Where Did I Put My Keys? Exploring Habits and the Habit Loop

Habit: “An acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary.”—Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I used to misplace my car keys all the time. I would set them down and not remember where I put them. Then I would frantically search the whole house for them, eventually grabbing the spare set so I wouldn’t be late to where ever I was going. Lo and behold, I would later find them in a pocket, or a desktop, or near the washing machine.

My son is now old enough to drive and tonight it was him searching the house for his car key so he could go meet a friend. He eventually grabbed the spare key off the hook it hangs from and headed out the door. Huh…I guess this apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

It got me thinking…I no longer misplace my keys, and that’s because I developed a system of putting them in the exact same place every time I enter the house. It was that easy—not exactly rocket science. This repetition eventually turned into a habit. As we saw in the definition above, a habit is a behavior that becomes nearly or completely involuntary, we don’t even have to think about it. For me, it’s gotten to a point where I don’t even remember putting the keys in their spot, but amazingly, there they are when I go looking for them! Auto-pilot, second nature…whatever you call it, it’s pretty cool.

I find the concept of habits intriguing. Wendy Wood, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern California and an expert in the field of habits for over three decades. I read her book, “Good Habits, Bad Habits”, and what I learned was fascinating. First off, “We spend a shocking 43% of our day doing things without thinking about them…We do them out of habit.” From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed, 43% of what we do is done without conscious thought. Huh…ponder that for a moment. Almost half of our day is done mindlessly while we are in auto-pilot mode!

Now, some habits that we perform daily are healthier than others. Going for a walk every evening with the dog gets a thumbs up. That nightly ice cream habit, not so much. Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit”, writes about the habit loop, which “consists of three elements: a cue, a routine, and a reward. Understanding these elements can help in understanding how to change bad habits or form better ones." In other words, a cue (anything in your surroundings, the people you are with, your state of mind, the time of day) can trigger a behavior done repeatedly (a routine), which in turn triggers something pleasurable (a reward).

So, how do we swap a less desirable habit for a more favorable one? According to Wendy Wood, “Forming habits, it seems, is about establishing stable cues that support your desired actions”. Let’s modify our cues! Make that fruit bowl in our kitchen more prominent so it entices us to eat fruit at night instead of ice cream…better yet, replace the ice cream with frozen fruit so we can make a nighttime smoothie. You get the idea. With repetition, having a smoothie every night becomes the tasty and healthy reward!

The research on habits is extensive—I’ve barely touched the tip of the iceberg in this post. As I explore and learn more about habits and behavior change, I find myself getting more and more sucked in by the topic….I’m guessing there will be future blog posts where I dig deeper into this area!

As Wood states, “you can make pretty much any behavior more habitual, as long as you do it the same way each time.” Happily, I finally discovered this years ago after misplacing my keys hundreds of times. Now, I guess it’s time for me to have “the talk” with my son about establishing a habit for where he puts his car key every time he enters the house!