Ukulele is Habit Forming!

I recently attended a charity concert with my family. At the venue, there was a silent auction off to the side of the hall. As I perused the offerings, I came across a black soprano ukulele and a certificate for 4 lessons. My kids are turning into some great musicians, and I don't seem to have a musical bone in my body. In spite of my lack of talent, I decided to bid $20.

I walked back by the table later and noticed I had been outbid: $25, $30, $40. Again, I bid...bumping the number up to $60. My rationale was that the money was going to charity anyway. I realized at that moment, that an obsession was hatching.

I checked in again just before the close of the auction and saw that someone had bid $65. I was determined to either win this ukulele or to force someone to donate more to the charity, so I bid $80 this time. Final bid.

I won! Now what? I took my prize home and strummed it's untuned strings to the dismay of my family. I downloaded an app...tuned it...and started playing some very rudimentary lessons. I learned the Am7, C and F chords, but felt little satisfaction in my fumbling and inconsistent play. Oh wait, I won lessons, too. I set about scheduling a lesson with Steve. I chose Steve because his profile mentioned he played blues guitar, and I love the blues.

During my first lesson with Steve, he showed me a few things about strumming and taught me a 4 chord progression. Four measures of C, Am, F, G7. He told me to just play that progression over and over and over. He suggested I start with about 40 beats per minute and increase over time. Lastly, he said I need to practice until I turned my thoughts into habit.

Fast forwarding a bit, I've now completed 3 lessons with Steve, learning some more chord progressions that sound a little bit like real music...especially when Steve lays down some lead to my rhythm. I've also learned some new strumming techniques; such as backbeat and swing...I'm finding island strumming to be elusive so far. I've gotten much better through frequent practice. My strumming is more consistent...my chords are sounding better...I'm changing chords more efficiently. I'm thinking a lot less! I've formed some habits!

Why do I tell you this story? I've recently started listening to Charles Duhigg's book, The Power of Habit. It's a fascinating study of how learning becomes habit and how the brain adjusts in the transition. In addition, the book provides techniques for changing habits. I'm already drawing correlations between this book and my new ukulele playing hobby.

I'm also drawing correlations to my day job as an Agile Coach for Accenture/SolutionsIQ. As an Agile Coach, my mission is to help teams break old, ineffective habits and replace them with new habits, effective habits. Unfortunately, my success rate trails my expectations. How is it that the people I coach have so much trouble forming these obviously beneficial new techniques I am teaching?

An answer may lie in that brain activity stuff I hinted about above. Learning and decisions, which are associated closely with memory, occur in newer and more recently evolved parts of the human brain...in the prefrontal cortex, temporal lobe and limbic system. Habits are driven by more primitive parts of the brain...the basal ganglia and brain stem. When a habit occurs, the brain shifts away from the less efficient decision-making centers of the brain to the more efficient habitual centers of the brain.

Duhigg posits that habits consist of more than just a behavior. He identifies a habit loop that consists of three parts:

• Cue - the trigger that activates the automated behavior of the brain
• Routine - the automated behavior
• Reward - the craving satisfied in your brain by completing the behavior

To change a habit, one must understand all three elements of the habit loop. Awareness of the cue gives one the ability to know when to insert the modified routine. Awareness of the reward gives one the ability to satisfy the craving after the new routine is completed. Theoretically, if this is done with consistent repetition over time, the brain will adopt the new routine in response to the cue. Beware, though, the old habit does not completely disappear...so sometimes we fall back to the old habit.

My knowledge is incomplete in this area. While I am excited, I haven't completed the book just yet. But I am inspired to start two new experiments:

1. In an effort to improve my health on the road, I'm going to try to change my morning habit of hitting the snooze button for an hour. Recognizing my cue (the alarm) and my reward (bacon and eggs for breakfast), I plan to substitute a new routine of getting out of bed right away and going to the fitness center to get in 4000 steps. If I fail to execute my new routine in the morning, I plan to deprive myself of the bacon and eggs...maybe just have some oatmeal.
2. In an effort to apply this knowledge to Agile Coaching, I'm going to start looking for cues and rewards as I observe teams and people falling back on old bad habits. My strategy is to make them aware of the cue, such that they recognize it themselves and substitute new routines that lead to the same or better reward.

I hope to share progress on my two experiments in a subsequent blog post in a couple of weeks!