Quotes by Charles Duhigg

“When we start a new task, or confront an unpleasant chore, we should take a moment to ask ourselves "why.”

“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 ...”

“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 frequen...”

“The same process that makes AA so effectivethe power of a group to teach individuals how to believehappens whenever people come together to help one another change. Belief is easier when it occurs ...”

“Grit, which they defined as the tendency to work strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress.”

“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.”

“Companies arent families. Theyre battlefields in a civil war.”

“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...”

“If you believe you can changeif you make it a habitthe 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 occursand ...”

“Researchers began finding that habit replacement worked pretty well for many people until the stresses of lifesuch as finding out your mom has cancer, or your marriage is coming apartgot too high, ...”

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

“Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage.”

“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.”

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

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

“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 pro...”

“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 pa...”

“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.”

“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, ...”

“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 th...”