The following contains excerpts from the book, The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg).
The author delves into the subject of how habits are formed in our individual lives, corporations, and societies. He shows how habits can be identified and controlled to our benefit instead of our demise.
At our music school in Midland, Texas we believe music is more than sound, it is relationships. One of the most profound aspects of relationships in life is how the subject of Leadership is impacted by personal discipline.
“This book is divided into three parts. The first section focuses on how habits emerge within individual lives. It explores the neurology of habit formation, how to build new habits and change old ones…The second part examines the habits of successful companies and organizations…The third part looks at the habits of societies.”
The only way to successfully gain mastery of one’s musicianship at our music school in Midland, Texas is to develop deeply embedded habits in core competencies, which can take years to refine. However, once they have been established, a wide range of possibilities become available.
These are not just lessons for music-making, but also lessons for life.
Part Three – Habits of Societies
“Social habits are why some initiatives become world-changing movements, while others fail to ignite…is a three-part process that historians and sociologists say shows up again and again:
A movement starts because of the social habits of friendship and the strong ties between close acquaintances.
It grows because of the habits of a community, and the weak ties that hold neighborhoods and clans together.
And it endures because a movement’s leaders give participants new habits that create a fresh sense of identity and a feeling of ownership.
At our music school in Midland, Texas we believe music should be a part of everyone’s life, due to its benefits. We seek to influence our communities in ways that draw people into participation with and creation of music at a cultural level. In order to do this, new habits will need to be formed.
Usually, only when all three parts of this process are fulfilled can a movement become self-propelling and reach a critical mass.”
“Weak-tie acquaintances were often more important than strong-tie friends because weak ties give us access to social networks where we don’t otherwise belong…the people we bump into every six months- are the ones who tell us about jobs we would otherwise never hear about…Our weak-tie acquaintances are often as influential- if not more- than our close-tie friends…without weak ties, any momentum generated…does not spread beyond the clique. As a result, most of the population will be untouched.”
“When the strong ties of friendship and the weak ties of peer pressure merge, they create incredible momentum. That’s when widespread social change can begin.”
“The third aspect of how social habits drive movements: For an idea to grow beyond a community, it must become self-propelling. And the surest way to achieve that is to give people new habits that help them figure out where to go on their own.”
It is our goal at our music school in Midland, Texas to bring each student to full autonomy in their ability to begin challenging themselves in their own journey of learning, as well as becoming teachers of others.
“A movement is a saga. For it to work, everyone’s identity has to change.” (Taylor Branch)
“‘Some thinkers,’ Aristotle wrote in Nicomachean Ethics, ‘hold that it is by nature that people become good, others that it is by habit, and others that it is by instruction.’ For Aristotle, habits reigned supreme. The behaviors that occur unthinkingly are the evidence of our truest selves, he said. So ‘just as a piece of land has to be prepared beforehand if it is to nourish the seed, so the mind of the pupil has to be prepared in its habits if it is to enjoy and dislike the right things.’”
As we establish core musical disciplines in the students of our music school in Midland, Texas, those habits become deeply embedded in their subconscious mind. It is when this is the case, that music-making becomes intuitive and fun.
“‘All our life,’ William James told us…, ‘so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits- practical, emotional, and intellectual- systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be.’”
William James wrote that “the will to believe is the most important ingredient in creating belief in change. And that one of the most important methods for creating that belief was habits. Habits, he noted, are what allow us to ‘do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all.’ One we choose who we want to be, people grow ‘to the way in which they have been exercised, just as a sheet of paper or a coat, once creased or folded, tends to fall forever afterward into the same identical folds.’”
“If you believe you can change- if you make it a habit- the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be.”
The Framework to Change Habits
- Identify the routine
- Experiment with rewards
- Isolate the cue
- Have a plan
“A simple neurological loop at the core of every habit, a loop that consists of three parts: a cue, a routine, and a reward…the first step is to identify the routine.”
“Rewards are powerful because they satisfy cravings. But we’re often not conscious of the cravings that drive our behaviors…Most cravings are…obvious in retrospect, but incredibly hard to see when we are under their sway.”
“To identify a cue amid the noise…Identify categories of behaviors ahead of time to scrutinize in order to see patterns…Experiments have shown that almost all habitual cues fit into one of five categories:
- Location
- Time
- Emotional state
- Other people
- Immediately preceding action
“Once you’ve figured out your habit loop- you’ve identified the reward driving your behavior, the cue triggering it, and the routine itself- you can begin to shift the behavior…we learned that a habit is a choice that we deliberately make at some point, and then stop thinking about, but continue doing, often every day.”
“Put another way, a habit is a formula our brain automatically follows: When I see CUE, I will do ROUTINE in order to get a REWARD.”
“To reengineer that formula, we need to begin making choices again. And the easiest way to do this, according to study after study, is to have a plan.”
The value of having a teacher or coach, at our music school in Midland, Texas, is that the student receives from the teacher a plan of action that accurately meets the student at the level they can start their journey successfully, ultimately acquiring competency, autonomy, and the capacity to do this for others, if they so desire.