What are keystone habits?

Charles Duhigg in his book, The Power of Habit explains that keystone habits are the ones that have the power to start a chain reaction changing other habits.

Keystone habits explain how some people, after years of trying, suddenly lose forty pounds while becoming more productive at work and still get home in time for dinner with their kids.

How do they work? Keystone habits are those that shift, dislodge and remake other patterns. They also make it easier to form new ones.

One example is the impact of exercise on daily routines. When people start exercising regularly they start seeing changes in the other, unrelated patterns of their lives, often unknowingly. They start eating better and becoming more productive at work.

They experience less stress, start spending more time with their kids, are more patient with their friends and colleagues, and they smoke less. For many people, exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change. It makes other good habits easier.

Their influence: Keystone habits can influence how people work, eat, play, live, spend, and communicate. They start a process that, over time, transforms everything. They start initial shifts that start chain reactions that help other good habits take hold.

How to identify them. If you focus on cultivating keystone habits, you can cause widespread shifts. However, identifying them is tricky. You have to look for small wins in habits that motivate you to go ahead.

Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging advancements into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach. They help other habits to flourish by creating new structures, and they establish cultures where change becomes contagious.

Planning your habits: To start changing your habits, don’t overwhelm yourself with changing everything at once. Start small and then move further to form new habits. Start with ones that take relatively less effort like making your bed or exercising twice a week.

Final Word: Everyone wants to be better and change some habits in their life. To initiate change, identify the keystone habits and sequentially implement them to influence other habits and form a habitual pattern. The key is planning your habits to change the bad ones.