Life is architected in such a way as to provide a "ratcheting" mechanism that enables innovation to be preserved, as a kind of “scaffolding”, against the threat of loss. Scaffolding is a temporary structure that supports people to work from. Habituality and habits are a kind of scaffolding without which we would continuously be falling back from our innovations. Habits then are an essential facet of life like a kind of scaffolding or “fossilised stool” of prior progress that we then stand upon to reach even higher. This is the first of three important facets of habituality.
One of the valuable facets of a habit is that it has some degree of effectiveness in helping us to get more of what we want. Habits can potentially be formed when we repeat an action over and over again, and the primary reason we would do this is that it works. The second facet of habit is that it is helpful in obtaining some desired outcome. The American philosopher John Dewey called habits “embodiments of intelligence”; an essential embodying shortcut mechanism to support growth.
Habits emerge in a particular situation that is constructed by our desires (what is important to us), our environment (what’s around us) and our capability. The gap between the desire and our environment creates a Meaning Gap which we strive to reduce. When we find something that enables us to do this then we are likely to reuse this “strategy” in the same sort of situation.
When we repeat an action over and over gain it can become “ingrained” into our behaviour. The third facet of a habit is that it is an automatic “coupling” of the “stimulus” (our awareness) of a situation and our response (strategy) to it without the invention of conscious awareness. Habits always sit below conscious awareness and are a kind of machine that runs on autopilot.
Habits have 4 features that define them. They are
The third facet of habit (automatic and unconscious) can lead to it becoming a regular feature of our behaviour. However this doesn’t mean that all repeated patterns of behaviour are habits. A habit is such only if it conforms to the 4 essential core features of a habit. If the behaviour doesn’t conform to all of these then it’s something else; often its a “routine” or Practice.
Practices are repeated routines of behaviour that on the “outside” look like a habit. However a practice has 4 different features that define.