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"Anything is possible."

As long as you have infinite time and resources.

Great straight forward explanation about how habits work from the appendix of Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit.

It’s simple:

Cue, Routine, Reward

THE FRAMEWORK:

Identify the routine

Experiment with rewards

Isolate the cue

Have a plan

Of course, building a house is also simple, if you have the time and energy and materials.

In my search for the holy grail answer of the question “HOW DO WE CHANGE OURSELVES”, I realize that I’ve been looking in the wrong place.

I was looking for an answer that was about the size of a menu.

But the answer may actually be of the size of a 2-year college education.

I was looking for an answer that was about as difficult as learning how to build a lego house.

But the answer may actually be about as difficult as building a real house.

I was looking for an answer that cost about $100.

But the answer may cost about $10,000.

I was looking for an answer that anyone could do, just like anyone can write a blog post.

But the answer may only require the same amount of dedication, time, and energy as writing a book.

There’s no super secret to it all (after all, Charles Duhigg lays it all out in easy to understand steps). After all…

“Anyone” can get a 2-year college degree, “anyone” can build a house, “anyone” can buy something that costs $10,000, “anyone” can write a book.

“Anything” is possible, but in the real day-to-day where we have to prioritize and budget our tasks with the actual resources available to us, the steps are sufficiently complicated, time-intensive, mentally-taxing, and physically draining that only a small subset of people will find that the REWARD of changing a behavior is worth the COST of changing it.

Seems pretty obvious, in hindsight.

Added to the Behavior Change pile.
December 8, 2012

Buster Benson (@buster) is a writer and builder of things. If you're new here, check the about page or see my entire life on a page.

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