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The process that is used to build a habit can be classified into four significant steps. These processes are the cue, raving, response as well as the rewarding process. When this breakdown is done, it becomes easy to have a good understanding of what a habit is, how it works as well as the ways that can be used to improve it. Every kind of practice has to go through these four stages. They actually form the backbone of every human habit, and the brain of a human being has been created in such a way that it runs through the four steps using the same order all the time.

Cue

The purpose of the cue is to trigger the brain of a person so that it can initiate or start a particular behaviour. This can be termed as the bit of the person's mind that predicts a reward. In the past, people used to pay a lot of attention to the cues that would signal the location of essential rewards such as water, food as well as sex. Nowadays, things have changed, and people can now step a lot of their time learning and understanding the cues that are good at predicting new and secondary rewards such as money, power, fame, love and friendship, personal satisfaction and praise and approval (Kicking the habit, 2020). 

The mind of human continuously analyzes both the internal and external environment that give the hints and clues of the location of the rewards. The fact that cue is the primary indicator that one is close to the awards, it often leads to a craving.

Craving

Craving is the second step in habit formation, and it forms the force that motivates every habit. Absence of a motivational factor or a desire (craving), there cannot be an urge or reason to do something. What people crave for is not necessarily the habit itself, but it is what the practice brings about. For instance, one is not motivated by the behaviour or action of brushing the teeth but the feeling that one gets when his/her mouth is clean. In addition to that, when one turns on a television, it is not the act of turning the tv on that motivates him/her but getting entertained pulls him/her to turn on the video. Every kind of craving is connected to one's desire to make changes in one's internal state.

Craving is very different from individual to another. Theoretically, any piece of information is capable of triggering a need to people; however, in the real sense, not everybody can be motivated or triggered by the same cues (Kieffer, 2019). For instance, for a perennial gambler, hearing the sound of a slot machine can highly trigger his/her desire to gamble. However, if a person is not a gambler, the sound of slop machine cannot trigger his/her wish. Cues can be very useless and meaningless if they are not interpreted. The transformation of a signal into a craving is done by the observer's thoughts, feelings as well as emotions.

Response

This is the third step in the formation of a habit. The response can be described as the actual habit that one performs, which can be either an action or a thought. The dependence of the occurrence is on the degree of motivation that a person has and the level of friction that is related to the behaviour (Sanders, 2016). In case a particular action needs a much higher level of physical or mental efforts than one is ready to expand, then the person is unable to do it. The response of a person is depended on the person’s ability. It might be seen as a simple thing, but in the real sense, a habit can only occur only when one is in a position to do it.

Reward

The response is the one that delivers the reward. The reward is the end goal of every habit. One notices the reward at the cueing stage. The craving is where a person is willing and wanting to have the reward (Ramakrishna, Tian, Wang, Liao & Teo, 2015). The response is, therefore, the one that helps the person to obtain the reward. The reasons for choosing the rewards is that they satisfy us and also have a lesson to teach us.

The primary purpose of rewards satisfies people's craving. The rewards have a lot of benefits to the person getting it. For example, food and water are rewards, and they have a lot of importance to the users since they provide energy to that essential for one to survive. In addition to that, in a workplace situation, a promotion helps one get more money as well as respect which really change the life of the person. However, the most immediate benefits of rewards are that they help to satisfy one's craving for eating and gaining status or winning approval. In that view, a reward delivers contentment as well as relief from craving.

Secondly, a reward teaches us to identify the actions or activities that are worth recalling in the future. The brain of a human being can be used as a reward detector. As one undertakes his/her daily activities, the sensory nervous system continuously monitors and selects the actions that can fulfil the desires of an individual as well as deliver the intended pleasure. The brain of a human being can distinguish the profitable activities from those that are not useful through analyzing the feelings of comfort as well as those of disappointment. The rewards stage is the one that closes the feedback loop, thus completing the habit cycle. In case there is a behaviour that is not sufficient I any of the four habit formation stages, it does not qualify to become a habit. The elimination of a cue will hinder the start of a practice. Reduction of a craving results in a decline of the motivation to act. When the behaviour is made very difficult, it becomes tough to be undertaken. If the reward does not satisfy the desire of a person, then the person lacks the reason or the need to do it in the future. Without having a clue, craving and response, the behaviour cannot occur. Without the evidence, craving, response and reward, an action cannot be repeated in the future.

How much time does it take for the formation of new behaviours?

In the year 1950 Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon, and he started noticing and observing weird patterns in some of his patients. In instances when Doctor Maltz was operating such as a nose task, he found out the patient will take up to twenty-one days for him or her to start adapting to his new look (Sanders, 2016). In similar cases, when a patient has a leg or arm amputation, Doctor Maltz notices the patient could sense an illusion of the limb for almost twenty-one days before the person adapts to the new style.

The experiences gave motive to Doctor Maltz in thinking about a personal period of adjustment to changes and recent behaviours, and he notices that he takes a period of twenty-one days to adapt to the new changes. Doctor Maltz then wrote concerning the experiences, and he says that "The following and many commonly viewed phenomena tend to show it needs a minimal period of twenty-one days for an ancient mental picture to diminish and form a new picture." In the year 1960, Doctor Maltz made a publication that highlights his other mind on the change of behaviour in his book known as Psycho-Cybernetics (Hyde, 2015). The book was accelerating to a smash hit, by selling books above thirty million and this was the beginning of the problem.

In the following years, Doctor Maltz job made an influence in almost each main self-independent professional ranging from Tony Robbins to Brian Tracy to Zig Ziglar. As many people declaimed the story of Doctor Maltz like a colossal Telephone game individual then started to forget that it was a minimal of twenty-one days (Gardner & Rebar, 2019). They phrase shorter that it only takes twenty-one days for a person to form a new behaviour. It is how the community-made a start of spreading the mutual myth of taking twenty-one days of a person to create new practices or thirty days or other magical numerals. It is singular the way these chronology gets quoted to be statistical truth. A painful lesson is for each person to quote something adequate times, and every other person begins believing in it.

It is sensible why "twenty-one days" myth was to spread. It is precise to have an understanding of it. The time limit is little to form some inspirations but sufficient to establish some beliefs (Weinschenk, 2017). Who will not have interest in thoughts of changing life in only three weeks? The issue is that Doctor Maxwell Maltz was making a simple observation of the things revolving around him and was not making a factual statement. Broadly, he made it clear to highlight that it was the lowest amount of period a person needs to form new behaviours. The most exciting thing researchers saw was that once you omit a single chance of behaviour performance does not cause material effects to the behaviour formation method. In simple words, it does not matter when a person messes up each time. Construction of better behaviours is neither an all nor nothing method.

Ways of building new behaviours in 10 minutes per day method: It is the scheme tool

In line with the Duke University researchers, behaviours bring a forty per cent count of our habits on a specific day. Having an understanding of ways of constructing new practices and the way your recent one is in performance is vital in making proceedings in your life, happiness, and health. There may be numerous external data, and vast of it is not easy for digestion. For matters of solving the problem and breaking things too easy manners below is a scheme tool of building new behaviours and sticking to them.

10 minutes per day method

It has been confirmed that human behavior can be changed easily when one decides to have a good a robust method of changing the behavior. 10 minutes per day routine is one of the major strategies that have been proven to be effective in changing one’s behavior. One needs to gradually adapt to a new behavior through exercising the new behavior ten minutes per day. This routine has to be adhered to the letter so that it can be effective and productive. Many people have found it a bit difficult to follow the routine and the end result of this is the failure to adapt to a new behavior. The following are the steps to be followed when adapting a new habit using the 10 minutes per day method.

The first step is to have an incredibly low habit. When a lot of individuals have a struggle in building a new practice, they may say something such as, "I wish I have as many power of will as you do" or "I only require some motivation." The approach may be wrong. In research, the willpower is in depiction as a muscle. It has some hardships as you utilize it in a day (Maraire, 2016). In the first place, one should have a target of habit that is achievable and realistic. Often, when one is starting a new thing, one gets motivated when he/she realizes that the goal can be achieved and is practical. Having a large target can be discouraging and disappointing in the final run since it might fail to be delivered. In case one is planning to stop a habit of smoking 20 cigarettes per day, one cannot decide to stop taking them instantly. One starts by gradually reducing the number of cigarettes smoked per day, and by the end of the targeted time, such as ten days, one will be able to stop smoking completely. In addition to that, if one aims at running for 10 km every day, it would be recommendable to start running 2 km in the first day then the second day to run 3km, and the process continues until one can adapt to long-distance running.

Another thing that makes you know that there is a flow of motivation is its falls and rises. Professor BJ Fogg from Stanford says that this is the time of motivation wave. You may solve this problem by taking another smoother habit when you do not require motivation in doing it. Rather than beginning with fifty pushups in a day, start with five pushups in a day. Instead of having a trial of meditating for ten minutes in a day, begin by a meditation of one minute in a day. Make it easy in a way that you get it done with no motivation. Motivation is critical and fundamental in the process of gaining a new habit. For instance, if one is planning to adopt a new running habit, the motivation of this might be decreasing the body weight for a healthy living. Identifying these motivations is the key to the success of gaining a new pattern.

Thirdly, increase your habit in a little while. One per cent of improvement rises at a high rate. So does one per cent decrease, rather than having a trial of doing fantastic from the start, begin a gradual and small improvement. In a way, motivation and willpower with the increase, thus making it simple to stick to a habit for better. Thirdly, as you build up, break the habit in chunks. As you continue in the addition of one per cent in a day, then you will see an increase in a quicker manner within a duration of 4 or 5 weeks. It is vital to make every habit with some reasons, so that you may maintain the momentum and shaping the behaviour as simple as possible in accomplishing it. Human beings tend giving up very quickly when they realize that whatever they are trying to do is not successful. Gaining a new habit is also not a walk-in part, but it requires a lot of dedication, commitment and planning. One way of helping one have hope that his/her project will succeed is by counting on small and gradual achievement (Chilarescu & Viasu, 2016). Regardless of the degree of success, it is good to recognize and appreciate little progress in one way or the other. It is also good to record the small achievement, and this will be a pushing factor for one to perform better and more significant. The result gotten in the first day should not be forgotten in the following days. It should be extended and reflected in the second until the last day.

Fourth, when you slip, go back to the track very quickly. Higher performance makes mistakes, get off track, and commit errors just like anybody else. The contrast is that they go back to record in a quicker way as possible. In research, it shows that missing a habit once, with no regard of when it occurs, has no impact on the continued progress (Ashmore, 2019). Rather than having a trial of being perfect, abandon all or nothing of your mentality. It would help if you did not have an expectance of failing, but you must try to plan for failure. Take some of your time in considering what may prevent you from habit from taking place. What are some of the things that may be in your way? How may you have a plan on working around these kinds of issues? Or, how may the bounce back be quicker from them and getting back on a track? You only need to be consistent, not be perfect. Have a focus on building someone’s identity that never missed the habit twice.

Finally, be patient. Stick in a pace that you can sustain. Learning on how to be patient is the most crucial skill among all (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2019). You may make incredible progress if you are patient and consistent. If you need to add weight at a gym, you need to go in slow motion than you think. If you have an additional dairy sales call in your strategy of the business, you must begin with less than you expect to be handling. Patience is all you need. Do things that you can sustain. New habits may be easy, especially at the start. If you stay increasing your practice, it will be hard or fast enough. Some patterns can be gained very quickly, but others require a lot of time and dedication. Being patient helps one to increase the new habit gradually.

In a nutshell, a habit can be referred to a repeated behaviour that the person doing it finds pleasure it. Gaining a new pattern undergoes various stages which are known as habit loop. The first stage is the clue, followed by craving, response and finally reward. A behaviour or a new habit can be gained in varying time according to the person involved, but 40 days is a recommended time for learning a new practice. Ten minutes per day for 40 days can work magic in the process of gaining a new habit, but it is only if the parties involved are dedicated and committed.

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