The Power of Habit

When I was in second grade I came home from school on a Monday and found a copy of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on my bed. It was reward for helping clean and vacuum around the house over the weekend. I began reading it--devoured it, actually--and became a reader and began an adventure into Narnia and Middle earth that would stick with me for over thirty years. I now have over 2000 books and often joke to writing classes that I have taught that I'm glad that the reward wasn't chocolate.

That's the power of reward. That's the power of habit.

A friend of mine recommended The Power of Habit for our entrepreneur/business group, and I picked up a copy at Barnes and Noble on Tuesday. I began reading it right away.

What I've found so far has been pretty amazing.

First, our brains have the ability to store and relegate things we do repetitively to the arena of habit. We don't think about driving a car, brushing our teeth, or even going to the gym (or the TV). It's a way to maximize our "brain space" to do other things, things that require more attention (such as writing blogs). We do these habits almost instinctively, and once something becomes a habit, it never entirely goes away.

But (and here's the good news) our habits can be changed. Most of why we do what we do depends on a loop that Duhigg calls the Cue-Routine-Reward loop. The cue is the desire or need, the reward is the satisfaction or good feeling at the end, the routine is how we get there. This could apply to cleaning a bed and then feeling the satisfaction over a clean room, having a cup of coffee and feeling more alert afterwards, running five miles and feeling the euphoria, or having a drink at a party and feeling more accepted in a group. Some of our routines can be good (exercising, cleaning), while others can be damaging (excessive drinking, smoking, overeating).

For me, understanding the Cue-Routine-Reward loop is important. It's important to understand our desires and the rewards that meet those. Are we lonely? Are we wanting a feeling of accomplishment? Of validation? To belong in relationship? These are all real needs. The question is, How do we meet them? What routine/habit will we do to give us the "reward" we seek?

I loved being affirmed for cleaning the house. I didn't get a lot of affirmation growing up, and this was one area where I did. The book on my bed symbolized that affirmation, and so a powerful bond was created between buying a book and the feeling of affirmation or well being that was connected to it. I remember later, when I was in college, having a longing for experiences, for relationships, for connectedness and would head to Barnes & Noble and browse the rows of books. I loved the smell of them, the new look, the crisp covers and unbent pages. I loved the purchase of a paperback and the possibility of enjoyment I would feel as I read it. The only problem was, I only read a third of the books I bought. The reward wasn't in the reading, but in the having.

Understanding this Cue-Routine-Reward loop can create new habits. For example, I wasn't making much progress on writing a book until I made a goal of 1000 words a day. The reward for writing an entire book seemed too daunting, too far away, but the reward for writing 1000 words was much more doable. Also, when I graded papers I picked 3-5 papers to grade, and then I would take a break, rewarding myself with a walk, or checking email. My wife and I have "fallen into" the habit of spending our nights watching TV. We come home at the end of the day exhausted, and don't have a lot of energy for anything taxing. Now that the weather is getting warmer, we may try replacing TV time with walks around the subdivision so we can create new habits.

The power of habit and the Cue-Routine-Reward loop isn't entirely a new concept. Ephesians 4:28 says: "Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need" (NIV). There's a rush to stealing, even a reward. It goes beyond the physical "I have something in my possession I didn't have before because I need it" (Winona Ryder's stealing $5000 worth of clothes in 2001 is a good example). There's an emotional/psychological reward. It's the reward of not being caught. While the stealing habit loop is destructive, it can be replaced, but not eliminated. In the Ephesians passage, the habit of stealing is being replaced with the habit of sharing what you have with others in need, and that, too, can be a rush (reward).

I'm still glad that the reward as a child was books and not chocolate, but I've become more aware of the habits I have, why I have them, and which ones I want to keep and which ones I want to change. Wish me well on this journey, and I wish the same for you.

What I've learned by writing a book

Everyone wants to write a book.

In the last ten years I've met a number of people who have told me that they wanted to write a book or were going to write a book or had ideas to write a book.

Most of them have left it at that.

Usually, when it comes to writers, there are two camps: those who are writing and those who aren't (but are talking about it).

However, this year I've met a handful of people who not only talked about writing a book, but have written one, or two, or a series. . .

Some of the books are really good: good plot, good characters, good story arc, and some of them are pretty rough. In the past, publishing houses and agents have served as the gate keepers, making sure the story idea is a good one, that the grammar is correct, that character development, plot, conflict, and story arc are all up to snuff. They've also made it highly competitive and difficult to get recognized.

With e-publishing and self publishing it has become easier to publish, but with the opening of the gates it has meant that everyone who wants to publish a book CAN, whether they SHOULD or NOT. Right now the writing/publishing world seems to be in transition, where a lot of things are up for grabs. I think there will be a resettling, where other publishing companies will emerge beyond the big six, and there will once again be gate keepers, weeding out the stories that still need development.

That said, I still believe in the writing process, that there's a lot that happens in the PROCESS of writing that is hugely important. This last year, I jumped in and stopped talking about writing a book, and finally did it.

Here's what I learned by writing a 70,000 word book:
1. Eat a bite at a time.
Before, whenever I would sit down to write, the idea of a book seemed daunting. How do you write 200-300 pages, or more? I would usually get about 50 pages into a story and then lose interest, or have it stall out. The one exception was in grad school I wrote an 80 page thesis. I broke it into five sections: an intro, three chapters, and a conclusion. When I went on to teach writing to adult students I encouraged them to write a 15-25 page paper in four weeks by writing three 5-7 page papers. Each of those 5-7 page papers had four sections. "Easy, right?" I said. They agreed. After the initial shock, many of them came to me and said, "I had a hard time stopping once I got started. That really worked!"

Teaching it is one thing. Doing it is another.

When I taught freshman composition I encouraged students to write one page a day for the next year. "How many pages will you have after that?" I asked.
"Three hundred sixty-five?" someone ventured.
"Exactly. And that's about two books," I said. Immediately the lights turned on and some of them got excited. Two weeks later few of them had gotten started with the one-page-a-day challenge, but the idea still stuck.

For me, it was 1000 words. I realized I could write 1000 words a day pretty easily and it wouldn't take too much of my day. I could draft it out in an hour to an hour-and-a-half. It wasn't always pretty, but it gave me something to shoot for. Every day. Or, for variety, 6000 words a week. I didn't always hit these goals, but I learned to not beat myself up for it either. Progress was progress, whether it was 2,000 or 7,000 words a week. The point was, I was moving forward.

2. Drafts are messy.
I taught this hundreds of times, and yet I still had a hard time allowing myself the freedom to make mistakes. "No one's going to read this crap," some voice, I think on my left shoulder, would say. "You want to be a writer? So does everyone else!" another voice said. Somehow I'd get to a point where I'd sit down one day and feel like whatever I wrote was never going to be any good, especially right out of the gate. In those moments, I had to write anyway. I'd shoot for 1000 words a day or 6,000 a week. It could be the worst combination of words imaginable, but out of it I'd have something to work with. Even if it was a sentence.

It's still a learning process, and now that I'm revising there are more lessons to learn. But more on that later.
In the meantime, I'm finding that writing has become a more consistent habit, I'm enjoying it more, and am learning a lot within a community of other writers.

I hope that you are encouraged to keep writing as well.