Habit

The Bible is the best-selling book of all time.[1]
Between 5 to 7 billion Bibles have been published.
A habit is a personal course of conduct that becomes difficult to change over time due its repetition and reliance as part of a daily or weekly routine.
A virtue is a good moral habit, while a vice is an evil or harmful one.
The room of the term habit is from the Latin habitus, meaing "having" or "condition" or "character".
Examples of influential habits in modern society include:
- church attendance
- Bible reading
- daily prayer
- exercise
- addictions
- daily reading of newspapers or other liberal sources of information
Contents
- 1 Percent of human behavior that is habitual
- 2 How to develop good habits
- 3 The science of habit formation
- 4 James Clear on good habit formation
- 5 Charles Duhigg on habits
- 6 Book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
- 7 Habit in Buddhism
- 8 Books
- 9 See also
- 10 External links
- 11 References
Percent of human behavior that is habitual
One paper published by a Duke University researcher in 2006 found that about 45 percent of the actions people performed each day weren’t the due to decision making, but were habits.[2][3]
How to develop good habits
See also: Goal setting and Motivation and Self-motivation
To develop good habits, "identify the habit you want to form, set clear goals, start small, create a routine, consistently repeat the behavior, find triggers to cue the habit, reward yourself for progress, and seek support from others to stay motivated; essentially, making the new habit as easy as possible and gradually building on it over time."[4]
Articles:
- Changing Habits, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- The science of forming good habits and how to build them
- What Does It Really Take to Build a New Habit?, Harvard Business Review
- 18 tips to making habits stick
- How to Build Good Habits (and Make Them Stick)
- Tiny Habits academy, website related to a bestselling book
Articles by author James Clear on habit formation (Author of the bestselling book Atomic habits):
- The Habits Guide: How to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones
- How To Start New Habits That Actually Stick by James Clear
Videos:
- How to develop good habits - video playlist, Video playlist
The science of habit formation
See also: Neuroplasticity and Neoroplasticity and the ability of individuals to change their personality and Motivation and Self-motivation and Goal setting and Planning and Conscientiousness
The "science of habit formation, primarily studied in psychology and neuroscience, explains how repeated actions in a consistent context become automatic behaviors triggered by environmental cues, essentially "wiring" the brain to perform these actions without conscious effort, with the key element being the association between a cue, the behavior itself, and a reward that reinforces the loop; this process is often referred to as the "habit loop" and primarily involves the brain's basal ganglia region."[5]
Articles:
- The Science of Habit, Healthline.com
- Science of Habits, University College London
- Creating Healthy Habits: There’s a Science to It, Abbot
- The Science of habit, Knowable Magazine
- The Science of Forming Healthy Habits & Letting Go of Bad Ones, According to Author James Clear
- A Stanford University psychologist’s elegant three-step method for creating new habits
- Cognitive psychology methods of developing a new habit based on empirical research
Videos:
Study: How long it takes to form a habit
James Clear, author of the book Atomic Habits wrote: "Phillippa Lally is a health psychology researcher at University College London. In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Lally and her research team decided to figure out just how long it actually takes to form a habit."[6]
- Cognitive psychology research: It takes 66 days for the average person to develop a new habit so it is automatic.
- Need to Form a New Habit? Give Yourself At Least 66 Days
- Scientists Say It Only Takes 66 Days To Change Your Life, If You're Strong Enough
- How Long Does It Take for a New Behavior to Become Automatic?
- How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world: ""The time it took participants to reach 95% of their asymptote of automaticity ranged from 18 to 254 days; indicating considerable variation in how long it takes people to reach their limit of automaticity and highlighting that it can take a very long time. Missing one opportunity to perform the behaviour did not materially affect the habit formation process." (How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world†, Phillippa Lally*, Cornelia H. M. van Jaarsveld, Henry W. W. Potts and Jane Wardle, European Journal of Social Psychology, Volume 40, Issue 6, pages 998–1009, October 2010).
Journal articles
- Habit Formation, Dialogues Clinical Neuroscience. 2016 Mar; 18(1): 33–43. doi: 10.31887/DCNS.2016.18.1/ksmith
James Clear on good habit formation

Obesity is positively associated with impulsiveness, lower self-discipline and neuroticism.[7]
See also: Atomic Habits by James Clear
James Clear is the author of the bestselling book Atomic Habits. The book is a bestselling book with over 15 million books sold worldwide.[8]
Videos by James Clear:
Book summaries of James Clear's book Atomic Habits
Below are summaries of James Clear's book Atomic Habits:
- Atomic Habits by James Clear by Samuel Thomas Davies
- Atomic Habits Book Summary: Key Takeaways & Review, Clickup.com
- Atomic Habits Summary, Four Minute Books website
Video summaries of James Clears book Atomic Habits:
- Video summaries of the book Atomic Habits by James Clear - video playlist
Charles Duhigg on habits
See also: The Power of Habit: What We Do in Life and Business
Charles Duhigg is author of the bestselling book The Power of Habit: What We Do in Life and Business. The book has sold over 3 million books.
Articles by Charles Duhigg on habits:
- Breaking the Habits that Enslave Us: Q&A with Charles Duhigg
- Breaking the habits that enslave us with Charles Duhigg, Plos blog (Science journal)
Videos by Charles Duhigg:
Book summaries of Charles Duhigg's book The Power of Habit: What We Do in Life and Business
Below are book summaries of Charles Duhigg's book The Power of Habit: What We Do in Life and Business:
- Book Summary – The Power of Habit: Why We Do What we Do in Life and Business, Reading Graphics website
- The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg – Summary and Notes by Thomas J. Frank
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg Summary by Calvin Rosser
- The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg : Book Summary by Dean Bokari
- The Power Of Habit Summary, Four Minutes Books
Video summaries:
- The Power of Habit - book summaries - video playlist
Book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
See also: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Stephen Covey (1932-2012) was the author of the best-selling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and other management and business titles.
Habit in Buddhism
Habit or Samskara in Sanskrit is the fourth of the Five aggregates in Buddhist philosophy of mind.
Books
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear. Avery; First Edition (October 16, 2018)
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. Random House Trade Paperbacks (January 7, 2014)
- 75 Strong: The 75 Day Challenge to Building a Stronger You Through Empowering Habits by Carlos Gride. Independently published (October 22, 2021)
See also
External links
Articles:
- Habits vs. Goals: A Look at the Benefits of a Systematic Approach to Life
- Why I'm learning to grow in habitual living
- What is a Habit? (Definition and Types of Habits)
- The Ultimate List of Habits—185 Good Habits & Bad Ones—Sorted By Category
- 12 Habits of Super-Healthy People, WebMD
Videos:
References
- ↑ The Bible is the best selling book of all time, Guinness Book of Word Record
- ↑ The power of habits — and the power to change them by Dan Pink
- ↑ Habits—A Repeat Performance, Duke University
- ↑ How do you develop good habits?
- ↑ What is the science of habit formation?
- ↑ Cognitive psychology research: It takes 66 days for the average person to develop a new habit so it is automatic
- ↑
- Personality traits and eating behavior in the obese: poor self-control in emotional and external eating but personality assets in restrained eating
- Eating styles, self-control and obesity indicators. The moderating role of obesity status and dieting history on restrained eating
- Wellspring Camps - Obesity research
- ↑ An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear]