Good Habits, Bad Habits
How to Make Positive Changes That Stick
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'The world's leading expert on habits' – Matthew Syed, The Sunday Times
‘Wendy Wood is the world’s foremost expert in the field, and this book is essential’ – Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit.
What if you could harness the extraordinary power of your unconscious mind, which already determines so much of what you do, to achieve your goals?
Shockingly, we spend nearly half our day repeating things we've done in the past without thinking about them. How we respond to the people around us; the way we conduct ourselves in meetings; what we buy; when and how we exercise, eat and drink – a truly remarkable number of things we do every day, we do by habit.
And yet, whenever we want to change something about ourselves, we rely on willpower alone. We hope that our determination and intention will be enough to effect positive change. And that is why almost all of us fail.
Professor Wendy Wood is the world's foremost expert on habits. By drawing on three decades of original research, she explains the fascinating science of how we form habits and provides the key to unlocking our habitual mind in order to make the changes we seek.
Combining a potent mix of neuroscience, case studies and experiments conducted in her lab, Good Habits, Bad Habits is a comprehensive, accessible and highly practical book that will change the way you think about almost every aspect of your life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her enlightening debut, Wood, professor of psychology at USC, rejects the popular narrative that links willpower to lasting behavioral change, and instead proposes that most human conduct stems from learned habits, not conscious decision-making. Wood contends that the way to create new behavioral patterns that will eventually become second nature is to engage in habitual, repetitive action. Wood acknowledges research that shows that some people might possess innate powers of self-control that defy the norm, but she argues that these supposedly high levels of self-control should really be understood as efficient habit formation. She eloquently explains current research on the role habits play in everyday activities such as snacking, exercising, and commuting. She also offers strategies for stopping undesirable habits by disrupting the contexts that enable them, and shares real-life examples of habit change. For instance, she demonstrates how laws banning smoking in public spaces forced a widespread change of habits and led to a national decline in smoking. Her insightful, data-driven advice includes tactics such as "stacking" grouping desired behaviors together with already-established behavioral patterns to incorporate actions into routines. Wood's research and perspective on the malleability of habits will bring hope to any reader looking to create long-term behavioral change.
