Charles Duhigg Quotes

138 quotes in 1946 categories

• 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…
• The biggest moment of flexibility in our shopping habits is when we have a child, because all of your old routines go out the window,…
• 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…
• Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage.
• 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…
• 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…
• Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine.
• 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…
• Shampoo doesn’t have to foam, but we add foaming chemicals because people expect it each time they wash their hair. Same thing with laundry detergent.…
• As people strengthened their willpower muscles in one part of their lives—in the gym, or a money management program—that strength spilled over into what they…
• Belief is easier when it occurs within a community.
• 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,
• If you believe you can change - if you make it a habit - the change becomes real.
• 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…
• 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…
• Companies aren’t families. They’re battlefields in a civil war. Yet despite this capacity for internecine warfare, most companies roll along relatively peacefully, year after year,…
• Then one day, we’ll put the reward in the old place, and put in the rat, and, by golloy, the old habit will rememerge right…
• 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…
• When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard, or diverts focus to other tasks. So unless…
• Once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom -- and the responsibility -- to remake them. Once you understand that habits can…

Browse Charles Duhigg Quotes by Category