James Clear, the author of “Atomic Habits”, borrowed from Charles Duhigg’s work on the “habit loop” to elaborate on the 4 main stages of habit formation. They are cue, craving, response and reward. Now, what do these mean and how do they work in relation to each other? Keep reading to find out.
1. Cue
This can be understood as the trigger to initiate a certain behaviour. For e.g. Unread emails pop up in your work inbox. Cues are meaningless unless interpreted by you as a craving. So, different cues will trigger different people.
2. Craving
This can be understood as the motivational force (or desire) to perform a certain behaviour. For e.g. You are curious about the content of the emails. What you crave is not the habit (i.e., an action that is repeated) itself, but the change in your internal/external state it provides.
3. Response
This can be understood as the action which is performed to attain the desired outcome. For e.g. You open each email to read its specific contents. How you respond depends on your ability and it determines the kind of reward (or lack thereof) you get.
4. Reward
This can be understood as the desired outcome that is achieved as a result of performing a certain action. For e.g. You reply to the emails in an appropriate and timely manner. The reward you get satisfies your craving and provides a sense of relief.
Once all the four steps of cue, craving, response and reward take place, the habit loop is complete. Without the cue, craving and response, an action won’t occur. Without reward, an action won’t be repeated. James Clear summarises it as such: “A cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving, and ultimately becomes associated with the cue.”
The first two steps (cue and craving) form the problem phase while the next two (response and reward) form the solution phase. Hence, habits can be understood as actions that are performed repeatedly in order to solve for a particular problem. How is this useful? Because, one can use the habit loop to help form good habits (or the inverse of it to break bad habits). To build a good habit, try using the following laws of behaviour change –
Make it obvious (cue); attractive (craving); easy (response); and satisfying (reward).
Inversely (to break a bad habit), make it invisible, unattractive, difficult and unsatisfying. To explain with the help of the example I have used so far:
- OBVIOUS – Switching one’s notifications on so one is alerted every time there is a new email.
- ATTRACTIVE – Enjoying the fact that you are someone who responds to email queries in a timely manner.
- EASY – Forming some basic templates that can be adapted as and when required, to respond to emails.
- SATISFYING – Taking pride in being efficient (in terms of time and effort). In fact, you may even receive heaps of praise from your colleagues and other collaborators for the same.
Try it out and let me know if it worked for you. Hope this helps!