decades of mental programming, we automatically slip into these patterns
of thinking and acting.
THE FOUR LAWS OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE
In the following chapters, we will see time and again how the four stages of
cue, craving, response, and reward influence nearly everything we do each
day. But before we do that, we need to transform
these four steps into a
practical framework that we can use to design good habits and eliminate
bad ones.
I refer to this framework as the
Four Laws of Behavior Change, and it
provides a simple set of rules for creating
good habits and breaking bad
ones. You can think of each law as a lever that influences human behavior.
When the levers are in the right positions, creating good habits is effortless.
When they are in the wrong positions, it is nearly impossible.
How to Create a Good Habit
The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious.
The 2nd law (Craving): Make it attractive.
The 3rd law (Response): Make it easy.
The 4th law (Reward): Make it satisfying.
We can invert these laws to learn how to break a bad habit.
How to Break a Bad Habit
Inversion of the 1st law (Cue): Make it invisible.
Inversion of the 2nd law (Craving): Make it unattractive.
