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If you tell people that they have what it takes to succeed, they’ll prove you right.

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

Community Creation Disbelief Experience Powerful Share
If you dress a new something in old habits, it’s easier for the public to accept it.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Acceptance Habit Public Yourself
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
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
Change might not be fast and it isn’t always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Change Easy Effort Fast Shape Time
The brain has this amazing ability to find happiness even when the memories of it are gone.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Ability Amazing Finding Happiness Memories
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
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
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
Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Advantage Application Small Win
Companies aren’t families. They’re battlefields in a civil war.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Civil Company Family War
The more you focus, the more that focus becomes a habit.
CHARLES DUHIGG

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

Bad Change Gold Habit Yourself
Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Anand Thakur
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
Belief is easier when it occurs within a community.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Belief Community Occur
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
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
What studies say the number one best way to start an exercise habit is to give yourself a reward that you genuinely enjoy.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Best Enjoyment Exercise Genuine Reward Start Way
Cravings are what drive habits. And figuring out how to spark a craving makes creating a new habit easier.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Anand Thakur
Hiding what you know is sometimes as important as knowing it.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Hide Important Known Yourself
If you believe you can change – if you make it a habit – the change becomes real.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Believe Change Habit Reality Yourself
America is the Saudi Arabia of coal.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Coal Country Power
Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort.
CHARLES DUHIGG

Brain Effort Habit Save Science Way
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
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

If you tell people that they have what it takes to succeed, they’ll prove you right.

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If you tell people that they have what it takes to succeed, they’ll prove you right.

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