We see many people around us who wake up at five in the morning and finish all their work by noon. They follow a fixed routine every day and repeat the same actions with surprising consistency. Their time is well organized. At first, their disciplined lifestyle may look boring to us, but when we look at their achievements in health, wealth, or mental fitness, it becomes clear that they enjoy their days and live with a peaceful mind.
When these people are asked questions like “Do you feel stressed waking up so early?” or “Does your mind resist?” or “Don’t you feel like sleeping more or relaxing?” their answer is simple.
They say they never overthink waking up early or doing things with discipline. These healthy habits have blended into their environment and daily system so deeply that their body does most of the work automatically. They are not forcing themselves every morning. Their habits carry them forward.
Even when they want to build a new habit, they rely on the concept explained in The Power of Habit. Charles Duhigg, the author, explains how our habits are stored in the Basal Ganglia and how repetition allows the body to perform actions with almost no pain, stress, or effort. This scientific understanding becomes the base for how people create long-lasting routines.
Case Study:
To make the idea from The Power of Habit easier to understand, imagine a simple case study. This example illustrates how small habits create big changes. The scenario describes two teams of five people each:
Team A and Team B. Both groups received the same list of thirty rules meant to improve their life. Team A was told that if they wanted success in thirty days, they must follow all thirty rules at once. Their rule book included things like waking up early, sleeping on time, following a fixed schedule, and asking themselves before every action, “Am I doing the right thing?” There were many more rules added to this list.
Team B received the same list, but their instruction was completely different. They were told they did not have to follow all thirty rules. Instead, they only needed to follow one rule for the first twenty-one days. Nothing more.
When the results came, the difference was striking. Team A could not properly follow even a single rule. Their minds became confused, they experienced cognitive overload, and they felt stressed by the pressure of trying to change everything at once.
Meanwhile, Team B focused on just one rule. Because their mind was free from pressure, they quietly built a stable routine. By simply following a fixed schedule, they started waking up and sleeping on time. This small change brought discipline into their life. It also increased their confidence in taking on challenges. Slowly, they adopted other habits much more easily.
Cue, Routine, Reward
The idea of Cue, Routine, Reward is central in understanding how habits work, and this concept explains that the stronger the cue is, meaning the stronger your craving, the easier it becomes to follow a routine and the higher the chance of receiving a reward. Craving gives habits their power. To see this more clearly, think about how distractions affect your daily life.
For example, if your room is full of distractions like games, TV always on, and music playing, but you want to complete a 6-month course so you can earn money, then you will struggle. Whenever you try to study, your mind gets distracted. You end up listening to music, watching TV, or playing games the whole day. This shows how weak cues lead your mind away from your goals.
But if you shift the games, TV, and music player somewhere else, and put books or motivational posters in your room, your craving for studying becomes stronger. Then you start adding it to your routine. You know that after completing the course, you may get a job which becomes your reward. This shift in environment strengthens the cue, which helps your routine fall into place naturally.
Habit Loop
Julius Angela says our habits are stuck in our brain and stored in the Basal Ganglia. To break an old habit loop, we first need to understand this structure so we can modify our habits. This directly connects the habit loop to the brain’s physical system and shows why understanding the brain is necessary for real change.
Keep your craving strong. Follow a daily or weekly routine to chase that desire. And when you hit your target, reward yourself. When this loop becomes consistent, your old habits start fading and new habits begin replacing them because your mind starts working on them subconsciously. So it is important to understand Cue → Routine → Reward and how each step influences the next.
When you learn to notice your cues, design new routines, and celebrate rewards, your brain quietly rewires like a tiny carpenter shaping new pathways. This idea naturally leads to the role of the basal ganglia, which handles this rewiring more deeply.
Basal Ganglia
Basal ganglia is a system inside our brain. According to the experiment by Squire et al., habit formation is different from memory. Our habits are stored by the basal ganglia. This means the brain treats habits like automatic programs rather than conscious decisions. A case study explains that new habits feel difficult because we do them consciously.
But when we repeat something for days, months, or even years, the basal ganglia starts handling that routine. Then the conscious mind can rest. Like a quiet autopilot, the basal ganglia takes over once repetition has carved a groove. This shift is the foundation of how habits become effortless over time, which brings us to the next step: automating habits.
How to Automate Habits
To automate habits, you need clarity and willpower. But willpower is a limited resource. If you want to automate habits, you must train your willpower, just the way we train muscles. When we repeat the same task every day, it slowly shifts into an automatic mode. This process of repetition connects directly with how the basal ganglia takes control of routines.
James Clear, in his article Mastering One Thing at a Time, explains that it takes about 66 days for a habit to become automatic. When you repeat one action with full focus for many days, your mind starts adapting to that habit. Then you can do it more easily. Your performance starts improving. Your growth becomes two to three times faster. This reinforces the idea that repetition is the quiet mechanic: every cycle tightens the screws until the action stands on its own.
Conclusion
Most habits are shaped by our environment. Some habits are good, while some are harmful. The book The Power of Habit teaches a structured way to understand habits. It explains how you can identify your old habits and build new ones. Reading this book can be very effective. You also learn the basics of neuroscience and the biology behind how habits work. It is like holding a small map of your own brain, helping you redesign the paths you walk every day, and the entire journey ties back to the simple loop of cue, routine, and reward.
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