Habit-Formation

The entire book centers on what habits are, how they form, and the impact that they have on our lives. People commonly tend to think of habits as something brief and minor, but in actuality habits are very nearly all-encompass. Habits, argues the author, are formed when a person undergoes the same routine many times. A person engages in a habit as a result of some end reward, and once this pattern of behavior establishes itself, it occurs almost automatically, and the doer has very little say in the matter, since conscious thought no longer plays a role. This does make habits difficult to change in that a person can easily become discouraged by deciding to change something through an act of willpower alone, then failing when the change does not come about. However, a careful examination of the habit soon reveals ways to change it, most importantly...