Quotes About Habit

Besides clarity of values, another kind of clarity supports habit formation: clarity of action.

Same person, same activity, different habit.

Keeping a good habit costs us: it may cost time, energy, and money, and it may mean forgoing pleasures and opportunities—but not keeping a good habit also has its cost. So which cost do we want to pay?

The first and most important habits question is: "How does a person respond to an expectation?" When we try to form a new habit, we set an expectation for ourselves. Therefore, it's crucial to understand how we respond to expectations.

that the real key to habits is decision making—or, more accurately, the lack of decision making. A habit requires no decision from me, because I've already decided.

Studies suggest that we repeat about 40 percent of our behavior almost daily. So if we change our habits, we change our lives.

For this reason, we should pay close attention to the convenience of any activity we want to make into a habit.

Andy Warhol wrote, "Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it's exciting, and if you do it every day it's exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it's not good any more.

I concluded that the real key to habits is decision making—or, more accurately, the lack of decision making. …A habit requires no decision from me, because I've already decided. …This freedom from decision making is crucial, because when I have to decide—which often involves resisting temptation or postponing gratification—I tax my self-control.

When scheduling a new habit, it helps to tie it to an existing habit, such as "after breakfast," or to an external cue, such as "when my alarm rings

This was exactly what I had noticed about the "stopping" aspect of First Steps. When we try a new habit for the first time, it feels full of promise, even if it's arduous. But most of that excitement is gone the second time, and the habit's drawbacks are more apparent. Plus, there's the discouraging feeling of having lost ground, of going backwards.

The second reason rewards pose a danger for habits is that they require a decision. A habit, by my definition, is something we do without decision making.

In The First 20 Minutes, Gretchen Reynolds notes, "I stand on one foot when I brush my teeth at night.

By finding my reward within the habit itself, with a reward that takes me deeper into the habit. If I look outside a habit for a reward, I undermine the habit. If I look within the habit for the reward, I strengthen the habit.

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while

The reward for a good habit is the habit itself.

Besides clarity of values, another kind of clarity supports habit formation: clarity of action. The more specific I am about what action to take, the more likely I am to form a habit. A habit to "be more mindful," for instance, is too vague to be a habit, but "have a moment of gratitude every time I walk into my apartment building" or "take a photo of something interesting every day" are concrete actions that can become habits.

The fact is, changing a habit is much more challenging if that new habit means altering or losing an aspect of ourselves.

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.        You

When we change our habits, we change our lives. We can use decision making to choose the habits we want to form, we can 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. We take our hands off the wheel of decision, our foot off the gas of willpower, and rely on the cruise control of habits. That's the promise of habit.

When possible, the brain makes a behavior into a habit, which saves effort and therefore gives us more capacity to deal with complex, novel, or urgent matters.

What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.

Habit makes it dangerously easy to become numb to our own existence.

His eagerness had turned into a routine; he embraced her at the same time every day. It was a habit like any other, a favourite pudding after the monotony of dinner.