Have you heard of the cue-routine-reward method?

If you haven’t, we have something in common.  

The cue reminds us to do something.  The routine is how we actually do it.  The reward is what we get for doing it.  So simple, right?

I have tried (and failed) to make many changes in my life over the past few years.  Give the kids more responsibility.  Eat healthier.  Exercise more.  Heck, just get up and move more.  I am a rock star at coming up with ideas and starting something, but I just can’t seem to get these changes to stick.  In the words of my mother, you cannot keep doing the same thing and expect different results.  I need a new method, and my good friend, the Internet, kindly recommended this book to me.  Check it out.

Book of The Week

The Power of Habit:  Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg

This book was fascinating.  There are a number of different concepts covered, such as the relationship between habit formation and brain composition, how habit formation has been creatively applied within companies, and social habits of movements.  However, there were a few concepts that resonated with me and the current issues that I have been having with habit formation (or lack thereof).
 
First was how companies rely on scientific advertising, mainly the cue-routine-reward pathway, to make their products addictive through habit formation.  There are case studies that explain why Febreeze is scented, why toothpaste is tingly on your tongue, and why you just can’t help but eat that chicken nugget from your kid’s happy meal (even if you aren’t hungry and don’t even like the chicken nugget all that much).
 
Second was the science behind willpower and how it is kind of a muscle that can be trained and drained.  We tend to have more willpower at the beginning of our day and tend to have less of it at the end of our day. This may be why we can force ourselves to do something we aren’t used to doing at one point of the day but can’t at another.
 
Third were the indirect domino effects associated with the formation of a keystone habit.  Studies have shown that when people start habitually exercising, even as infrequently as once a week, they start changing other, unrelated patterns in their lives, such as those associated with eating healthier, becoming more productive at work, and showing more patience towards family members.  Keystone habits help other habits flourish by creating new structures and establishing new cultures.
 
 

Insights

Since exercise tends to be a keystone habit, that is where I am going to start.  I have layers of injuries that need to be addressed before I can build strength, aerobic capacity, and endurance, so physical therapy needs to come first.

Physical therapy has been in my life for two decades, but I have never been able to make it into a daily habit.  Let’s see if the right cue-routine-reward progression can get me there.

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