Hello and happy new year to all teampreneurs of Tiimiakatemia Prague! Its been a few months since I last wrote an essay in english. I would like to start this new year with this essay. With just two weeks before my learning journey to Finland and having recently listened to this audiobook in english, I thought to myself, what a great ooportunity to brush up on my writing skills through another essay in english.
Charles Duhigg analyzes how individuals, companies and groups forn habits and how they can choose new, more healthy behaviors.
Have you ever wondered why some people start living a healthier lifestyle or achieve success in their work, while others struggle? Charles Duhigg said the cause of all this fuzz is „The habit“. He explains that successful people can control and change their habits. First, they learn about the „habit loop“, which has three parts: cue, routine, and reward. This loop shows how we do things without thinking. He believes, that if you understand bad habits like eating too much fastfood, drinking a lot of alcohol, or smoking, you can better manage them.
A Matter of Habit
Duhigg explains that a habit starts as something you choose to do once and then keep doing, often without thinking much about it. He says habits form because our brain tries to save energy. He talks about the three parts of forming a habit. First, the brain looks for a sign (a cue) to start doing something automatically. Then, this action becomes a regular thing (a routine). If the action feels good (the reward), the brain remembers it. When the sign and the good feeling link together, the brain starts to want it more, and this creates a new habit or pattern of behavior.
Once people learned how to believe in something, that skill started spilling over into other parts of their lives, until they started believing they could change.
You Can Change
Changing your habits means embracing the belief that you can change. This sense of belief, turns out to be more effective if it occurs in a group – such as an AA (anonymní alkoholici) meeting.
The lessons AA provides demonstrate how almost any habit, even the most stuuborn can be changed.
The author argues that you can learn willpower as effectively as you can learn to play a musical instrument or speak a foreign language. When you master willpower, you must keep it exercised and in shape, just as you would work out to keep your muscles.
Organizational Habits
Organizations develop habits, Duhigg reveals, that these habbits help them do business or accomplish their goals. Starbucks’s rules for employees, for example, include the concept of willpower. Starbucks workers improve their lives and careers after they learn to control their willpower to be cheerful no matter how hard their workdays was.
Organizational habits also keep companies functioning. Without them, companies would descend into squabbling factions (I dont know what that means, but from my research it means „arguing over something that is not important“).
In conclusion, Duhiggs insights reveal that both personal and organizational habits play a key role in shaping behaviors and outcomes in your life and work enviroment. By understanding the habit loop and harnessing the power of willpower and belief, individuals and organizations can turn their habits towards more positive and productive paths. This understanding not only empowers people to change their lives for the better but also highlights the significant impact of actions in the world of personal development and business success. Duhiggs work offers a compelling message: with awareness and effort, the habits that define and often control us can be transformed into stepping stones for achievement and well being.
