The Basic Idea
Imagine someone asked you to describe how to walk. This would likely be a perplexing question, and might even be hard to answer, despite the fact that it is something you do on a daily basis. That’s because it’s something that you do without thinking. Habits are automatic, hard-to-break, and they form a pattern of behavior that responds to certain stimuli.1 Habits usually require a cue, repetition, and either a reward or punishment in order to be formed.
An activity like walking is an example of a habit. Walking might be more aligned with muscle memory, a physical kind of habit, but every day, we engage in dozens of habits both physically and mentally. Not only are our physical movements conditioned by habits, but the mental processes that we engage in eventually lead to habit-formation as well. This means that habits also influence our decision-making processes. When we are faced with a decision, we select a possible option based on the values that we associate with each. One way that we may decide an option is of value is if it is habitual. Since habits make up so much of our daily behavior, it is important that we understand them.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
– Will Durant, an American philosopher, in his book The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World’s Greatest Philosophers2
