Million Dollar Habits – Page 50
A habit has been defined as “a conditioned response to stimuli,” but where do they
originate? A habit is developed as the result of your responding in a particular way
to
a particular stimulus, often starting early in life. It is very much like driving
down the road and taking a fork in one direction or another. Whichever direction
you go,
good or bad, largely determines where you end up.
Fortunately, you are born with no habits at all. You have acquired them all from
infancy. Different habits take different time periods to develop,
if you desire them,
or to overcome, if they are habits that you want to get rid of. As it happens, there is
a proven system that you can use to accelerate the process
of new habit pattern
development.
Behavioral psychologists refer to “operant conditioning” to describe how people
learn certain automatic behaviors. They sometimes refer to the “SBC Model” of
new habit pattern formation. These three letters stand for “
S
timulus-
B
ehavior-
C
onsequences.” First, something happens in your life that stimulates a thought or
feeling. Second,
in response, you behave a particular way. Third, as a result, you
experience a certain consequence. If you repeat this process often enough, you
develop a new habit.
The Pavlovian Response
In Pavlov’s experiments with dogs, one of the first major experiments on the role
of
operant conditioning, a hungry dog was given a piece of meat and a bell was
rung at the same time. This process was repeated several times, over several days.
Each
time the dog received the meat, the dog would salivate in anticipation of the
