Charles Duhigg Quotes

For years, agency officials said that atrazine in drinking water posed almost no risk to humans or the environment.

And once you know a habit exists, you have the responsibility to change it.

Forty percent of all electronics sold are assembled by Foxconn.

Alcoholism, of course, is more than a habit. It's a physical addiction with psychological and perhaps genetic roots.

As America becomes an older nation, it is also, by some measures, becoming sicker.

Older consumers don't want to be treated like teenagers; what's more, they don't want to believe they fall into any niche at all.

There are supply chains that exist in China and Asia now which the U.S. simply can't replicate.

In surveys, many borrowers say reverse mortgages have improved their lives and provided money they needed for retirement.

Once you break a habit into its components, you can fiddle with the gears.

Equipment sellers can pocket more than $2,500 every time they send a powered wheelchair to a patient and bill Medicare.

You can't suddenly say, 'I want a brand new habit tomorrow,' and expect it to be easy and effortless.

Duke University researcher in 2006 found that more than 40 percent of the actions people performed each day weren't actual decisions, but habits.prl.3

In a sense, habits never really disappear. Once formed, they always remain in our neurology.

In California, up to 15 percent of wells in agricultural areas exceed a federal contaminant threshold, according to studies.

One survey conducted in 2010 estimated that the average parent spends $6,800 on baby items before a child's first birthday.7.9

The secret, the alcoholics said, was God.

As the nation's elderly population grows, dozens of industries have tried to harness the political might of older Americans for corporate goals.

Habits are malleable throughout your entire life.

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.

It's okay to be ambitious, but if you play too rough, your peers will unite against you.

People want to visit places that satisfy their social needs.

This explains why habits are so powerful: They create neurological cravings.

Many environmental advocates argue that agricultural pollution will be reduced only through stronger federal laws.

habits emerge without our permission.

The paradox of learning how to make better decisions is that it requires developing a comfort with doubt. There

Research suggests that investment bankers are more prone to commit fraud when they feel the competitor at their heels.

Everything was a reaction - and eventually a habit - rather than a choice.

That's why they asked each other questions starting with "why." Make a chore into a meaningful decision, and self-motivation will emerge.

And the best way to strengthen willpower and give students a leg up, studies indicate, is to make it into a habit.

In the past, NASDAQ has defended flash orders.

A habit cannot be eradicated - it must, instead, be replaced.

Someone once described Ken Lewis to me as the most competitive person in the history of the United States, including the Union Army.

How are you going to study tonight? What are you going to do tomorrow? How do you know you're ready for your test?' It trained me to set goals.

with infants are so tired that they'll buy

America has always had an apocalyptic strain. Yet it also seems to believe that if, or when, The End comes, it will still come out on top.

Habit: by choosing a certain behavior ahead of time, and then following that routine when an inflection point arrives. When

What's more, all that growth occurred while Alcoa became one of the safest companies in the world.

Willpower is a learnable skill, something that can be taught the same way kids learn to do math and say thank you.

People who start habitually exercising tend on average to eat better. They also tend to use their credit cards less and procrastinate less.

Phelps, even at a young age, had a capacity for obsessiveness that made him an ideal athlete. Then again, all elite performers are obsessives.

Barium, which is commonly found in power plant waste and scrubber wastewater, has been linked to heart problems and diseases in other organs.

And I really, genuinely believe that if you tell people that they have what it takes to succeed, they'll prove you right.

By developing a habit of telling ourselves stories about what's going on around us, we learn to sharpen where our attention goes. These

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

For Aristotle, habits reigned supreme. The behaviors that occur unthinkingly are the evidence of our truest selves.

The truth is, the brain can be reprogrammed. You just have to be deliberate about it.2

Firms are guided by long-held organizational habits, patterns that often emerge from thousands of employees' independent decisions.6.16

Change occurs among other people,

It is almost always a bad idea to use a reverse mortgage to pay for a vacation or to buy a risky investment, like stocks or deferred annuities.

Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage.

Belief is easier when it occurs within a community.

Students in school cheat not to get the 'A,' but to avoid the 'C.'

For years, many public health campaigns that aimed at changing habits have been failures.

Change might not be fast and it isn't always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.

Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort.

awareness training, and like AA's insistence on forcing alcoholics

Companies are very, very good - better than consumers themselves - at knowing what consumers are actually craving.

He created a craving. And that craving, it turns out, is what makes cues and rewards work. That craving is what powers the habit loop.

This is the final way that keystone habits encourage widespread change: by creating cultures where new values become ingrained.

The cooperation of NASCAR - or any other system, it turns out - persists only when everyone believes he has the opportunity to win.

Bromates are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, but officials are required to test for them only when water leaves a treatment plant.

America is the Saudi Arabia of coal.

This is how new habits are created: by putting together a cue, a routine, and a reward, and then cultivating a craving that drives the loop.

Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger skills at sticking with a budget.

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.

We like songs that are familiar.

Conditions in Chinese factories are harsh. They're much harsher than they are in, for instance, the United States or any Western nation.

Changing any habit requires determination.

Rather, they changed because they were embedded in social groups that made change easier.

The key to victory was creating the right routines.

The way we habitually think of our surroundings and ourselves create the worlds that each of us inhabit.

If you believe you can change - if you make it a habit - the change becomes real.

Most shoppers don't buy everything they need at one store.

The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You can't extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.

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.

Patents are being used to wage war in the digital world, and as a result, patents have become a toll gate on the road of innovation.

Within a year of O'Neilrs speech, Alcoa's profits would hit a rec- ord high.

Some financial advisers say anyone who may move in less than seven years should not take out a reverse mortgage.

You have to actually believe in your capacity to change for habits to permanently change.

Most people probably don't even know what toothpaste they buy; they just recognize the box on the shelf.

First, find a simple and obvious cue. Second, clearly define the rewards. If you

Consumer habits are key to understanding how to launch a product.

Millions of people with respiratory diseases have relied on oxygen equipment, delivered to their homes, to help them breathe.

Actually, attorneys say, copying a purchased CD for even one friend violates the federal copyright code most of the time.

For a habit to stay changed, people must believe change is possible.

Self-motivation becomes easier when we see our choices as affirmations of our deeper values and goals.

There's nothing you can't do if you get the habits right.

In 2005, attorneys general of 35 states urged the Federal Reserve to end the unsigned check system.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from banks and other lenders, providing those financial institutions with capital to make new loans.

There are systems called zero discharge emission systems that would prevent any pollution from making it into the water or the air.

The physical effects of alcohol are often one of the least rewarding parts of drinking for addicts.

Every choice we make in life is an experiment.

Alcoholics crave a drink because it offers escape, relaxation, companionship, the blunting of anxieties, and an opportunity for emotional release.

That psychology was grounded in two basic rules: First, find a simple and obvious cue. Second, clearly define the rewards.

Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine.

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

The basal ganglia, in other words, stored habits even while the rest of the brain went to sleep.

Charles Wyly was born Oct 13, 1933, in Lake Providence, La., and for a period lived with his family in a shack without electricity or plumbing.

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

As cities have grown rapidly across the nation, many have neglected infrastructure projects and paved over green spaces that once absorbed rainwater.