Lesson 30: the power of keystone habits

In the last video I explained that willpower is an exhaustible resource and the importance of habit formation. Habits enable you to do things without thinking so you don’t use up your willpower. You will have more energy left for self-discipline. You can turn your most important tasks into habits, enabling you to save your willpower for other important things, especially those that are hard to anticipate.

But not all habits are the same. In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg emphasizes the importance of “keystone habits.” These habits create momentum to establish other positive habits in your life. As you might guess, exercise is a keystone habit that results in improved health, eating practices, and personal productivity. According to Duhigg, a surprising keystone habit is making your bed. This keystone habit is correlated with increased well-being, higher productivity, and better budgeting skills.

It’s important to note the difference between correlation and causation. A keystone habit doesn’t cause a cascade of other positive habits. But it does create conditions that make them more likely.

In addition to exercise, some examples of keystone habits are prayer and meditation, eating right, reading, writing and social interaction.

Developing keystone habits can strengthen your willpower. In landmark research, Megan Oaten and Ken Cheng asked six men and 18 women, ages 18 to 50 years old, who did not exercise regularly to exercise more. They were given a free gym membership and encouraged to use it. Their actual results were not overly impressive. For the first month, they exercised an average of once per week. By the end of two months they were up to three times per week.

Here is what’s amazing. According to the researchers: “…participants also reported significant decreases in perceived stress, emotional distress, smoking, alcohol and caffeine consumption, and an increase in healthy eating, emotional control, maintenance of household chores, attendance to commitments, monitoring of spending and an improvement in study habits.” 

All this came about after just two months and a modest increase in exercise. A control group showed no such change.
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Keystone habits strengthen your willpower. It’s an exhaustible resource, but you can increase the amount you have when you start each day. You do this by developing keystone habits. It will help you as a person and help you as a leader.

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