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• Habit: A settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.  Oxford Dictionary
• Habit: Something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it.  Cambridge Dictionary
• Habit: An acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.  Dictionary.com
• Habit: A settled tendency or usual manner of behaviour.  Merriam Webster
• Ritual and routine,  Tradition

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Our habits determine almost everything we achieve or fail to achieve in life…

• In truth, the only difference between those who have failed and those who have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits. Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure. Thus, the first law I will obey, which precedes all others, is – “I will form good habits and become their slaves.”  Og Mandino
• Good habits are hard to develop but easy to live with; bad habits are easy to develop but hard to live with. The habits you have and the habits that have you will determine almost everything you achieve or fail to achieve. Brian Tracy
• The one common denominator of all successful people is a routine built on good habits. The most successful people in any field—the most successful athletes, lawyers, politicians, physicians, business leaders, musicians, and sales people, those who are the best at what they do have one thing in common: good habits. Jack D. Hodge
• The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him—and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires. J. Paul Getty
• Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. Jim Rohn
• Motivation gets you going and habit gets you there. Make motivation a habit and you will get thee more quickly and have more fun on the trip. Zig Ziglar
• Both success and failure are largely the results of habit. Napoleon Hill
• You are defined by your habits – choose well.  Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• Success,  Achievement

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…for it is what we do day in day out that makes all the difference

• It’s not what you do once in a while, it’s what you do, day in and day out, that makes the difference. Jenny Craig
• Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practised every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure. Jim Rohn
• Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit. You are what you repeatedly do. Shaquille ONeal
• We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle

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By changing our habits, we change our lives…

• Have you ever fully realized that life is, after all, merely a series of habits, and that it lies entirely within one’s own power to determine just what that series shall be? Ralph W. Trine
• In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently. Tony Robbins
• To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits. Henri Frederic Amiel
• Whatever your present situation, I assure you that you are not your habits. You can replace old patterns of self- defeating behavior with new patterns, new habits of the effectiveness, happiness and trust-based relationships. Stephen Covey
• Power includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones. Stephen Covey
• All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits. William James

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…and shape our futures

• Sow an act…reap a habit; Sow a habit…reap a character; Sow a character…reap a destiny. George Dana Boardman
• Thoughts lead on to purpose, purpose leads on to actions, actions form habits, habits decide character, and character fixes our destiny. Tryon Edwards
• Out of our beliefs are born deeds; out of our deeds we form habits; out of our habits grows our character; and on our character we build our destiny. Henry Hancock
• If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny. Andre Maurois
• Plant a thought, reap an act. Plant an act, reap a habit. Plant a habit, reap a character. Plant a character, reap a destiny. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny. Mahatma Gandhi
• Just do it! First you make your habits, then your habits make you! Lucas Remmerswaal

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Habits build our character…

• Habits change into character. Ovid
• Character is long-standing habit. Plutarch
• Character is simply habit long continued. Plutarch
• Character is a habit, the daily choice of right over wrong.  Charles Wilson
• Sow a habit and you reap a character. James Allen
• Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character. Stephen Covey
• Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that carry them far apart. Confucius
• Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones. Benjamin Franklin
• Character

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…for we become what we repeatedly do

• We write our own destiny. We become what we do. Madame Chiang Kai- Shek
• We become what we repeatedly do. Sean Covey
• Habit, my friend, is practice long pursued, that at last becomes man himself.  Evenus
• We first make our habits, and then our habits make us. John Dryden
• Excellence,  Practice

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Creating habits builds self-discipline and self-control…

• People with good self-control mainly use it not for rescue in emergencies but rather to develop effective habits and routines in school and at work. Roy Baumeister
• The power of will is the supreme court over all other departments of my mind. I will exercise it daily when I need the urge to action for any purpose, and I will form habits designed to bring the power of my will into action at least once daily. Bruce Lee
• Self-discipline,  Self-control

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…which helps us do necessary things even when we don’t feel like it

• Successful people have the habit of doing things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either, necessarily, but their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose. Albert E Gray
• The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn’t like to do. Thomas Edison
• Winners make a habit of doing the things losers don’t want to do. Lucas Remmerswaal
• The mature human being goes about doing what needs to be done regardless of whether that person feels great or terrible. Knowing that you are the kind of person with that kind of self- control brings all the satisfaction and confidence you will ever need. David Reynolds
• Rely on your habits, not your feelings. Robert Leahy, Ph.D.

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Create habits for happiness

• One begins identifying those factors which lead to happiness and those factors which lead to suffering. Having done this, one then sets about gradually eliminating those factors which lead to suffering and cultivating those which lead to happiness. That is the way.  The Dalai Lama
• Let’s stop pursuing happiness and start practicing it. We do that by practicing new habits. People with high happiness set- points are human just like the rest of us. They don’t have special powers, an extra heart, or X-   ray vision. They just have different habits. Marci Shimoff
• Our self-image and our habits tend to go together. Change one and you will automatically change the other. When we consciously and deliberately develop new and better habits, our self-image tends to outgrow the old habits and grow into the new pattern. Maxwell Maltz
• Happiness is a habit – cultivate it. Elbert Hubbard
• We get more happiness with less effort if we carefully select a few excellent habits we’d like to have and master these. Richard Koch
• A few habits can have a phenomenal effect on our happiness throughout life — we get a massive bonanza from a little upfront effort. Richard Koch
• Happiness

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Create habits for success

• Your success in life and work will be determined by the kinds of habits that you develop over time. The habit of setting priorities, overcoming procrastination, and getting on with your most important task is a mental and physical skill. As such, this habit is learnable through practice and repetition, over and over again, until it locks into your subconscious mind and becomes a permanent part of your behaviour. Brian Tracy
• Successful people are simply those with success habits. Brian Tracy
• Success

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Acquire new habits of thought

• Attitudes are nothing more than habits of thoughts, and habits can be acquired. An action repeated becomes an attitude realized. Paul Myer
• As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. Henry David Thoreau
• Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Marcus Aurelius
• Thinking,  Explore new ideas and perspectives

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Start by identifying those habits that will rub off positively on other areas of your life

• The habits that matter most are the ones that, when they start to shift, dislodge and remake other patterns. What’s the number thing you could change that would have the most positive impact on your life? Charles Duhigg
• When people start habitually exercising, even as infrequently as once a week, they start changing other, unrelated patterns in their lives, often unknowingly. Typically, people who exercise start eating better and becoming more productive at work. They smoke less and show more patience with colleagues and family. They use their credit cards less frequently and say they feel less stressed. It’s not completely clear why. But for many people, exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change. “Exercise spills over,” said James Prochaska, a University of Rhode Island researcher. “There’s something about it that makes other good habits easier.” Charles Duhigg
• Keystone habits create a chain reaction that can significantly influence the success of other habits. Keystone habits create small wins. So to identify the keystone habits in your life, look for those patterns that give you numerous, small senses of victory; places where momentum can start to build.  Charles Duhigg
• A huge body of research has shown that small wins have enormous power, an influence disproportionate to the accomplishments of the victories themselves. Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach. Charles Duhigg
• Keystone habits are powerful because they change our sense of self and our sense of what is possible. Charles Duhigg

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Make your daily fundamentals an ingrained habit

• What you’ll find among all masters is a passionate consistency on their fundamentals. They show up day in and day out and do the things that are most important to making them exceptional in their field. My current fundamentals? I meditate every day. I exercise every day. I study and reflect every day. I appreciate my life every day. I strive to give joy and enjoy every day. What are yours? Brian Johnson
• If we focus on managing the activities, the results will take care of themselves. That’s one of the reasons I’m such a big fan of what I call “blissiplines” — the fundamental habits that we need to engage in to operate at our highest capacity most consistently. For me, blissiplines include meditation, exercise, nutrition and gratitude. Brian Johnson
• Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day. Jim Rohn
• Success is all about consistency around the fundamentals. Robin Sharma

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Always beware of negative habits creeping in…

• Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to waste and destroy. Henri de Lubac
• It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them. Benjamin Franklin
• A habit is something you can do without thinking – which is why most of us have so many of them. Frank A. Clark
• Incredibly, many people continue their old life-style, their habits even if they feel miserable, lonely, bored, inadequate, or abused. Why? Of course… because habit is an easy place to hide. Tom Rusk
• Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters. Nathaniel Emmons
• Cultivate only the habits that you are willing should master you. Elbert Hubbard
• A single bad habit will mar an otherwise faultless character, as an ink- drop soileth the pure white page. Hosea Ballou
• First we form habits, then they form us. Conquer your bad habits or they will conquer you. Rob Gilbert

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…for once set, bad habits are hard to get rid of

• Old habits are strong and jealous. Dorthea Brande
• Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. Warren Buffett
• Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of.
• The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones. Somerset Maugham
• The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned. Seneca

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1.  Make a conscious, determined decision to create or change a habit

• To modify a habit, you must decide to change it. You must consciously accept the hard work of identifying the cues and rewards that drive the habits’ routines and find alternatives. You must know you have control and be self- conscious enough to use it. Charles Duhigg
• The only habits you never conquer are the ones you put off doing something about. Wess Roberts
• You leave old habits behind by starting out with the thought, I release the need for this in my life. Wayne Dyer
• Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do). Stephen Covey
• To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behavior. Maxwell Maltz
• Choice,  Live consciously

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2.  Create habits through repeated practice

• Habits are formed by the repetition of particular acts. They are strengthened by an increase in the number of repeated acts. Habits are also weakened or broken, and contrary habits are formed by the repetition of contrary acts. Mortimer Jerome Adler
• The more deeply the path is etched, the more it is used, and the more it is used, the more deeply it etched. Jo Coudert
• Remember that you become what you practice most. Repeated practice is the most basic principle of most spiritual and meditative paths. Where is your attention? How do you spend your time? Are you cultivating habits that are helpful to your goals? Richard Carlson
• The wisest habit of all is the habit of care in the formation of good habits. Samuel Smiles
• Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time. Mark Twain
• The hard must become habit. The habit must become easy.  The easy must become beautiful.  Doug Henning
• The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contact. Socrates
• Practice

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…for through repetition, habits become strong

• A habit is first a wanderer, then a guest, and finally the boss. Hungarian Proverb
• Good habits, once established are just as hard to break as bad habits and bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow. Lucas Remmerswaal
• The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. Samuel Johnson
• Habits are cobwebs at first; cables at last. Chinese Proverb
• Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it. Horace Mann

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3.  Use leverages and rewards

• The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you. Tony Robbins
• Sense the huge benefits in changing your behaviour. Imagine the price (pain) you’ll pay for not changing. Tony Robbins
• Give yourself rewards for achievements. The best bribes are ones that expire. Stever Robbins
• The pain of discipline is far less than the pain of regret. Sarah Bombell

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4.  Be prepared to exercise your will power and self-control

• To change, you must face the dragon of your appetites with another dragon: the life- energy of the soul. Rumi
• Good habits result from resisting temptation. Proverb
• If you want more self-control, you can get more. And you get more self- control the same way you get bigger muscles—you’ve got to give it regular workouts. Heidi Grant
• German philosopher Goethe once wrote, ‘Everything is hard before it is easy.’ You may need to exert tremendous discipline to develop new habits of thought and behavior. But once you have them firmly locked in, they enable you to accomplish vastly more, with less. Brian Tracy
• Will power,  Self-control

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5.  Use the 100% commitment rule

• 99% is a bitch. 100% is a breeze. Jack Canfield
• If you only have a 99% commitment you might respond with: “Hmmm… You know, you’re right. We do deserve a day off. One day won’t hurt. And, wham. You’re screwed. Habit installation thwarted. Ten days later you wonder what happened to your meditation practice. The solution? We’ve got to identify what’s really important in our lives. Then pick one thing we’re absolutely, 100% committed to doing and make our commitment non- negotiable. Brian Johnson
• Successful people adhere to the ‘no exceptions rule’ when it comes to their daily disciplines. Once you make a 100% commitment to something, there are no exceptions. It’s a done deal. Nonnegotiable. Case closed! Over and out. Jack Canfield
• Commitments are things you keep no matter what happens to make them difficult to keep. Commitments are powerful. So be very selective when using them. Steve Chandler
• Commitment

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6.  Replace old habits with new habits

• It takes a habit to replace a habit. Napoleon Hill
• Imagine taking one old, non-supportive habit each month and substituting a new, life- supportive habit. What would your life be like in twelve months? It would be unrecognizable! Brad Swift
• Purposefully choosing new habits to replace old habits will greatly increase your chances of changing bad habits. Jack D. Hodge
• A habit cannot be eradicated—it must, instead, be replaced. Charles Duhigg
• The evidence is clear: If you want to change a habit, you must find an alternative routine. Charles Duhigg
• A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit. Desiderius Erasmus
• Let go of your old tired habits and plant new habits in fertile soil. Harley King
• Every habit, no matter its complexity, is malleable. Charles Duhigg
• All philosophy in two words, – sustain and abstain. Epictetus
• You leave old habits behind by starting out with the thought, I release the need for this in my life. Wayne Dyer
• He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further and try to plant a virtue in its place. Charles Caleb Colton

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7.  Publicly tell others about the habit you intend to form

• Post your goal publicly. Tell as many people as possible that you are trying to form your new habit. Leo Babauta
• Tell others of your commitments, since they’ll help hold you accountable. Steve Pavlina
• Not surprisingly, commitment is especially potent when made in front of other people. A University of Scranton study found that people who made public New Year’s resolutions were a remarkable ten times more likely to succeed at their goal.  Sonja Lyubomirsky

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8.  Start simple and focus on one new habit at a time

• Focus on one habit at a time, one month at a time, so that you’ll be able to focus all your energy on creating that one habit. Leo Babauta
• Identify a new habit you’d like to form and commit to sticking with it for just 30 days. A temporary commitment is much easier to keep than a permanent one. Steve Pavlina
• If you want a habit to stick, start so incredibly simply that you can’t fail. Leo Babauta
• By starting small, you keep your focus narrowed, and therefore increase your power. Leo Babauta
• Changing habits requires the power of focus. Focusing our conscious effort on changing one habit at a time gives us incredible power to reprogram our subconscious. Attempting to change more than one habit diffuses our efforts and drastically decreases our abilities to change our habits. Jack D. Hodge
• For most of us, though, the problem is not a lack of goals but rather too many of them. Roy Baumeister & John Tierney

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9.  Realise it takes time and patience to create a new habit

• This initial period of change may last from one to six weeks, or even longer. Unless the desire to change remains strong, body and mind tend to return to old, familiar patterns. It takes time—from three to six months—for old habits to become obsolete. By the end of that time, you’ll have adapted to a new pattern. In a sense, you’ll have found a new way of life. Dan Millman
• You can’t do everything at once. But if you keep adding a little progress every day, over time you will have built a whole new set of habits and self-disciplines. Remember, anything valuable takes time. There are no overnight successes. Jack Canfield

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10.  Make positive behaviours convenient and negative ones inconvenient

• Make any positive behavior as convenient as possible. Right after dinner I floss and brush. I’m far less likely to snack, because if I eat something, I have to floss and brush all over again. Make any negative behavior as inconvenient as possible. To smoke less, keep only one pack of cigarettes at home, in a small locked safe under some luggage in the closet in the garage. Dan Millman

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• Behavioral psychology is the science of pulling habits out of rats. Douglas Busch
• Cocaine isn’t habit forming. I should know, I’ve been taking it for years. Tallulah Bankhead
• Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off. Terry Pratchett
• Hell hath no fury like a habitual liar disbelieved when telling the truth.   Tiptree
• I change girlfriends every seven years; a habit I picked up from broken mirrors. C. Fields
• I never comment on referees and I’m not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat. Ron Atkinson
• I never drink water; I’m afraid it will become habit-forming. C. Fields
• I was going to quit all my bad habits for the new year, but then I remembered that nobody likes a quitter.
• I’ll give up my bad habits as soon as equally satisfying good habits become available. Ashleigh Brilliant
• Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. Jules Renard
• Marriage is a triumph of habit over hate. Oscar Levant
• My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income. Errol Flynn
• Nothing needs reforming so much as other people’s habits. Mark Twain
• Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. Mark Twain
• Nun: A creature of habit.
• She was a brunette by birth but a blonde by habit. Arthur Bugs’ Baer
• Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive. George Bernard Shaw
• The only way to stop smoking is to just stop – no ifs, ands or butts. Edith Zittler
• The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones. Somerset Maugham
• There is nothing so habit-forming as money. Don Marquis
• To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know because I’ve done it a thousand times. Mark Twain
• Why does a woman work ten years to change a man’s habits and then complain that he’s not the man she married? Barbra Streisand
• Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings. Evan Esar

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