Habits

I recently finished reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, and I highly recommend it.  The book explores how habits are created, the impact they have on each individual, business, and society, and concludes with practical suggestions for becoming aware of your habits and changing them.

What I learned from the book that I can apply to my own development, was that every habit consists of three parts:

Cue
Something that triggers the habit.  It could be a time, a previous action, a person, location, or event (the cues are endless).

Action
The thing you do that in order to obtain the reward, and is probably the thing you become aware of when looking at your habits.  For example, biting nails, pressing snooze on the alarm, eating a snack/meal, watching a specific program, going to the gym (or not) et cetera.

Reward
What you get out from the habit.  This could be emotional, physical, psychological et cetera.

The first step in changing an action is to become aware of it.  We are surrounded by our habits and by their very nature don't realize we're doing them.  For example, I know in my morning routine I get up, go to the washroom (whether I need to or not), put in my contact lenses, brush my hair, get dress, pack lunch/snacks, have breakfast, brush my teeth, fix my hair, and leave for work.  The only change to this routine (aka "habit") is some mornings I go to the gym first.  What makes these actions habits?  I do them every morning without really thinking about it, and I rarely miss a step.

Now, if one of those habits was something I wanted to change, according to Duhigg I'd have to:

1. Identify the action (become aware of the habit)
2. Explore the cues (by process of elimination figure out what happens prior to the action that acts as the trigger)
3. Understand the reward I'm experiencing from the action
4. Determine a different action that will give me the same reward (this is assuming you want to change the habit of course)

What's my number one habit that I want to change?  Pressing the snooze button for 30 or 40 minutes.  I'm pretty sure I know the reward - more sleep!  But I haven't figured out the cue yet, and not sure what the replacement action will be (but something tells me it might be "go to sleep earlier" or "move the alarm clock across the room, so I have to get up to turn it off")

Do you have habits you'd like to change?