Just Read It: THE POWER OF HABIT by Charles Duhigg | The Book ...

2012 at 5am ? ? Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky

Published February 2012 by Random House

If you?ve taken Psych 101, you?re familiar with the basic concept: ABC?antecedent, behavior, consequence. Or, something happens, so you do something, and then you feel or experience something because of what you did. Let?s say that every day around 4pm, you start to feel sleepy (antecedent), so you go get a coffee (behavior), and then you feel more awake (consequence). Simple, elegant, and accurate, right?

Charles Duhigg calls these processes habit loops, and in The Power of Habit, he uses slightly different terms (cue, routine, reward) to analyze the way our unthinking and automatic behaviors impact our daily lives and our businesses. While the concept is simple, Duhigg?s examples?ranging from weight loss to addiction treatment to advertising?are fascinating, and each one adds something important to the mix. Which is to say, Duhigg avoids what I think of as The Malcolm Gladwell Problem, where all the good stuff is in the first 50 pages and the rest is just a piling on of illustrations to hammer it home.

This book managed to ring a bunch of my bells all at once. It?s a researched-based look at psychological principles, a bit of a social history, and just the right amount of self help. If ?inspirational? sends you running for the hills, fear not.?The Power of Habit is all about empiricism! And evidence! And testing your hypotheses! It left me feeling like I could kick any or all of my bad habits if I could just pay close enough attention to them, and you know what? It works. I?m currently trying to break the mid-afternoon caffeine cycle (hence the example in the first paragraph), and while I?m not sure I?ve nailed the behavior that will best replace the coffee run, I?m already seeing improvement. (And by improvement, I mean that I?m no longer lying awake at 3am cursing the cappuccino I had at 3pm.)

If you like your nonfiction with a side of ?does this have practical applications?? you don?t want to miss The Power of Habit.

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