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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

At some point, if you’re changing a really deep-seated behavior, you’re going to have a moment of weakness.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Behavior Change Moments Point Weakness
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
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
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 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
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
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
Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Brain Effort Habit Save Science Way
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
Habits are malleable throughout your entire life.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Change Habit Life Yourself
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
Cravings are what drive habits. And figuring out how to spark a craving makes creating a new habit easier.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Anand Thakur
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
For a habit to stay changed, people must believe change is possible.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Believe Change Habit People Possible Stay

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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