The One About The Power of Habits

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:14]:
Hey, hello, hello, hello. Welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me once again on another episode of the Keith Blakemore-Noble Radio Show. I hope you enjoy this one. Hey, you know what, if you do enjoy it, remember, give us a like give us a comment.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:47]:
Share it, subscribe, Give us a review on your favourite platform. It all helps to get the show out there and get the words spread. That would really help. And talking about there the show wherever you’re catching this. It’s available on multiple platforms. Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, Spotify, it’s on YouTube, it’s on my site KeithBlakemoreNoble.com/show You’ll find the Keith Blakemore-Noble Radio show there. Anywhere that you find podcasts, you’ll find this episode.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:22]:
So give us a like a review, Share, subscribe. It all helps to spread the word. And what are we talking about today, everybody? It’s a solo episode. It’s you and me and we are talking all about the power of habits. Oh yes. I’m taking some of this from a month long exploration that we did inside the Overachievers Club, my private online community back in March 2025. And I’ve taken a few bits and pieces out of it. We spent a month on it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:56]:
So there’s eight modules, lots of content there. I’m just picking a few of the key bits which I thought you might find to be of interest to help you with habits, help you understand what habits are, where they come from, how we can start to eliminate unhelpful habits, and how we can build up and install new, powerful, positive habits. So this is just going to be a brief overview. We’ve only got 25 minutes or so together, but hopefully it’ll give you a little bit of a taste and get you at least started on your journey of understanding the true power of habits. I mean, your daily habits, they influence your success, they influence your happiness, they influence your overall well being. Most of what you do each day, most of it is driven by routines, habits. And these have been shaped over time. Now, some of these habits are very helpful indeed, others less helpful.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:05]:
And an important thing to realise is a key to lasting change is not willpower alone. No, it’s not willpower, at least not on its own. The key to lasting change is understanding how habits work and using that knowledge to your advantage, which is what we’re Going to look at in this episode. First thing for us to look at is let’s start off with the habit loop. Let’s start off with a habit loop just to give us whet our appetites about habits. I mean, habits shape, as we said, every aspect of our life, from the way you start your morning through to how you respond to challenges, everything. And habits. Well, you can think of habits as basically your brain operating on autopilot, guides your behaviours without conscious effort.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:04:00]:
When we understand how habits work, that’s the first step to taking control of them and to creating positive, lasting changes. So we have a habits work. There’s a thing called the habit loop, which is how, how we, how we do habits. First thing that happens, there’s three parts to it. The first thing is the cue. Basically, what tells your mind, your unconscious mind, it’s time to do the habit. What tells us it’s time to do this habit. There is a trigger which prompts a habit.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:04:35]:
Now, it could be a feeling, it could be a certain time of day, could be an emotional state, could be something we hear, see, feel, there is something because you’re going along life, everything’s fine, going along. And then something happens. The cue that triggers the habits, that’s the first part of the habit loop. And we’ll look at this in a bit more detail in a few minutes. Once that cue has come along, then we actually do the habit, the routine. Routine, which is the behaviour which follows the cue. Having a drink of coffee, checking your phone, going for a walk, whatever it is, whatever that habit is the behaviour. So we have the cue, a trigger, which tells our brain, hey, it’s time to do this habit.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:25]:
And we have the routine, which is the behaviour that we do with the habit. And then there’s a reward. The benefit which your brain associates with the behaviour could be a boost of energy, could be a sense of connection, could be relief from stress. Whatever it is, there is a perceived reward attached to this habit. If that reward wasn’t there, you’re probably not going to do the habit. So we’ve got the cue which tells our brain time to do this. We’ve got the routine itself and then we’ve got the reward. What’s the perceived benefit that our brain associates with the behaviour? And that’s what makes up the contents of our habit.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:06:20]:
Excuse me. So before we go any further, let’s ask, let’s ask the question, okay? That’s how habits work. Why do we have habits? Where do they come from? Why not, where do our individual habits come from. But where did the whole mechanism for doing habits, where did it come from? Why do we do it? Well, our brain uses a lot of power, especially when we’re thinking. If we have to think about things, process things, make decisions, analyse stuff, that takes up a lot of power, a lot of brain power, a lot of actual power and energy. The less thinking that we have to do, the more we can just run on autopilot without having to think about what we’re doing, the less energy that our brain will use. And using less energy is always good because the less energy we use, the less we then have to find from elsewhere, from eating and so on. So conserving energy just the same as so much physical stuff that we do, it’s about conserving energy.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:30]:
The less thinking we can do, the less energy we use. And to give you, to illustrate what I mean by our brain takes a lot of power. Have you ever had, maybe you’ve spent some time, perhaps it was a day or a part of a day, really focusing intellectually on a problem. You were really thinking about a problem, really trying to work your way through it, work it out. You come to the end of the day and you’re thinking, well, I didn’t actually do anything all day, I just spent the day thinking. But I am, I am exhausted. Yeah, it’s because our brain uses lots of power. So from an evolutionary perspective, people who used habits or people, we weren’t people at that time, I suppose, but you know what I mean, those who used habits more, used less energy and were long term more likely to survive, particularly in the days where sources of food were rather more scarce than they are now.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:36]:
So that’s why we have habits. And the thing with a habit is it is strength. The more we do it, the more we do it, the stronger that habit becomes. It’s strengthened by repetition. The more we do the thing, the more those connections, the neural connections, etc. In the brain, the more they get built up and the more powerful the habit is. Now that said, habits can change and they can change really quickly, very, very quickly. Let me give you an example.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:08]:
For the purposes of this example, just imagine that for the past 20 years you’ve been driving to work and home from work, and it’s taking you half an hour to drive there, half an hour to drive back, one hour round trip every day for the past 20 years. Suppose somebody, me or a friend or somebody shows you a shortcut. So that half hour trip could be just a five minute trip. So you’re only going to spend five minutes driving to work, five minutes driving home, saving you 50 minutes each day we show you that shortcut. Once you’ve been taking the long route for 20 years tomorrow, which is the route you’re more likely to take. You’re most likely to take the shortcut, right? Because hey, if nothing, if nothing else, you get an extra 20 minutes in bed in the morning, you’re probably going to take that shortcut. Change can happen instantly. Now, yes, there may be some circumstances which would mean you would go, you know what, I don’t want to take that shortcut.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:16]:
Because that half hour each way, that’s me time. I get to think or I get to listen to my favourite podcast, whatever it is. But for most people, they would take that shortcut. That change has been instant. That said, because you’ve done the old one for 20 years, it’s possible, maybe you jump in the car coming home from work, you’ve had one heck of a day, you’re wiped out, jump in the car and without thinking you find yourself driving on the half hour route. It could happen from time to time because that old habit has been strengthened by repetition. But most of the time, you will take the new one. Change can happen really, really quickly.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:00]:
Now, often when we talk about making change and all these making improvements, we talk about motivation. Now. Yeah, motivation is important. Motivation is also unreliable in the long run. It fluctuates depending on our mood, our energy levels, external factors and circumstances. I mean, for example, you might decide, hey, you know what, I’m going to take up jogging. I’m going to take up jogging to get fit. And for the first few times, yeah, brilliant.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:33]:
You go out, you have a great jog, then one morning it’s time to go jogging. But it’s raining outside and it’s a bit windy. It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s dark, it’s miserable. You’re maybe feeling a little bit, oh, I didn’t get that much sleep last night and it’s horrible out there. And you know what? I’ll skip it today. I won’t bother doing the job today, I’ll do it tomorrow, but I’ll just give it a miss today. That motivation has. Motivation has fled, right, because of the weather and everything and your mood.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:09]:
And that’s why it’s very easy. If you’re driven purely by motivation, it’s very easy to for it to fall by the wayside habits. However, habits remove the need for motivation. When a behaviour becomes automatic, you do it regardless of how you Feel it’s just a habit. It’s just what you do. Habits are greater than motivation. Think of an athlete who trains every morning. They don’t rely on motivation.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:38]:
Training is part of who they are. It’s part of their daily routine. It may well be pouring with rain. They may have to get up at the crack of dawn or earlier. It may be horrible, but they do it. It’s their habit every day. They get up, they go training, they do whatever. Habits are much more powerful than motivation, which is why we’re looking at.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:00]:
Looking at habits today. Thank you. But starting to have a little bit of a glimpse at habits. So if you remember Back to about 5 minutes ago I said habits, they run through a pattern. There’s the cue, which is the trigger. Then there’s the actual routine, the behaviour, the habit itself, and then there’s the reward. Let’s take a closer look at the cues. Hopefully this is all making sense.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:25]:
What do you think of it? Add a comment, pop a comment. Wherever you’re seeing this, pop up. Comments, questions, whatever. Love reading them, love seeing them, or email me, email me keithplatemorenoble.com let me know your thoughts on it. Love hearing from you. So, triggers, what triggers your habit? Triggers are the cues which prompt a habit. It could be something external or it could be something internal. So it could be external, it could be something you hear, it could be something you see, it could be the environment.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:55]:
Somebody does something, somebody said something, you see something, you look out the window and see the weather, it’s pouring with rain. You think external triggers, we can have internal triggers. It could be stress, boredom, emotions. It could be something we feel, something we think could be feeling of hunger, for example. Whatever it is. The first step to breaking a habit is to identify what triggers the habit. And the best way to do that, or the best way to start with that is to ask yourself this question. What happens immediately before I, whatever the habit is.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:37]:
What happens immediately before I, whatever the habit is. Is it something, something you say, something you hear, something you feel, feel something you see, something someone else says or does? What happens immediately before? Now, I was working with, working with a lady on this recently, and her habit is snacking, snacking when she ought not to snack. And we kind of narrowed it down. First of all, she said, well, it only happens in the evening. Okay, does it happen every evening? Evening comes, you start raiding the biscuit in. No, not always. Okay, so it’s evening isn’t the trigger. She says, well, usually what happens is my husband goes to Bed.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:25]:
And then a little while later I find myself snacking. Okay, so your husband goes to bed and straight away you start snacking. No, no, no. So husband going to bed is unlikely to be the thing that triggers you to actually reach for the biscuit tin. And we’re sort of exploring what happens. And they went, yeah, okay. So it gets evening, husband goes to bed. I’m sitting there doing stuff.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:51]:
I start thinking back over the day, thinking about all the things I didn’t do, start making a note that I’ve got to do them tomorrow, and I just wander through to the kitchen and get a snack. This person had thought that it was evening was the trigger, or maybe her husband going to bed was the trigger. Turned out when we looked at it, the trigger was actually them mentally reviewing the day and looking at all the things they hadn’t done, started feeling a bit bad about it, wrote, made a note of all the things they were going to have to do tomorrow, started feeling bad about not doing it today, started feeling a bit overwhelmed, and that’s what triggered them to go and get the snack. So it’s no wonder everything they tried previously to break the habit hadn’t worked because they weren’t working with the right trigger. So get really, really clear. The first thing to do is get really clear on what is it which triggers your habit. And you’ll know if it’s the thing because the thing happens and immediately you do the habit. A habit, you’re not likely to have a trigger and then a couple of hours later do the habit.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:05]:
That’s not the way it works. The trigger happens and you go into the habit immediately. So what happens immediately before you do it? And each time you think you’ve got the trigger, consider, okay, so trigger happens and I immediately do have it. If it’s yes, that’s probably the trigger. If no, then okay, that could be part of the build up, but it’s not the actual trigger itself. We want the trigger, the actual thing which trips us over into doing the habit. So find out what triggers your habit and you can then use this to weaken that habit. And there are a few things that you, a few different things that you could do to help weaken the habit.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:54]:
You could make it harder to do. For example, if you find yourself reaching for the biscuit tin, maybe don’t buy biscuits that didn’t happen to work for this particular person because they found if there were no biscuits, they would jump in the car and just drive down to the convenience store and end up spending more money, buying more Expensive snacks for some people. It can work, though. Or for example, if you find yourself checking social media far too often, disable notifications. That could be a good way. Or remove the app completely from your phone. So you pick up the phone, oh, the app’s not there. Oh, okay.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:37]:
Well, that makes the habit a lot harder to do. I’ll do something else, so make it harder to do. Another thing you can do is interrupt the routine. And this is really what will work. What works for this, this, this person that I mentioned a few moments ago once they found the actual trigger, interrupt the routine. Suppose, for example, you always reach for a sugary drink in the afternoon, maybe replace it with flavoured water, for example. So you’re still drinking, you’re still getting a fluid, you’re still getting some nice taste because it’s flavoured water. The reason I say flavoured water rather than just normal water is often people find water tastes, tastes a bit bland.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:23]:
They don’t get the, they don’t get that pleasure from it. So try flavoured water. You can get all sorts of great flavourings for water these days. So interrupt the routine so you’re no longer drinking that sugary drink, you’re drinking something a little healthier instead, which still satisfies the craving. Or you could attach some discomfort to the habit, make that habit uncomfortable. A really good example of this, nail biting. You can get stuff, I don’t know, I presume you still can. I know you used to in the past, get stuff which you can paint onto your nails, which tastes incredibly vile, foul, bitter.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:03]:
And so you sat there, you idly go to bite your nails without even thinking about it. It’s very hard to break a habit when you’re not aware you’re doing it. You go to bite the nails, oh, you get this horrible, vile, nasty taste. You immediately stop biting in it. You immediately stop biting at that point, very quickly, that level of discomfort causes the habit to disappear. So after a while, you no longer need to paint that stuff on your nails because you just do not bite. Yeah, bite your nails, you’ve broken that habit. Or you could replace the habit, replace.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:39]:
Or either replace the habit or replace the trigger. In this case, for the lady, that replacing the habit, working with a trigger, now she knows exactly what the trigger is. Thinking about the stuff she hasn’t done that day. What she’s going to do is, oh, I’m thinking about the stuff I didn’t do. Okay, what about the things I did do? Let’s think about the things I did do, the things I have achieved and cause the mind to go off on a tangent thinking about something different, which means you don’t get all of that regret not doing the stuff. You don’t get the overwhelm, oh, God, I’ve got to do all that tomorrow. Instead, with the feelings which then result in you reaching for the biscuit tin instead takes off on a much more pleasant tangent. Habits, habits gone, habits replaced.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:29]:
Which also means on those occasions, because, remember we said habits get stronger by repetition. So the more we don’t do the habit, if that makes sense, the more we don’t do it, you know what I mean? The less often we do the habit, the more it’s going to dissipate. So that on those occasions where she does find herself really focusing on what she hasn’t done, it’s a much less strong reaction to go and get the biscuits, order the snacks. Which makes it much easier to not do it, because a lot of the power of that habit is gone. Another thing you can do is you can scramble the association. And that’s not always something easy for the individual to do. But when you work with a coach, it’s a brilliant way of totally breaking that association, totally messing that habit up. So that scrambles the connections so the habit just doesn’t happen.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:27]:
I love doing that with clients. A client, again, snacking is quite a common problem. Got quite a common habit for people. A client who’s snacking like mad, they were driving home, they would pop into the store to get snacks and then find they’d eaten most of them before they got home. They devour all the rest without even realising it. Over the course of the evening, we scramble that habit. Ten minutes, they don’t stop, they don’t snack. They’ve conquered it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:00]:
So several things you can do. You can make the habit harder, you can interrupt the routine, you can make it uncomfortable, you can replace the habit, or you can scramble the association. All of these things can weaken a habit. Now, talk about weakening a habit rather than breaking a habit. When we talk, if we focus on breaking the habit, sometimes that old habit will resurface. That’s just the way it is. If we’re thinking, hey, I’m breaking this habit, oh, no, I’ve done it yet. I guess I haven’t broken the habit then.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:31]:
Oh, well. And before you know it, you fall back into that old pattern of doing the habit instead. When you think of it as weakening the habit, what you’re saying is, hey, you know what? Okay, from time to time, because I’m human, I May end up doing that habit before I’ve realised it. That’s all right. It’s still a lot weaker than it was because I’m not doing it nearly as often. And every little improvement is a big help. So focus on weakening the habit rather than breaking it. Because you’re giving yourself permission to be human.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:06]:
You’re giving yourself permission that if and when you do that habit again, you’re not going to beat yourself up. You’re not going to think, oh, I failed the habits back. You’re simply going to go, okay, well, I did the habit. But you know what? The past three weeks I haven’t done that habit. It is a lot weaker. I am in control. I mentioned we can overcome habits. We can also install helpful habits so really quickly.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:31]:
I just want to cover a few steps that you can use to install helpful habits. First thing to do is to is to clarify the habit. Get really clear on what specifically the habit is. If you say, oh, my habit is, I’m going to exercise more. Okay, what does that look like? What does exercise more mean for you? What specific exercises will you be doing? So get clear on it, then scale it down. Now, this is going to sound paradoxical because we often talk about having big, hairy, audacious goals. Scale the habit right down. Make that habit so small that it feels impossible to fail.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:14]:
Make that a new habit so small that it feels impossible to fail. That’s setting you up for the greatest success. For example, instead of saying, right, I’m going to do a 30 minute walk workout every day, you know what? I’m going to start with one minute of stretching each day. How can you fail to fit one minute of stretching in each day? Right? Make it so small that it feels impossible to fail. Attach it to an existing routine. The easiest way to form a habit is to link it to something you already do. For example, you might decide, you know what? After brushing my teeth, I’ll go down and do three push ups. So I brush my teeth, three push ups.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:59]:
Boom. Linking the habit to an existing habit makes it much easier to develop that habit to form it. Because you don’t have to create the circumstances to do those push ups. It’s just do my teeth. Three push ups. Because it’s scaled down, it’s small. You’ve got time to do three push ups no matter how busy you are. Brush your teeth, three push ups.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:26:19]:
There we go. And focus on frequency, not intensity. It’s much better to do a small habit every single day than it is to do a big habit. Occasionally it’s much better to do three push ups every day than it is to do 20 push ups every couple of once every couple of weeks. For example, repetition makes it automatic. It’s that repetition which will build it into being a habit for you. And that’s where the power will come. And as it becomes a habit, you can gradually expand it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:26:59]:
So instead of three push ups, it becomes five push ups, it becomes 10 push ups. Instead of a two minute, a one minute stretch, become like a two minute stretch and maybe two minute stretch and a couple of star jumps or whatever. You can always gradually build it up. Two things to finish off with identity based habits. These are a really powerful way of making a habit stick. Shift your focus away from what you want to achieve and turn your focus onto who you want to become. So instead of I want to read more, make it I am a reader. Because when you’re a reader, well, naturally you read more.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:27:42]:
Instead of saying I want to exercise more, say I’m someone who prioritises my health by becoming that person. When that habit becomes part of your identity, the habit will feel natural. You will naturally exercise more. Because hey, I am someone who prioritises my health, therefore I exercise more. So ask yourself, when you’ve got your goals, you know the habits you want. Ask yourself, who do I need to become to achieve this? Align your habits with that new identity and they will be much easier to install and to maintain those habits. And remember to celebrate, celebrate every small win that reinforces the belief that you’re installing. The final thing, final thing I want to cover, I want to offer you, is the power of micro habits.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:28:43]:
We mention this as we’ve gone through. When we think of change, we think of huge leaps, big overhauls, strict diet, all this sort of thing. True, lasting transformation comes from small consistent steps rather than occasional bursts. Is the compound effect a 1% improvement each week? Hey, that’s nothing, right? It feels nothing. But over the course of that year, it compounds into a huge growth. Same applies with bad habits. A seemingly small harmless behaviour, when repeated, that becomes a downward spiral. On the other hand, just a small reduction in that behaviour each week, increasingly decrease in in that behaviour each week soon compounds up.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:29:41]:
I mean, for example, suppose if you read one page per day, just one page every day, we’ve all got time to fit in reading one page, right? If you read one page a day, that’s 365 pages in a year. That’s more than most people read in a year. And that’s one to two reasonable sized books every year just by reading a page a day. If you replace just one fizzy drink with water, that’s over 50,000 calories that you save in the year. That’s over 50,000 fewer calories each year just by replacing one fizzy drink a day with water. Wondering. If you write 50 words per day, you’ll have written the equivalent of an entire book over the course of a year. Micro habits are a brilliant way to make those changes.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:30:35]:
Small, consistent changes all build up. And if you still not convinced that these small changes add up, think about it. Think of Midsummer. Midsummer, middle of sort of 21st, 22nd of June in the Northern hemisphere is Midsummer’s day. The nights, the nights are the shortest. The days are at the longest. Over the course of the next few days, the nights get longer, the days get shorter. You don’t notice it from day to day, right? You don’t notice it from day to day.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:31:11]:
But a month later, a couple of months later, you certainly start to notice a big difference in the length of night and the shortness of day. Tiny change each day, which you don’t notice from day to day, but over time adds up to big change. All those of you who have children, you won’t notice them growing, getting taller each day, but over time, nice sprout Micro habits a really powerful way of installing habits which create long term positive change for you. That’s what I wanted to share with you on Habits. Hopefully you found this useful. Hopefully you found it interesting. Let me know. Let me know what you think.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:32:01]:
What’s a habit you’re going to change? Either remove or weaken or install a new one. Do let me know. Remember, give us a Like a Comment, a Share a subscribe Review us on your favourite platform. Share this far and wide. It all helps to spread the word and helps to help more people. And remember, you can catch us on Apple Podcasts, Amazon music, audible, Spotify, YouTube, grow radio, anywhere that you get podcasts. That is it for now. Thank you so much for joining me.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:32:33]:
I look forward to hearing from you about the habits that you’re weakening and the habits that you’re developing. And I will catch you in another episode very soon. Bye for now.