What also still puzzles me about habits is the fact that once I have a routine (like going to the gym at 6am) it is super easy. But once I lost it I struggle a lot to get it back.
The paper might explain why it is so. Routine-setting in your brain runs separately than the execution of the activity itself, meaning you need to train the two separately, at least from what I understand.
The psychologist William James described habits as like winding a string of yarn into a ball. If you drop the ball then you have to spend time rewinding it. Also, a ball that has been being wound for a long time will be easier to rewind than a newer and smaller ball.
I was watching a Charlie Rocket interview today and I got a lot of inspiration from him. He made it a habit of staying positive, turning a loss into a win and always finding the upside. Instead of getting sucked into the despair, he takes a loss as a learning lesson. Good habits can be hard to find but once you get into the habit of something, it becomes super easy. Everything is hard to do -- if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Once you learn to do something, and keep doing it, you understand it better and it can make your life so much easier, or happier, or better, in so many ways. There are also bad habits but those are just as easy to break as good ones.
So one circuit essentially has 2 modes:
1 I do ActionA because I want to get GoalA
2 I do ActionA because it is my routine
What would be interesting to see is IF by activating this mechanism, mice start getting habits almost instantly for behaviors performed when this circuit was in the state#2. Correct me please.
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Saying to yourself that you can do it, even when you think the opposite very quickly shapes your mind.
Needs to be as mandatory a suffix here as year, video, etc
So one circuit essentially has 2 modes: 1 I do ActionA because I want to get GoalA 2 I do ActionA because it is my routine
What would be interesting to see is IF by activating this mechanism, mice start getting habits almost instantly for behaviors performed when this circuit was in the state#2. Correct me please.