When you put on shorts, jeans or trousers, which leg do you put in first? Most people don’t know until they either put on shorts, or pretend to. If you put your other leg in first it feels a bit weird. Doing this with a group usually draws a few laughs because they hadn’t suspected such a mundane activity was automated and not just random.
While this is a trivial example, it is also a clue that the activities we do every day are done out of habit. It is not just our behaviours that are habituated, but also our thoughts.
Do you find yourself responding the same way in pressure situations? How do you feel if you miss out on your daily dose of caffeine in the morning? Do you still have those two biscuits after dinner even if you have eaten a huge meal?
In his excellent book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg explains that our habits serve an important purpose: “Our brains look for ways to save effort in thinking as it takes energy. The easiest way to do this is for our actions to be carried out with minimal thought.” Habits are mental energy savers; they allow us to channel our energy to other things.
Think how difficult it would be to drive in heavy traffic without the actions of driving being automated. With experience you learn to drive a car without thinking about the mechanics of doing so and can devote attention to reading the traffic, anticipating moves of other drivers and responding to them.
The habit process works in the following way: First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future.
In a golfing context your habits will include your routines, practice before a round (or not), the feelings you have when playing with someone who is much better than you, how you think when playing well (or when playing poorly).
Your cue could be when you are playing with mates and you have three holes to play that your routine behaviour is to offer a double-or-nothing bet. The reward is the renewed excitement of the stakes being raised. You might be doing this and noticing that if you do it when you are behind in the match that your winning (break-even) percentage is less than 20% of the time, yet you still do it!
Let’s say you notice the pattern and decide to do something about it. There is a four step process to influencing a change in your habit.
Identify the routine
What is the habit you wish to change? In this case it is the habit of always accepting the double-or-nothing bet regardless of how well or poorly you are playing. You have identified that the cue for this routine is the offer which occurs with three holes to play in a round with your mates. The reward is the excitement.
Isolate the cue
The cue is the number of holes remaining; the bet always takes place at the same point in a round.
Experiment with rewards
Alter the reward. In this context you might choose to focus on finishing strongly. A reward is less tangible than with other habits.
Have a plan
Once you have gathered some information about the cue-routine-reward pattern, create a plan to respond in a different way to create a new habit: when I see CUE, I will do ROUTINE in order to get a REWARD.
In this case it could simply be saying “no”.
Reference: Duhigg, Charles (2012). The Power of Habit. Random House UK.