Habit Audit

Habit Audit is a diagnostic. You run it on a habit you are already trying to keep, when it is stalling and you cannot work out why. Four questions, from the four laws of behaviour change. How obvious is the cue? How attractive is the craving? How easy is the response? And how satisfying is the reward? You rate each one, and the weakest of the four comes back with a specific suggestion for that law. The four laws are James Clear's, set out in Atomic Habits in 2018, building on the cue, craving, response, and reward loop that behavioural psychology has described for decades. Running it stops you applying the wrong fix. Most people respond to a failing habit by trying harder, which only helps if the problem was response difficulty. If your cue is not obvious, willpower won't rescue it. If the reward does not satisfy you, nothing will keep it going for more than a couple of weeks. Be honest on the craving score particularly. Plenty of habits fail because you think you should want them, rather than actually wanting them. You can run it for any habit whenever one feels stuck, and the result stays attached to that habit in the tools. Fix one law, run the habit for two weeks, and then audit it again.