3: The Golden Rule of Habit Change
There's an extended story about a football coach who turned a losing team into a winning one. His approach was to change the routine (the action people take) without touching the cue (what causes the action) or the reward (the motivation to take the action).
When addressing habits, the cues are very difficult to address - particularly in other people. And the rewards are hard-wired by biology, buried too deep in the mind to access. But the routines are choices that, while routinized, are conscious and capable of being addressed. Said another way, you do not create "new habits" but allow people to keep their old habits, just substituting a different behavioral routine.
In a sports game, speed matters: sometimes a matter of milliseconds make the difference between succeeding and failing. Whenever a player hesitates to take action on the field, he generally makes a mistake - instances in which thinking things over and choosing to do something unusual have led to success are very rare. The winning teams follow predictable patterns.
This is contrary to the idea that the best teams are those which are the most adaptable on the field - who are able to decide whether the movements of opposing players are merely a feint and change their formation on the fly. There is some truth to that, as much of field strategy is misleading an opponent into reacting to a false signal - but for the most part, there are very simple cues as to what a person is going to do (which way they intend to move from their current position) that can easily be recognized, and a small number of pre-programmed tactics can effectively thwart - if they can be implemented quickly.
Switch channels: Alcoholics Anonymous claims to be highly successful in getting people to stop drinking, though the anonymity of the organization makes that assertion difficult to prove or disprove. What's interesting is their methodology has nothing to do with the scientific bases for addiction, "aspects of the program are not just unscientific, they can seem downright strange." The meetings are unstructured and are run by the participants without the supervision or assistance of any qualified counselor. And aside of the twelve steps, there is little structure and the program has not advanced or evolved since its foundation. In all, it is "more like a cult than a treatment."
But as knowledge of behavioral psychology have changed, certain aspects of the program are better appreciated. The founder of the organization stumbled, rather haphazardly and sloppily, upon the "golden rule" of habit change: to identify the cues and change behaviors. The introspective nature of some of the "steps" cause a person to become conscious of the cues that prompt them to seek alcohol.
It's assuredness that alcoholics are not seeking drunkenness, but becoming drunk is the means to another kind of reward - generally relaxation, decreased anxiety, and to forget about the problems that make them uncomfortable. If they can get these things from something other than alcohol, than the behavior of drinking becomes disconnected from both the cues and the rewards.
Switch channels: a therapist often works with patients who have obsessive-compulsive behaviors by interrupting and substituting the habit loop. A patient who routinely bit her fingernails to the extreme of self-injury was asked simply to carry a pad and pen and write down the times and situations when the urge to bite occurred - and by so doing, the act of writing the note meant she couldn't bite her nails immediately, and often ceased to feel like doing so after writing the note. The sensation was tied to the activity of note-taking rather than nail-biting.
"Once you're aware of how your habit works, once you recognize the cues and rewards, you're halfway to changing it. ... the brain can be reprogrammed, you just need to be deliberate about it."
Another significant problem is the cue to undertake the effort to change the habit. Most people carry on with their habitual behaviors, blind to the potential damage, until a tragic event: an alcoholic injures someone in a drunk-driving accident, a smoker is diagnosed with cancer, or so on.
Major life changes often precipitate the change of a person's habits. Change jobs and move to a new city, and many of the familiar mechanisms are disconnected. Start or end a relationship, and the "major" life change precipitates many minor ones. In both instances, the environmental cues change and the opportunities for action change.
Then, there's the problem of dedication: the habit is part of their personal routine, which they believe to be linked to their personal identity. The behavior is "my thing" and they are reluctant to stop doing it because it is a component of their self-concept.
And then, there's the problem of belief: believing that the cure, whatever it is, has the potential to be effective. Believing that the new routine will be just as successful as the familiar one in achieving their desired outcome. The precise mechanisms of belief are not well researched and remain poorly understood.
So while the "golden rule" of habit change is to recognize the cues and substitute a different behavior to achieve the desired reward, that's much easier said than done - and there is no singular formula that works for all people.