A habit cannot be eliminated, only replaced by another, so change requires a substitute behaviour rather than abstention.
Mandino stated it as a law of nature. The researched version concerns cues: a habit is a cue-response association, the cue continues to occur, and something will follow it. Supplying a replacement response is therefore more reliable than intending to do nothing, because doing nothing is not an available response to a cue.
In practice
- A smoker who identifies the cue and substitutes an action does better than one who resolves to stop.
- A team that removes a bad meeting without replacing what it did finds the function reappearing informally.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is cue persistence: a habit is a cue-response association, the cue keeps occurring, and something follows it, so removing the response without supplying another leaves the slot open.
- In its favour
- Habit research supports the narrower claim that replacing a response is easier than suppressing one, and substitution is standard in behavioural treatments for smoking and for compulsive routines.
- Against it
- Stated as a law of nature it overreaches, since some habits do extinguish when the cue disappears, and the evidence offered for the general claim is testimonial and selected on success.
- Standing
- Testimonial evidence selected on success, with no comparison group. Habit research supports the narrower and better-specified claim that cue-response links are more easily redirected than extinguished, which is not the same as the impossibility asserted here.
- Subject
- Creativity & Work
- Essay
- The success literature and its sceptics