When people have a willpower failure, it's because they haven't anticipated a situation that's going to come along.

Cravings are what drive habits. And figuring out how to spark a craving makes creating a new habit easier.

Willpower isn’t just a skill. It’s a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there’s less power left over for other things.

What we know from lab studies is that it's never too late to break a habit. Habits are malleable throughout your entire life. But we also know that the best way to change a habit is to understand its structure - that once you tell people about the cue and the reward and you force them to recognize what those factors are in a behavior, it becomes much, much easier to change.

Research suggests that investment bankers are more prone to commit fraud when they feel the competitor at their heels.

Then one day, we’ll put the reward in the old place, and put in the rat, and, by golloy, the old habit will rememerge right away. habits never really disappear. They’re encoded into the sturctures of our brain, and that’s a huge advantage for us, because it would be awful if we had to relearn how to drive after every vacation. The problem is that your brain can’t tell the difference between bad and good habits, and so if you have a bad one, it’s always lurking there, waiting for the right cues and rewards.

The best agencies understood the importance of routines. The worst agencies were headed by people who never thought about it, and then wondered why no one followed their orders.