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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

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
The waste from power plants is essentially what is left over when you burn coal. And as we all know, coal is a relatively dirty mineral.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Plant Power Relative Waste
The more you focus, the more that focus becomes a habit.
CHARLES DUHIGG

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

Choice Power Reality Yourself
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

Alcohol Behaviour Change Drive Effort Reality Smoking Understand
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
Hiding what you know is sometimes as important as knowing it.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Hide Important Known Yourself
The biggest moment of flexibility in our shopping habits is when we have a child, because when you think about it, all of your old routines sort of go out the window, and suddenly a marketer can come in and sell you new kinds of things.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Flexible Kind Marketing Moments Window Yourself
Cravings are what drive habits. And figuring out how to spark a craving makes creating a new habit easier.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Anand Thakur
Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products of well-considered decision making, but they’re not. They’re habits.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Choice Day Feeling Habit Product
If you tell people that they have what it takes to succeed, they’ll prove you right.
CHARLES DUHIGG

People Right Success Yourself
For a habit to stay changed, people must believe change is possible.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Believe Change Habit People Possible Stay
The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You can’t extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Bad Change Gold Habit 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
Between calculated risk and reckless decision-making lies the dividing line between profit and loss.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Calculation Division Loss Risk Yourself
If you believe you can change – if you make it a habit – the change becomes real.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Believe Change Habit Reality Yourself
If you dress a new something in old habits, it’s easier for the public to accept it.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Acceptance Habit Public Yourself
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

Bed Better Budget Morning Production Strong
The cooperation of NASCAR – or any other system, it turns out – persists only when everyone believes he has the opportunity to win.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Believe Cooperation Himself Opportunity System Win
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
America is the Saudi Arabia of coal.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Coal Country Power
Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Anand Thakur
Since the 17th century, insurance agents have been the foremost experts on risk.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Agent Expert Insurance Risk
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

Community Creation Disbelief Experience Powerful Share
Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Advantage Application Small Win
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

Conservation Day Run Willpower Work
The brain has this amazing ability to find happiness even when the memories of it are gone.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Ability Amazing Finding Happiness Memories

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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