black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You can’t extinguish a bad habit, you can only change 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

Community Effect Individual Process Teaching
Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Change Habit Old Reward Routine
America is the Saudi Arabia of coal.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Coal Country Power
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

Agency Follow Order People Routine Understand Wonder
If you dress a new something in old habits, it’s easier for the public to accept it.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Acceptance Habit Public Yourself
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

Fight Friendship Natural Sympathy Treat
Companies aren’t families. They’re battlefields in a civil war.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Civil Company Family War
Champions don’t do extraordinary things. They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for the orther team to react. They follow the habits they’ve learned.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Champion Fast Follow Habit Learning Ordinary Reaction Thinking
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

Brain Difference Oneself Problem Reward Yourself
The more you focus, the more that focus becomes a habit.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Focus Habit Yourself
Hiding what you know is sometimes as important as knowing it.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Hide Important Known Yourself
Research suggests that investment bankers are more prone to commit fraud when they feel the competitor at their heels.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Commitment Competition Heel Investment Research
When people have a willpower failure, it’s because they haven’t anticipated a situation that’s going to come along.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Failure People Situation Willpower Yourself
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

Goodness Known Myself Smart Special Thinking
Between calculated risk and reckless decision-making lies the dividing line between profit and loss.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Calculation Division Loss Risk Yourself
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

Agency Authority Decision Employee Energy Job Simplicity

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Charles Duhigg Quotes