Charles Duhigg - The Power of Habit (2012)

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This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be.

Charles Duhigg
I think I'm smart, and I know I was a good mom. But there wasn't a lot I could point to and say, that's why I'm special.

Charles Duhigg
Simply giving employees a sense of agency- a feeling that they are in control, that they have genuine decision-making authority - can radically increase how much energy and focus they bring to their jobs.

Charles Duhigg
Habits are powerful, but delicate. They can emerge outside our consciousness, or can be deliberately designed. They often occur without our permission, but can be reshaped by fiddling with their parts. They shape our lives far more than we realize—they are so strong, in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense.

Charles Duhigg
When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard, or diverts focus to other tasks. So unless you deliberately fight a habit — unless you find new routines — the pattern will unfold automatically.

Charles Duhigg
Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort.

Charles Duhigg
Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.

Charles Duhigg
Change might not be fast and it isn't always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.

Charles Duhigg
There's something really powerful about groups and shared experiences. People might be skeptical about their ability to change if they're by themselves, but a group will convince them to suspend disbelief. A community creates belief.

Charles Duhigg
Companies aren't families. They're battlefields in a civil war.

Charles Duhigg
A movement starts because of the social habits of friendship and the strong ties between close acquaintances. It grows because of the habits of a community, and the weak ties that hold neighborhoods and clans together. And it endures because a movement's leaders give participants new habits that create a fresh sense of identity and a feeling of ownership.

Charles Duhigg
Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine.

Charles Duhigg
The best agencies understood the importance of routines. The worst agencies were headed by people who never thought about it, and then wondered why no one followed their orders.

Charles Duhigg
There's a natural instinct embedded in friendship, a sympathy that makes us willing to fight for someone we like when they are treated unjustly.

Charles Duhigg
It is facile to imply that smoking, alcoholism, overeating, or other ingrained patters can be upended without real effort. Genuine change requires work and self-understanding of the cravings driving behaviours.

Charles Duhigg
There's something about it that makes other good habits easier.

Charles Duhigg
If you tell people that they have what it takes to succeed, they'll prove you right

Charles Duhigg
The brain has this amazing ability to find happiness even when the memories of it are gone.

Charles Duhigg
Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger skills at sticking with a budget.

Charles Duhigg
As people strengthened their willpower muscles in one part of their lives—in the gym, or a money management program—that strength spilled over into what they ate or how hard they worked. Once willpower became stronger, it touched everything.

Charles Duhigg
The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You can't extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.

Charles Duhigg
If you want to do something that requires willpower—like going for a run after work—you have to conserve your willpower muscle during the day,

Charles Duhigg
Willpower isn't just a skill. It's a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there's less power left over for other things.

Charles Duhigg
Shampoo doesn't have to foam, but we add foaming chemicals because people expect it each time they wash their hair. Same thing with laundry detergent. And toothpaste—now every company adds sodium laureth sulfate to make toothpaste foam more. There's no cleaning benefit, but people feel better when there's a bunch of suds around their mouth. Once the customer starts expecting that foam, the habit starts growing.

Charles Duhigg
If you dress a new something in old habits, it's easier for the public to accept it.

Charles Duhigg
The same process that makes AA so effective—the power of a group to teach individuals how to believe—happens whenever people come together to help one another change. Belief is easier when it occurs within a community.

Charles Duhigg
For a habit to stay changed, people must believe change is possible.

Charles Duhigg
Typically, people who exercise, start eating better and becoming more productive at work. They smoke less and show more patience with colleagues and family. They use their credit cards less frequently and say they feel less stressed. Exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change.

Charles Duhigg
The problem is that your brain can't tell the difference between bad and good habits, and so if you have a bad one, it's always lurking there, waiting for the right cues and rewards.

Charles Duhigg
But countless studies have shown that a cue and a reward, on their own, aren't enough for a new habit to last. Only when your brain starts expecting the reward—craving the endorphins or sense of accomplishment—will it become automatic to lace up your jogging shoes each morning. The cue, in addition to triggering a routine, must also trigger a craving for the reward to come.

Charles Duhigg