The three-part structure underlying all habits: cue, routine, reward.
What the evidence says
- Cue: a trigger that tells the brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use[1]
- Routine: the behaviour itself — “physical or mental or emotional”[1]
- Reward: what helps the brain decide whether this particular loop is worth remembering for the future[1]
- Craving drives the loop: as cue and reward repeat, they “become intertwined until a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges” — the anticipation, not only the reward[1]
- Habits never really disappear — they are encoded into the structures of the brain, and the brain cannot tell the difference between bad and good habits, so a bad one is “always lurking there, waiting for the right cues and rewards”[1]
- Four-step framework for changing a habit: (1) identify the routine, (2) experiment with rewards to find the actual craving, (3) isolate the cue, (4) have a plan[1]
- Change the routine while keeping cue and reward — the “golden rule of habit change”[1]
- Keystone habits: certain habits that, when changed, trigger cascading changes in other behaviours — not all habits are equal in their influence[1]
- Habits are surprisingly delicate — if environmental cues change even slightly the habit falls apart; consistent cues are necessary for habits to persist[1]