Quote

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 a reworked habit loop into a permanent behavior.

Charles Duhigg

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charles Duhigg
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: January 1
Journalist
Writer
New Mexico
United States
Believe
Habit
Ingredient
People
Learned
Ingredients
Started
Skill
Belief
Believing
Lives
Permanent
Change
Parts
Loop
Made
Skills
Spilling
Something
Behavior
Loops

More quotes by Charles Duhigg

Image
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 frequently and say they feel less stressed. It's not completely clear why. But for many people, exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change.
Charles Duhigg
Image
Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine.
Charles Duhigg
Image
Change might not be fast and it isn't always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.
Charles Duhigg
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom and the responsibility to remake them. Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the power of habit becomes easier to grasp and the only option left is to get to work.
Charles Duhigg
Image
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
Image
Some say because music is as much about personal expression as listening pleasure, sharing is integral to why songs have value in the first place.
Charles Duhigg
Image
Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.
Charles Duhigg
Image
Habits are malleable throughout your entire life.
Charles Duhigg
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If you tell people that they have what it takes to succeed, they'll prove you right
Charles Duhigg
Image
At some point, if you're changing a really deep-seated behavior, you're going to have a moment of weakness.
Charles Duhigg
Image
When people have a willpower failure, it's because they haven't anticipated a situation that's going to come along.
Charles Duhigg
Image
Companies aren’t families. They’re battlefields in a civil war.
Charles Duhigg
Image
Hiding what you know is sometimes as important as knowing it.
Charles Duhigg
Image
If you believe you can change - if you make it a habit - the change becomes real.
Charles Duhigg
Image
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