Everyone has habits, some of them are beneficial, some are not.
Habits like brushing our teeth, locking up our door before we
leave the house, and pressing the brake pedal at red lights are
good habits. Bad habits, like biting our nails, checking
Facebook or Twitter incessantly while trying to complete a
project, or reaching for your fourth Coca-Cola of the day just
to stay awake, are all behavior patterns we could probably do
without. So if habits can be bad for us, why do we have them?
Our brains form habits because they are constantly looking for
ways to conserve energy and streamline our thinking patterns.
Once the brain identifies a common behavior sequence, it
programs itself to automatically activate the pattern of events
every time a trigger (or “cue”) is switched. Charles Duhigg, the
author of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and
Business, believes that habits can be broken down into three key
components: 1) A cue; 2) A routine; and 3) A reward. Duhigg’s
research indicates by making s