categories that habitual cues almost always fit into: Location Time Emotional State Other People The Immediately Preceding Action Be specific, but brief. After a few days, you should be able to see a pattern start to emerge. In our example, its the time of day (mid-afternoon) that is our cue to start the routine of the habit. We notice that a particular task (paying bills, doing a load of laundry, or maybe a status report) is scheduled right after this time. If we want to test that this is the cue, we can move the task to another time of day to see if we still have a craving for the snack. Next week well talk about how to start changing habits after figuring out the pieces of the loop.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 14:00:01 +0000
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