The myriad and long-winded anecdotes got a little tiresome, but there were some important and useful tips to changing habits:
- habits can be more easily changed than broken
- to change a habit, leave the trigger and reward the same, but change the process in the middle
- the trigger and reward aren’t always what seems most obvious. For example, an alcoholic might be triggered by loneliness or stress, not withdrawal, and the reward might be social interaction, not inebriation. Other common triggers for bad habits are boredom and stress. (Not sure if that was in the book, but I think that time of day, environment, and specific people may also be common triggers.)