The beginning of the new semester can be one of the most exciting times of the academic year. With the idea that you could walk away from a semester carrying that ever-so-sought-after 4.0, it's not hard to see why most students begin to hope for the best. However, achieving 4.0 is no walk in the park, which is why it seems so impressive: only a small part of the general student body receives grades this high. However, it’s not that other students don’t have the ability to get the grades, or that they are mentally incapable, rendering them helpless. It's that they haven’t developed the habit of being a 4.0 student.

Having an aspiration, no matter how vivid or convincing it may be, will remain just that unless you have a plan. For the average student, the first few weeks of school may go well, but after some time, more gratifying pleasures like socializing, watching Netflix, and going out take the place of studying. Why is this? The answer may lie deeper than “I’m just not a good student deep down,” or “I’d rather just party anyways.” The power of habit stretches a lot wider than most of us understand, and I believe that utilizing the power of habit to your advantage will make a world of difference not only in your semester but in your life.

Most of us have a general understanding of the term “habit,” but what it means to you and how you define it will determine if you’re truly in control of yourself or not. Usually, a habit is seen as a routine that we involve ourselves in, either for the sake of routine (some people love a structured day) or for some end result that we cherish. In reality, a habit is an automatic chain of events that our brains set for us once we have found something desirable in our environment, especially when that something becomes readily available. As Samuel Johnson, a well renowned English author had once said, “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” This implies the underlying mechanisms that lead us to partake in routine, consistent action.

Now, this mini science lesson may at first seem irrelevant, but stay with me here. Say for example you have a bad habit, and you would like to break it. If we go by the above description, wouldn’t it be a bit implausible for a bad habit to ever come about anyways? I mean, if the point of the habit cycle is to bring a reward, then why would we develop a bad habit in the first place? Well, let me explain: A bad habit isn’t because we willingly choose to inflict negative consequences on ourselves, we have just found an inefficient way to attaining our desired reward. Say that you work in an office, and every day at the same time, you go upstairs to the cafeteria and grab yourself a cookie. After getting your snack, you chat with co-workers for a brief time before returning to your desk to work. A couple months pass and the cookie habit has thrown an extra five pounds on your frame. This, my friends, is a bad habit.

Most people would say, “Just stop eating the cookie!” but it's not that simple. To understand why we get ourselves into these self-deprecating habits, we must first understand that a habit has three parts: a cue, a routine, and a reward. When you feel urged to think about the habit that you want to eliminate, consider first where you are, what time it is, and who you're around. The cue to a habit is often the most powerful trigger to begin the habitual process, so recognizing what makes you feel the urge to participate in your bad habit is key to understanding how to change it. The routine, which is the pattern of action that you follow to get the reward, is where most people get lost. What we have to understand is that sometimes it's not always the cookie that we want, but the ten minutes of social interaction with coworkers. Take, for example, a drug addict. They may feel caught in the throws of the drug after the chemical effects of said drug take hold, but the reason that people often start using drugs is to fill an emotional void. Take, for example, American soldiers in Vietnam who became addicted to heroin whilst overseas. The wives of these soldiers were worried (with good reason) that upon returning home, their husbands were going to be drug addicts. However, once they returned home, almost none of the soldiers continued the habit. This is because they were missing the pleasure that their families and friends brought them. This, my friend, is the key to understanding the reward part of the habit cycle. Any bad habit isn't actually bad, it’s just not serving you in the most beneficial way to your health, your psyche, etc.

So, to change a habit, you need to step back and understand that you're not a bad person for wanting that extra cookie, because what you truly want is deeper than that. The part that is not as simple is the making of a sacrifice: once you notice your vice, you must be willing to replace it with something else. So if you enjoy drinking, smoking and partying, but you know deep down that gaining a stronger sense of knowledge has more value to you, take the steps necessary and create a new, fulfilling habit.

Good luck this semester,

Dave M.