Charles Duhigg Quotes

The problem with New Year's resolutions - and resolutions to 'get in better shape' in general, which are very amorphous - is that people try to adopt too many behavioral changes at once. It doesn't work. I don't care if you're a world-class CEO - you'll quit.

Staying consistent with positive habits can be a challenge.

When it comes to sticking to your resolutions, research has shown that 'action-oriented' resolutions have a better chance of being upheld than 'idea-oriented.' For example, a resolution to lose weight is really only an idea with nothing actionable to do. However, sticking with that goal in mind, you could make the resolution action-oriented by saying 'get up 30 minutes earlier every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and do a 20-minute workout at home before work.' Now you have an actionable path on how to achieve your goal.

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

It's easy to motivate a client when they are sitting on a bench right in front of you, but the real challenge for a trainer is to have that motivation exist even when you are not around.

If you set goals for yourself, and you're like a lot of other people, you probably realize it's not that your goals are physically impossible that's keeping you from achieving them; it's that you lack the self-discipline to stick to them. It's physically possible to lose weight. It's physically possible to exercise more.

We can use decision-making to choose the habits we want to form, use willpower to get the habit started, then - and this is the best part - we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over. At that point, we're free from the need to decide and the need to use willpower.

Get a gym membership! If you have a membership, you're bound to go. If you say, like, 'Oh, I'll get it one day,' you're never going to do it.

The soaps are great training. You can form good habits - or you can form bad habits. You have to set your goals. If you're not clear on what you want, you can slip into bad habits. It can become a comfortable place, and you don't grow.

If you've ever tried to start up the habit of early-morning exercise, you have probably encountered how easy it is to get derailed by too much choice.

I have a bad history with resolutions! I don't think I have kept up even one of them so far. Once, I promised to myself that I would wake up at 6 A.M. every day - it didn't even last for a week.

Twenty-eight days is what is takes to break a habit and to implement a new set of habits.

Here's a pro-tip: there's no such thing as a 'gym person.' There are just people who go to the gym. Similarly, there's no such thing as a 'productive person.' There are just people who do productive things fairly often.

We feel that if you - practice habits turn into game realities.

The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.

Do it, and then you will feel motivated to do it.

The more we can lower or even eliminate the activation energy for our desired actions, the more we enhance our ability to jump-start positive change.

Are you the person who just wakes up, puts your T-shirt on and runs out of the house? Or do you wake up an hour early - get your mental notes together, fix you a little coffee... prepare yourself for the day and try to do something really great? It begins with you.

At 19, you're not really thinking about the habits you have. I wasn't. Maybe your study habits? But not your life habits.

Set realistic goals, keep re-evaluating, and be consistent.

Committing to a particular goal publicly puts pressure on oneself. It becomes an enormous action-forcing mechanism and often helps you achieve more than you might have had you kept your goals to yourself.

I found people that were willing to push me. I was like, 'These are my goals. I need you to get me here.' I don't need any excuses. I won't make any excuses. I'm over making excuses.

We want to design interventions to teach people how to harness their considerable willpower.

Efficiency is a great secret that can drop us right into our ideal life path, but it is a hard one to practice and something that takes constant maintenance and work.

Motivation levels differ person to person, as does the time since failing new year resolutions.