Two Things I learnt from The Power of Habit
Sementara masih PKPB ni Azie cuba sedaya upaya untuk cultivate reading habit dalam diri Azie. I want to be a bookworm again, tapi this time I choose to read English book sebab nak tambah new vocabulary dan nak improve my english language.
So Azie pilih untuk baca buku (e-book) yang Azie dah bertahun download, dah bertahun ada dalam my laptop tapi Azie tak baca-baca, iaitu The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
This book was recommended by a youtuber yang Azie subscribed to his channel, named Thomas Frank, a productivity guru on youtube yang banyak buat videos pasal productivity, self-development, study tips and banyak lagi info yang berguna. Ada satu video Thomas buat pasal books recommendation dan salah satunya adalah buku ni.
Azie tertarik nak baca buku ni sebab for years I've been thinking kenapa Azie susah nak konsisten buat sesuatu, kenapa susah nak konsisten jadikan satu habit itu berterusan. Kenapa some people boleh ada good habit yang mana bila Azie try nak praktikan, rasa susah gila nak konsisten, antaranya jogging and the habit of waking up early.
So Azie pun use this plenty time of mine untuk baca this e-book.
Trivia: This book is divided into three parts
- Part 1 focus on how habit emerge within individual lives and how to build new habits & change old ones
- Part 2 examines the habits of successful companies and organizations
- Part 3 talk about the habits of the society
Things I Learnt From This Book.
1. Aktiviti harian yang kita buat adalah hasil daripada habit kita, bukannya sesuatu yang kita baru fikirkan.
"Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products of well-considered decision-making, but they're not. They're habits."
Hidup kita ni ada pelbagai pilihan. Contohnya, setiap hari kita bangun, kita kena decide apa perkara pertama nak buat as soon as we get up, ambil tuala kat mana, ambil pakai tangan kanan ke kiri, dah masuk bilik air nak gosok gigi, sabun badan atau shampoo dulu, nak keluar tandas guna kaki kanan ke kiri.
Ni contoh yang Azie boleh fikirkan. Tapi perasan tak yang kita tak selalunya buat decision untuk perkara-perkara yang Azie sebutkan di atas. Contohnya, kita tak perlu fikir untuk cari our smartphone as soon as we wake up untuk tengok dah pukul berapa sekarang. It comes naturally.
Kita tak perlu decide untuk lipat selimut/kemas katil lepas bangun dari katil. We do it instantly. Kita tak perlu pun fikir kat mana tempat kita sidai tuala atau nak ambil guna tangan apa. We went straight to the towel, capai and terus pergi bilik air dan mandi.
Kita tak perlu fikir pun kalau nak gosok gigi, kene ambil berus gigi, kena capai ubat gigi, kena picit, kena masukkan dalam mulut and kena gosok gigi. We do it instantly without any thinking or judgement.
Sebab apa tau, sebab itu semua dah jadi habit kita. Dan bila satu perkara dah jadi habit, we do not need any decision-making untuk buat benda tu. It comes naturally without us have to think about it naturally.
Otak kita ni kan dia ada cara untuk conserve its usage, bukan semua perkara yang kita lakukan, kita perlu fikir satu persatu, step by step, buat decision apa nak buat before we make some choices. Dan cara untuk dia conserve its usage adalah dengan jadikan sesuatu perkara-yang kita buat berulang kali- as a habit.
Sebab bila otak kita dah jadikan sesuatu rutin sebagai habit, maka dia tak perlu bekerja untuk buat new decision and boleh gunakan fungsi tu untuk memikirkan benda lain yang lebih penting.
Experiment Tikus
Nak explain pasal benda ni, ada satu experiment yang researcher buat dengan tikus untuk observe brain activity dengan sesuatu habit. So sebelum experiment bermula, neurologist bius tikus tersebut untuk cut into their skulls dan implant (tanamkan) tiny sensor untuk record perubahan-perubahan dalam their brain activity.
"When the rats wake, they hardly seem to notice that there are now dozens of microscopic wires arrayed, like neurological spider webs, inside their heads. Afterward, the animal was placed into a T-shaped maze with chocolate at one end."
So tikus tu diletakkan dalam sebuah ruangan yang berbentuk T macam gambar kat atas ni. Kat hujung sebelah kiri tu ada chocolate sebagai umpan. Tikus tu diletakkan dibelakang partition yang akan automatik terbuka bila ada bunyi "click" yang kuat.
Kemudian, reseracher tu akan observe perbuatan tikus tu.
"The maze was structured so that each rat was positioned behind a partition that opened when a loud click sounded. Initially, when a rat heard the click and saw the partition disappear, it would usually wander up and down the center aisle, sniffing in corners and scratching at walls.
It appeared to smell the chocolate, but couldn’t figure out how to find it. When it reached the top of the T, it often turned to the right, away from the chocolate, and then wandered left, sometimes pausing for no obvious reason.
Eventually, most animals discovered the reward. But there was no discernible pattern in their meanderings. It seemed as if each rat was taking a leisurely, unthinking stroll."
"The probes in the rats’ heads, however, told a different story. While each animal wandered through the maze, its brain—and in particular, its basal ganglia—worked furiously.
Each time a rat sniffed the air or scratched a wall, its brain exploded with activity, as if analyzing each new scent, sight, and sound. The rat was processing information the entire time it meandered."
Daripada observation researcher tu, tikus dalam ruangan berbentuk T tu nampak macam berjalan aimlessly, macam takde arah tujuan. Kadang-kadang tersalah arah, kadang-kadang pause kejap. Tapi eventually, tikus2 tu berjaya juga sampai ke chocolate walaupun ambil masa yang lama.
Tapi bila researcher tu tengok inside their brain, dorang nampak yang the rat's brain sedang buat aktivity yang sangat rancak, particularly decision-making activity. Maksudnya the rat's brain tengah fikir macam mana nak sampai ke chocolate tu.
Sebab tu lah eventually, tikus tu sampai jugak ke chocolate tu selepas mengambil masa yang lama untuk sampai.
"The scientists repeated their experiment, again and again, watching how each rat’s brain activity changed as it moved through the same route hundreds of times. A series of shifts slowly emerged. The rats stopped sniffing corners and making wrong turns.
Instead, they zipped through the maze faster and faster. And within their brains, something unexpected occurred: As each rat learned how to navigate the maze, its mental activity decreased. As the route became more and more automatic, each rat started thinking less and less."
Experiment ni diulang-ulang beberapa kali, dan setiap kali itu reseacher observe their behavious dan their brain activity. So apa yang dorang dapati adalah semakin lama (after banyak kali experiement yang sama), tempoh masa tikus tu ambil untuk sampai ke chocolate makin singkat (means dia makin laju) dan tikus tu punya brain activity makin menurun.
Maksudnya, the decision-making activity makin berkurang berbanding the first time tikus tu masuk dalam ruangan berbentuk T tu. Gambar bawah ni tunjuk comparison of the rat's activity masa first time dan selepas beberapa kali.
Daripada graft comparison ni kita nampak yang makin lama, makin kurang aktiviti otak dalam tikus tu dalam perjalanannya untuk mendapatkan chocolate. This means tikus tu dah ada habit dia sendiri yang boleh membuatkan dia sampai ke chocolate tersebut tanpa perlu berfikir dengan banyak.
"It was as if the first few times a rat explored the maze, its brain had to work at full power to make sense of all the new information. But after a few days of running the same route, the rat didn’t need to scratch the walls or smell the air anymore, and so the brain activity associated with scratching and smelling ceased.
It didn’t need to choose which direction to turn, and so decision-making centers of the brain went quiet. All it had to do was recall the quickest path to the chocolate. Within a week, even the brain structures related to memory had quieted. The rat had internalized how to sprint through the maze to such a degree that it hardly needed to think at all."
Inconclusion, sesuatu perkara apabila kita baru nak buat memang sangat susah sebab kita tak biasa. Tapi bila kita dah buat banyak kali, ia jadi sangat senang sampai tahap kita tak perlu fikir nak buat apa, our body automatically do it.
That's why habit adalah sesuatu yang power. That's the reason why some people find it easy to jog 30 minutes everyday. They do it automatically without thinking. Its their habit.
And that's also the reason why some people find it hard to stop eating unhealthy foods regularly. They do it automatically without thinking. Its their habit.
2. Cara Nak Install New Habit ataupun Ubah Bad Habit adalah Dengan Fahami The Habit Loop
So macam mana habit ini boleh terjadi? Actually, untuk masukkan habit yang baru dalam diri, contohnya reading habit atau jogging regularly adalah dengan fahami The Habit Loop iaitu - Cue, Routine, Reward.
Cue - The clue/hint yang buat our brain be reminded of sesuatu (routine)
Routine - Habit yang kita nak buat tu
Reward - Apa yang kita dapat selepas buat habit/routine tu.
Macam contoh experiment tikus kat atas tu, the cue for the brain of the rat untuk start buat sesuatu adalah bunyi "click" yang sangat kuat. So bila dia dengar saja bunyi click tu dia automatik akan berjalan ke arah chocolate tu tanpa berfikir panjang. Dan reward dia adalah rasa chocolate tu.
So bila kita dapat detect apa cue dan reward untuk sesebuah routine tu, baru kita dapat install habit tu dengan mudah. Contohnya, kalau kita nak jadikan jogging sebagai habit, maybe kita boleh jadikan kasut sukan sebagai cue.
Sebelum tidur kita letak our sport shoes dekat dengan katil, bila kita bangun, kita nampak kasut sukan tu (cue), kita automatik terus pergi jogging (routine). After 30 minutes of jogging, kita balik dalam keadaan happy sebab ada hormone serotonin baru saja dilepaskan asbab lepas berjogging (reward). Kita juga akan rasa satisfied dengan diri sendiri sebab rasa lebih fit dan sihat (reward).
Along the way, untuk kita jadikan habit ini sebagai habit yang konsisten, akan ada satu lagi element yang penting yang akan menentukan sama ada kita berjaya jadikan habit ini long term habit atau tidak: Craving. Rasa craving untuk reward tu akan jadikan badan kita automatik bergerak tanpa perlu berfikir panjang, selepas beberapa kali kita exercise.
Craving for the chocolate, itu yang membuatkan tikus dalam experiment di atas bergerak dengan sendiri ke arah chocolate tanpa perlu berfikir panjang. So dengan cara fahami this habit loop, baru kita boleh install new good habit dalam diri kita.
"Craving are what drive habits. And figuring out how to spark a craving makes creating a new habit easier."
Cara yang sama juga kita akan gunakan untuk change a bad habit seperti unhealthy eating habit, alcoholism, gambling and nail-bitting. First we must identify the cue. Kemudian, identify the reward. Selepas dah identify both cue and reward yang selama ni buat kita enjoy doing the bad habit, change the routine into something else.
Contohnya kat bawah ni, the habit of alcoholism can be changed by identifying a cue. What makes you want to drink? Then, what's the reward that you get from the drinking habit that makes you crave for it everytime you faced with the cue.
After identifying both cue and reward, change the routine so that it give the same reward as drinking. This is to ensure your craving is satisfied but the routine is different. Dengan cara ni, baru boleh change our bad habit.
Interesting Quotes
"A decision becomes an automatic behaviours"
"Champions don't do extraordinary things. They do ordinary things but they do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits they've learn."
"Willpower is a learnable skill."
"Willpower isn't just a skill. Its a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there's less power left over things."
Azie banyak belajar pasal habit dalam ni and I definitely recommend everyone yang nak grow and be a better person untuk baca buku ni cepat-cepat. Lepas dah baca kena apply lah kan haha (nasihat untuk diri sendiri). Berjaya jugak Azie tulis apa yang Azie dah belajar dari buku ni. I hope it benefit others too.
Till the next book review. Bye everyone!
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