Short excerpt from a YouTube video by James Laughlin explaining the difference between habits and behaviours. The speaker defines a habit as a repeatedly performed behavior that the brain stores in subconscious memory centers, making it automatic and always triggered by a cue (example: a car triggering seatbelt use). The speaker contrasts this with a behavior, which is not necessarily automatic or triggered.
A habit is a behavior that we've repeated so often. That our brain moves it into that subconscious part of our brain. So it's something that we do without thinking about. It's not deliberate. It's generally quite automatic, and it's always triggered. So a habit is triggered, a behavior is not. And that's one of the primary differences between the two. We tend to use the words behavior and habit interchangeably. But they are different. If you think of the first thing you do when you sit in your car is put your seatbelt on. The car triggers you to do the habit of putting your seatbelt on. You don't have to set a reminder to do it every time. So that's what a habit is. It's a triggered behavior that's found in the memory centers of our brain. That is triggered when we exposed to that particular habit. Trigger.
