328 Quotes by Charles Duhigg

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.

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

An internal locus of control emerges when we develop a mental habit of transforming chores into meaningful choices, when we assert that we have authority over our lives.

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.

At the core of that education is an intense focus on an all-important habit: willpower. Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success.

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 you deliberately fight a habit – unless you find new routines – the pattern will unfold automatically. However, simply understanding how habits work – learning the structure of the habit loop – makes them easier to control. Once you break a habit into its components, you can fiddle with the gears.

Models help us choose where to direct our attention, so we can make decisions, rather than just react.

Belief is easier when it occurs within a community.

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