The Power of Habit in English

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have been undeservedly lucky throughout my life to work with people

who are more talented than I am, and to get to steal their wisdom and

gracefulness and pass it off as my own.

APPENDIX

A Reader’s Guide to Using These Ideas

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. If scientists have

discovered how these patterns work, then it stands to reason that they

must have also found a recipe for rapid change, right?

AFTERWORD

Some Things Learned About Weight Loss, Smoking, Procrastination,

and Teaching

A few months after The Power of Habit was published, I was at my

desk at The New York Times when an email appeared in my in-box.

THE NEUROLOGY OF FREE WILL

Are We Responsible for Our Habits?

I.

The morning the trouble began—years before she realized there was

even trouble in the first place—Angie Bachmann was sitting at home,

staring at the television, so bored that she was giving serious thought

to reorganizing the silverware drawer.

SADDLEBACK CHURCH AND THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT

How Movements Happen

I.

The 6 P.M. Cleveland Avenue bus pulled to the curb and the petite

forty-two-year-old African American woman in rimless glasses and a

conservative brown jacket climbed on board, reached into her purse, and dropped a ten-cent fare into the till.

HOW TARGET KNOWS WHAT YOU WANT BEFORE YOU DO

When Companies Predict (and Manipulate) Habits

I.

Andrew Pole had just started working as a data expert for Target when

a few colleagues from the marketing department stopped by his desk

one day and asked the kind of question Pole had been born to answer:

“Can your computers figure out which customers are pregnant, even

if they don’t want us to know?”

THE POWER OF A CRISIS

How Leaders Create Habits Through Accident and Design

I.

The patient was already unconscious when he was wheeled into the

operating room at Rhode Island Hospital.

STARBUCKS AND THE HABIT OF SUCCESS

When Willpower Becomes Automatic

I.

The first time Travis Leach saw his father overdose, he was nine years

old.

KEYSTONE HABITS, OR THE BALLAD OF PAUL O’NEILL

Which Habits Matter Most

I.

On a blustery October day in 1987, a herd of prominent Wall Street

investors and stock analysts gathered in the ballroom of a posh

Manhattan hotel.

THE GOLDEN RULE OF HABIT CHANGE

Why Transformation Occurs

I.

The game clock at the far end of the field says there are eight minutes

and nineteen seconds left when Tony Dungy, the new head coach of

the Tampa Bay Buccaneers—one of the worst teams in the National

Football League, not to mention the history of professional football—

starts to feel a tiny glimmer of hope.