Lisa Allen's life was a mess. At 34, she was overweight, in debt, and struggled with smoking and drinking. But with an incident where she tried to light a cigarette and accidentally burned a pen instead, Lisa hit rock bottom. In that moment of despair, she made a decision: she had to quit smoking!! And changing this one habit led to a complete lifestyle overhaul. This "keystone habit" had rewired her brain.Lisa's keystone habit gives us a glimpse of how...
How Do Habits Work?
Habits are fascinating! We do things without consciously deciding we’d do them. Our brains can run on autopilot. How amazing is that! Still don’t see what’s so amazing about this? Then the story of Eugene Pauly, a man who lost his memory but kept his habits, is just for you!Eugene's journey began with a severe illness that damaged his brain, leaving him unable to form new memories. Or remember his past. But what’s fascinating is that even though he lost...
How to Create New Habits
Your brain is wired to crave the tingly feeling in your mouth after brushing your teeth. And that tingly feeling is the secret behind why millions of people brush their teeth every day without fail. Weird, right. Well, that’s habits for you!First things first, let's talk about the habit loop again. We said it's a simple three-step process. But there's a hidden fourth step that makes all the difference: cravings. Take Pepsodent, for example. Why did Pepsodent take off like...
The Golden Rule of Habit Change
Tony Dungy woke up one day to find out his son has died by suicide. A few days later, he returned to lead a professional football team to their first Super Bowl victory. What happened? How are the two related? We’ll reveal it all pretty soon, but right now we're getting ahead of ourselves. We promised you the Golden Rule, so let’s start with that. The rule says: keep the cue, keep the reward, but change the routine. Duhigg explains...
The Keystone Habits
So, keystone habits. Like Lisa’s smoking. If you're building a house, you wouldn't start with the roof, right? Unless you’re playing legos! So, you'd begin with the foundation. Keystone habits are the foundation - they're the habits that make all the other good habits possible. A habit that sets off a chain of other positive habits.Take Paul O'Neill, for example. When he became CEO of Alcoa, the aluminum giant, he didn't burst in, yelling, "Let's make more money!" Instead, he...
Where There Is A Will!
Willpower is that strength which makes drug addicts' children become millionaires, or high school dropouts manage multimillion-dollar businesses! It is THE hidden force behind all incredible turnarounds.Take Travis Leach, for instance. At nine years old, he watched his father overdose on heroin. By sixteen, he was a high school dropout who couldn't hold down a job at McDonald's. Fast forward a few years, and Travis is managing two Starbucks stores, overseeing 40 employees and $2 million in annual revenue. How's...
Leverage The Crises!
Surgeries are scary. A billion things can go wrong. It is a nightmare for most people. And unfortunately for an 86-year-old patient at Rhode Island Hospital, his surgery did actually become a nightmare!In 2007, a neurosurgeon at Rhode Island Hospital opened up the right side of an elderly patient's skull when the bleeding was actually on the left side. Oops doesn't even cover it, does it? This wasn't just a simple mix-up; it was a catastrophic failure of the hospital's...
Organizations Manipulate Habits
Why can't we resist buying that pack of Oreos every time we shop, huh? What’s the deal with that? We went in to get milk, and came out with a cart full of junk. HOWW?Let's understand this with a tale that's equal parts impressive and unsettling. Andrew Pole was a statistician at Target, tasked with a peculiar mission: predict which customers are pregnant, preferably before they've announced it to the world. Why? Because pregnancy is the Holy Grail of high...
Habits And Society
"I'm going to jail tonight!" That’s what Rosa Parks must have thought as she refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955. Little did she know that her simple act of defiance would ignite a social revolution that would change America forever. But how did one woman's arrest turn into a massive movement? And what does that have to do with the power of habits?Till now, we’ve been showing you how habits shape our...
Do our habitual actions happen involuntarily or does free-will have a role?
For this last lesson, we're about to dive into a crime thriller. Sorta. This is the tragic, and unfortunate, story of this guy called Brian: Brian strangled his wife while asleep, believing he was fighting off an intruder. Impossible? It wasn't. This actually happened. Eventually, he was acquitted because he did what he did under the influence of night terrors. Crazy story, to say the least! Now, let's unpack this a bit.Our brains are fascinating organs, capable of running on...
Chapter 12
Details coming soon.
Summary
You now have the tools to reshape your life, one habit at a time. Remember, change isn't always easy, but it's certainly possible. Whether you're aiming to boost productivity, improve health, or achieve personal goals, the power to change lies within you. Start small, be patient with yourself, and keep experimenting. The journey of self-improvement is ongoing, but now you have a roadmap to guide you. So take that first step today - your future self will thank you.
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About the Author
Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter and the author of The Power of Habit, which spent over three years on New York Times bestseller lists. His second book, Smarter Faster Better, was a bestseller.
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