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The Power of
Habit
Why We Do What We Do in
Life and Business

Charles Duhigg

New York: Random House (2012).

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Champions dont do extraordinary

things, Tony Dungy would explain.
They do ordinary things, but they
do them without thinking, too fast
for the other team to react. They
follow the habits theyve learned.
1. All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits,
William James.
Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products
of well-considered decision making, but theyre not. Theyre
habits... William Jameslike countless others, from Aristotle to
Oprahspent much of his life trying to understand why habits
exist.

2. Habits can be changed, if we understand how they work.

once you see everything as a bunch of habits, its like someone
gave you a flashlight and a crowbar and you can get to work.

3. We understand how to make people eat less, exercise more, work

Habits, scientists say, more efficiently, and live healthier lives. Transforming a habit isnt
emerge because the brain is necessarily easy or quick. It isnt always simple. But it is possible.
And now we understand how.
constantly looking for ways to
save effort This effort- 4. Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly
saving instinct is a huge looking for ways to save effort.
advantage. Left to its own devices, the brain will try to make almost any
routine into a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp
down more often. This effort-saving instinct is a huge
Pages 2-5 are quotes taken advantage.
directly from the book.
5. 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 habitunless you find
new routinesthe pattern will unfold automatically.

6. Habits never really disappear. it would be awful if we had to

relearn how to drive after every vacation... The problem is that
your brain cant tell the difference between bad and good habits,
and so if you have a bad one, its always lurking there, waiting for
the right cues and rewards.
Once we develop a routine of sitting on the couch, rather than
running, or snacking whenever we pass a doughnut box, those
patterns always remain inside our heads.
cues can be almost anything, from a visual trigger such as a
candy bar or a television commercial to a certain place, a time of
day, an emotion, a sequence of thoughts, or the company of
particular people.

7. Champions dont do extraordinary things, Tony Dungy would

explain. They do ordinary things, but they do them without
thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits
The Power of Habit theyve learned.
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8. To change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine. Thats the rule
Almost any behavior can be transformed if the cue and reward stay the same.
the Golden Rule of habit change: AA succeeds because it helps alcoholics use the same cues, and get the same
reward, but it shifts the routine.

9. Asking patients to describe what triggers their habitual behavior is called awareness training
Most peoples habits have occurred for so long they dont pay attention to what causes it anymore.

10. once youre aware of how your habit works, once you recognize the cues and rewards, youre halfway to changing
it

11. they learned that replacement habits only become durable new behaviors when they are accompanied by
something else.
...belief seems critical. You dont have to believe in God, but you do need the capacity to believe that things will get
better.

12. Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.
the best way to strengthen willpower and give students a leg up, studies indicate, is to make it into a habit.

13. They discovered that the four-year-olds who could delay gratification the longest ended up with the best grades and
with SAT scores 210 points higher, on average, than everyone else.

14. By the 1980s, a theory emerged that became generally accepted: Willpower is a learnable skill, something that can
be taught the same way kids learn to do math and say thank you.
Willpower isnt just a skill. Its a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so
theres less power left over for other things.

15. Thats why signing up kids for piano lessons or sports is so important. It has nothing to do with creating a
good musician or a five-year-old soccer star When you learn to force yourself to practice for an hour or
run fifteen laps, you start building self-regulatory strength. A five-year-old who can follow the ball for ten
minutes becomes a sixth grader who can start his homework on time.

16. entry-level workersall face a common problem many will fail because they lack self-discipline... For a lot of
employees, Starbucks is their first professional experience... So we try to figure out how to give our employees the
self-discipline they didnt learn in high school.

17. Recovering from a hip or knee surgery is incredibly arduous.

The patients who had written plans in their booklets had started walking almost twice as fast as the ones who had
not. They had started getting in and out of their chairs, unassisted, almost three times as fast. They were putting on
their shoes, doing the laundry, and making themselves meals quicker than the patients who hadnt scribbled out
goals ahead of time.
she saw that many of the plans had something in common: They focused on how patients would handle a specific
moment of anticipated pain.
patients plans were built around inflection points when they knew their painand thus the temptation to quit
would be strongest. The patients were telling themselves how they were going to make it over the hump.

18. the key difference was the sense of control they had over their experience. Weve found this again and again,
Muraven told me. When people are asked to do something that takes self-control, if they think they are doing it for
personal reasonsif they feel like its a choice or something they enjoy because it helps someone elseits much
less taxing. If they feel like they have no autonomy, if theyre just following orders, their willpower muscles get tired
much faster.
when the students were treated like cogs, rather than people, it took a lot more willpower.
Giving employees a sense of control improved how much self-discipline they brought to their jobs.

Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance

than does intellectual talent.
The Power of Habit
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Once youre aware of how your habit

works, once you recognize the cues and
rewards, youre halfway to changing it

19. There are no organizations without institutional habits. There are

only places where they are deliberately designed, and places
where they are created without forethought, so they often grow
Thats why signing
from rivalries or fear. (emphasis added). up kids for piano
20. An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change was first published in lessons or sports is
1982
Or, put in language that people use outside of theoretical economics, so important.
it may seem like most organizations make rational choices based on
deliberate decision making, but thats not really how companies
operate at all.
Instead, firms are guided by long-held organizational habits, patterns
It has nothing to do
that often emerge from thousands of employees independent
decisions.
with creating a good
And these habits have more profound impacts than anyone previously
understood.
musician or a five-
because without them, most companies would never get any work year-old soccer
star
done. Routines provide the hundreds of unwritten rules that
companies need to operate.
They allow workers to experiment with new ideas without having to
ask for permission at every step. They provide a kind of
organizational memory,
Routines reduce uncertainty
When you learn to
21. Good leaders seize crises to remake organizational habits.
force yourself to
wise executives seek out moments of crisisor create the practice for an hour
perception of crisisand cultivate the sense that something must
change, until everyone is finally ready to overhaul the patterns they or run fifteen laps,
live with each day.
you start building
22. A series of experiments convinced marketers that if they managed to
understand a particular shoppers habits, they could get them to buy self-regulatory
almost anything.
each persons habits were different. The habits were unique to
strength.
each person.

23. how do you keep track of their preferences and shopping patterns? A five-year-old who
You collect data. Enormous, almost inconceivably large amounts of
data. can follow the ball
24. It used to be that companies only knew what their customers wanted for ten minutes
them to know, said Tom Davenport, one of the leading researchers
on how businesses use data and analytics. That world is far behind
becomes a sixth
us. Youd be shocked how much information is out thereand every
company buys it, because its the only way to survive.
grader who can
25. Why do some people suddenly change their shopping routines?
start his homework
Habits reigned supreme. Except when they didnt. on time.
Andreasen wanted to know why these people had deviated from their
usual patterns. What he discovered has become a pillar of modern
marketing theory: Peoples buying habits are more likely to change
when they go through a major life event.

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On a playground, peer pressure is dangerous. In adult life,

its how business gets done and communities self-organize.
Consumers going through major life events often dont notice, or care, that their shopping patterns have shifted.
However, retailers notice, and they care quite a bit.
Having a baby. Theres almost no greater upheaval for most customers than the arrival of a child. As a result, new
parents habits are more flexible at that moment than at almost any other period in an adults life. So for companies,
pregnant women are gold mines.

26. To a new parent, easy matters most of all.

27. To market a new habitbe it groceries or aerobicsyou must understand how to make the novel seem familiar.

28. In fact, in landing a job, Granovetter discovered, weak-tie acquaintances were often more important than strong-tie
friends because weak ties give us access to social networks where we dont otherwise belong.
our weak-tie acquaintancesthe people we bump into every six monthsare the ones who tell us about jobs we
would otherwise never hear about.

29. The habits of peer pressure often spread through weak ties.
In other words, if you dont give the caller looking for a job a helping hand, he might complain to his tennis
partner, who might mention those grumblings to someone in the locker room who you were hoping to attract
as a client, who is now less likely to return your call because you have a reputation for not being a team
player. On a playground, peer pressure is dangerous. In adult life, its how business gets done and
communities self-organize.

30. Historically, in neuroscience, weve said that people with brain damage lose some of their free will, said Habib.
But when a pathological gambler sees a casino, it seems very similar. It seems like theyre acting without choice.

31. Some thinkers, Aristotle wrote in Nicomachean Ethics, hold that it is by nature that people become good, others
that it is by habit, and others that it is by instruction. For Aristotle, habits reigned supreme. The behaviors that occur
unthinkingly are the evidence of our truest selves, he said. So just as a piece of land has to be prepared beforehand
if it is to nourish the seed, so the mind of the pupil has to be prepared in its habits if it is to enjoy and dislike the right
things.

32. But every habit, no matter its complexity, is malleable However, to modify a habit, you must decide to change it.
You must consciously accept the hard work of identifying the cues and rewards that drive the habits routines, and
find alternatives. You must know you have control and be self-conscious enough to use itand every chapter in this
book is devoted to illustrating a different aspect of why that control is real.

33. All our life, William James told us in the prologue, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habitspractical,
emotional, and intellectualsystematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our
destiny, whatever the latter may be.
Later, he would famously write that the will to believe is the most important ingredient in creating belief in change.
And that one of the most important methods for creating that belief was habits. Habits, he noted, are what allow us
to do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do
it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all.

34. 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 becomes automaticits
not only real, it starts to seem inevitable, the thing, as James wrote, that bears us irresistibly toward our destiny,
whatever the latter may be.

35. The difficult thing about studying the science of habits is that most people, when they hear about this field of
research, want to know the secret formula for quickly changing any habit.
The problem is that there isnt one formula for changing habits. There are thousands.

The Power of Habit

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The Power of Habit

Why We Do What We Do in
Life and Business
by Charles Duhigg
New York: Random House (2012).

Habits are all around (A word about this book this is a very good book by an exceptional
storyteller, Charles Duhigg)
us. They are so
ingrained that we no Some of the Stories

longer recognize their 1) The Army Major who stopped a riot (before it formed)
cues 2) Coach Tony Dungy, who tried to turn his players into
habitual actors (reactors)
3) Mandy, the girl who could not stop biting her fingernails
We have habits as 4) Alcoa and the brilliant single focus that changed
everything for the better
individuals. And 5) Michael Phelps and his lifelong habits
6) Starbucks, and their habit changing training successes
corporations and 7) (Focus on employee training; to focus on customer
organizations and service)
8) The Rhode Island Hospital
the entire society all 9) The on-paper exercise to help those recovering from hip
have habits. 10)
or knee replacement surgery
The fire in the Underground and insight into
organizational idiocy stupidity
Some habits are very 11)
12)
The World War II challenge regarding meat
Target identifies the expecting mothers
good habits and that 13) The creation of a hit song
is good. 14) Two similar movements: the Montgomery Bus Boycott
and Saddleback Valley Community Church
15) The man who killed his wife (while he was asleep)
16) The woman who bankrupted her family because she was
Some habits are bad unable to keep from gambling
habits, and that can be 17) And, the author who ate a cookie every single dayuntil
he formed a new habit
bad to fully destructive.
The Habit Loop

We can choose to 1) First, there is a cue, a trigger

change our habits. 2) -- Then there is the routine, which can be physical or
mental or emotional.
3) -- Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure
But it takes attention out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the
future:
and work over the
long haul. Over time, this loopcue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward
becomes more and more automatic.

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Some takeaways

1) Habits own you (and own an organization)

2) Habits will not change on their own
3) You cannot change a habit easily
4) Willpower can be exhausting
5) But, the will power muscle can be developed
6) You need a lot of help: like, peer pressure; checklists; written goals
7) You need to practice advanced decision making
8) If you succeed, the bad habit still lurks (maybe forever)
9) And, people do better when they (feel like they) have some level of control
10) A crisis can play a really useful role in helping you (or an organization) change from a bad habit to a good
habit. Take advantage of a crisis!

The book:

Part One -- The Habits of Individuals

1) The Habit Loop How Habits Work

2) The Craving Brain How to Create New Habits
3) The Golden Rule of Change Why Transformation Occurs
(The Golden Rule of Change: Keep the old cue; deliver the old reward; insert a new routine)

Part Two The Habits of Successful Organizations

4) Keystone Habits, or the Ballad of Paul ONeill Which Habits Matter Most
5) Starbucks and the Habit of Success When Willpower becomes automatic
6) The Power of a Crisis How Leaders create habits through accident and design
7) How Target knows what you want before you do when companies predict (and manipulate) habits

Part Three -- The Habits of Societies

8) Saddleback Church and the Montgomery Bus Boycott How Movements Happen
9) The Neurology of Free Will Are we Responsible for our Habits?

Appendix: A Readers Guide to Using these Ideas

Randy Mayeux
214.577.8025
[email protected]

Randy blogs about business books at

www.FirstFridayBookSynopsis.com
Follow Randy on Twitter: @Randy1116
Synopses available at www.15MinuteBusinessBooks.com

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