But it's tough because no matter how hard I try, I seem to slip back into the same old routines again and again.

In the last decade, we've learned a lot about how habits work.

That's Charles Duhigg, author of the book, "The Power of Habit."

And in particular we've learned the neurological structure of a habit.

He says we tend to think of habits as a single thing, but actually, each habit has three components.

There's a cue which is like a trigger for a behavior to start, and then there is a routine which is the behavior itself,

and then finally a reward, which is how our brain learns to encode that automatic behavior for the future.

And one of the big differences is that for years when people thought about habits, they focused in on the routine, on the behavior.

But what we now know is that it's these cues and these rewards that really shape how habits occur and how to change them.

And Charles says that whether we like it or not, this kind of habit formation is endemic to our brain.

And what it will do is our brain will latch on to a cue that it associates to the behavior and the particular reward.

And over time, that cue and that reward become more and more and more sort of intertwined.

The inner part of your brain, the basal ganglia will relate them together.

And the behavior that is associated with that, that will just sort of happen automatically.

But Charles says the good news is we can also use this knowledge to our advantage.

There was a big study that was done about how to create exercise habits.

And so what they did is they told a group of people, "Okay, first of all choose an obvious cue:

always go running at the same time every day or put your workout clothes next to your bed, so that you see them first thing when you wake up."

And then they said, "Go for a run or go workout and when you get back from exercising, give yourself a small piece of chocolate."

Now this is kind of counterintuitive, right?

Because people who are exercising are trying to lose weight not eat more chocolate.

And yet what the researchers knew is that their brain needed that reward.

The basal ganglia needed some reward.

What they found was that people who ate a small piece of chocolate after coming home from a run or a workout, they were much more likely to start exercising habitually.

So, according to Charles, whether you want to break a habit, or start a new habit, the key is to divide the habit into its component parts:

cue, routine and reward, and design it for the result that you want.

Hey, guys. My name is Kirsten from Epipheo and we would love to hear from you about what you think a great reward is for you to make or break a habit.

So, leave us a comment down below in the comment section to let us know.

We come out with a video every week that we hope will change your life.

And next week we are talking about how you can say, "No" to pretty much anything.

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