32 Quotes & Sayings By Charles Duhigg

If you believe you can change–if you make it a habit–the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. Once that choice occurs–and becomes automatic–it’s not only real, it starts to seem inevitable. 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

Reform is usually possible only once a sense of crisis takes hold.... In fact, crises are such valuable opportunities that a wise leader often prolongs a sense of emergency on purpose. Charles Duhigg

Once people learned how to believe in something, that skill started spilling over to other parts of their lives, until they started believing they could change. Belief was the ingredient that made a reworked habit loop into a permanent behavior. 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

All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits - practical, emotional, and intellectual - systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be." - William James Charles Duhigg

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

Researchers began finding that habit replacement worked pretty well for many people until the stresses of life–such as finding out your mom has cancer, or your marriage is coming apart–got too high, at which point alcoholics often fell off the wagon. Academics asked why, if habit replacement is so effective, it seemed to fail at such critical moments. And as they dug into alcoholics’ stories to answer that question, they learned that replacement habits only become durable new behaviors when they are accompanied by something else. One group of researchers at the Alcohol Research Group in California, for instance, noticed a pattern in interviews. Over and over again, alcoholics said the same thing: Identifying cues and choosing new routines is important, but without another ingredient, the new habits never fully took hold. The secret, the alcoholics said, was God. Charles Duhigg

Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage. Charles Duhigg

A five-year-old who can follow the ball for ten minutes becomes a sixth grader who can start his homework on time. 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

Habits aren’t destiny. Habits can be ignored, changed, or replaced. But the reason the discovery of the habit loop is so important is that it reveals a basic truth: 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

When people have a willpower failure, it's because they haven't anticipated a situation that's going to come along. Charles Duhigg

Unlike other sports, which are largely determined by individual athletic ability or team strength, NASCAR requires its competitors to cooperate in order to win. Charles Duhigg

Stock exchanges say that more than half of all trades are now executed by just a handful of high-frequency traders, who use rapid-fire computers to essentially force slower investors to give up profits, then disappear before anyone knows what happened. Charles Duhigg

Prosecutors say it would be next to impossible to get one teen to testify in court that another had slipped him or her a copied disc at lunchtime. And besides, isn't sharing music a time-honored part of teen friendship? Charles Duhigg

A huge amount of success in life comes from learning as a child how to make good habits. It's good to help kids understand that when they do certain things habitually, they're reinforcing patterns. Charles Duhigg

We know there are certain chemicals that are designed to give us a rush of pleasure. But, one of the most amazing things about being human is our capacity to override that pleasure. To either say, 'I don't need that pleasure right now. I'm going to ignore the craving.' Or to find something else that we find a deeper sense of reward from. Charles Duhigg

The specific steps for changing a specific habit differ from person to person and habit to habit, but the steps - the formula - is essentially the same, and once you learn it, you can do amazing things. Charles Duhigg

Many cows are fed a high-protein diet, which creates a more liquid manure that is easier to spray on fields. Charles Duhigg

Fraudulent and improper payments have long bedeviled Medicare, a $466 billion program. In particular, payments for durable medical equipment, like power wheelchairs and diabetic test kits, are ripe for fraud. Charles Duhigg

In 1980, a woman promised her dying sister to change how Americans thought about breast cancer. Thirty years later, the result - the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation - is one of the nation's largest non-profits, and one of the most successful triumphs in public health marketing and changing health habits. Charles Duhigg

Around New York City, samples collected at dozens of beaches or piers have detected the types of bacteria and other pollutants tied to sewage overflows. Though the city's drinking water comes from upstate reservoirs, environmentalists say untreated excrement and other waste in the city's waterways pose serious health risks. Charles Duhigg

Drinking water that does not meet a federal health guideline will not necessarily make someone ill. Many contaminants are hazardous only if consumed for years. And some researchers argue that even toxic chemicals, when consumed at extremely low doses over long periods, pose few risks. Charles Duhigg

You're much better off creating positive rewards, complimenting people for acting correctly, rather than punishing them when they act incorrectly. Charles Duhigg

Back when Detroit was the head of auto manufacturing, it was clear where profits were created. Right? A car was made in Detroit. There was little argument that you could make that some of the money from that should be sent overseas to Ireland. Charles Duhigg

Even though it's hard to learn how to back your car out the driveway at first, once it becomes a habit, you can do it almost automatically and think about something else, like the meeting that you need to go to today or what's on the radio. Charles Duhigg

Many environmental advocates argue that agricultural pollution will be reduced only through stronger federal laws. Charles Duhigg

Some officials overseeing local water systems have tried to go above and beyond what is legally required. But they have encountered resistance, sometimes from the very residents they are trying to protect, who say that if their water is legal, it must be safe. Charles Duhigg