USING THE POWER OF HABIT TO TRANSFORM YOUR ADVISING Hollie Heintz, M.S., Ed. – Academic Advisor Jenni Kotowski, M.A.– Assistant Director for Admissions Division of General Studies 1

INTRODUCTIONS 2

GOALS OF THIS PROGRAM  Demonstrate one very successful method to change any habit  Introduce The Habit Loop  Discuss benefits of using “Habit Looping” both personally and professionally  Provide examples of ways you can use this in your own professional development and/or when working with students 3

THE POWER OF HABIT BY CHARLES DUHIGG 4

THE SCIENCE 5

THE HABIT LOOP  Cue – a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use  Routine – can be physical or mental or emotional  Reward – helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future 6

CHANGING A HABIT 7

THE POWER OF HABIT 8

THE FRAMEWORK  Identify the routine  Experiment with rewards  Isolate the cue  Have a plan 9

STEP 1 – IDENTIFY THE ROUTINE  This is the behavior you want to change  Examples –  Eating a cookie everyday at 3pm  Reading instead of doing work  Having too many adult beverages when you watch sports  Biting your nails when you are stressed  Swearing  Insert your item here _______________ 10

STEP 2 – EXPERIMENT THE REWARDS  Rewards are powerful because they satisfy cravings.  To figure out which craving are driving particular habits, it’s useful to experiment with different rewards.  Choosing what to do instead of (your routine here) isn’t important. The point is to test different hypotheses to determine which craving is driving your routine.  By experimenting with different rewards, you can isolate what you are actually craving, which is essential in redesigning the habit. 11

STEP 3 – ISOLATE THE CUE Can be difficult to identify the cues that trigger our habits because there is too much information bombarding us as behaviors unfold. 12

STEP 3 – ISOLATE THE CUE  Experiments have shown that almost all habitual cues fit into one of five categories: 1.Location 2.Time 3.Emotional state 4.Other people 5.Immediately preceding action  So when trying to determine a cue – write down these five things the moment the urge hits to help you determine the trigger. 13

STEP 4 – HAVE A PLAN  A habit is a choice that we deliberately make at some point, and then stop thinking about, but continue doing, often every day.  A habit is a formula our brain automatically follows:  When I see a CUE,  I will do ROUTINE  In order to get a REWARD  To re-engineer that formula, we need to begin making choices again. The best way to do that is to have a plan.  Plans are known within psychology as “implementation intentions.” 14

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HOW DO WE USE THIS IDEA WHEN WORKING WITH STUDENTS? 16

LET’S PRACTICE 17

WHAT DID YOU LEARN? 18

POWER OF HABIT AT WORK – JENNI’S STORY  From January 2012 – July 2013 lost 108 pounds  Dropped 7 dress sizes  Have run 5 half-marathons 19

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