Why successful people set habits, not just goals | Wendy Wood

This interview is an episode from The Well, our new publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.

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Many of our behaviors may not be goal-oriented. Instead, they are based on habit.

For example, what motivates someone to go running at 5 am: a goal, willpower, or habit? It's probably a mixture of all three, but habit is the most important.

If you want to change your behavior, you must change your habits.

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/automatic-habits/

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About Wendy Wood:
Wendy Wood is a social psychologist whose research addresses the ways that habits guide behavior - and why they are so difficult to break - as well as evolutionary accounts of gender differences in behavior. Professor Wood has been Associate Editor of Psychological Review, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Review, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and a founding member of the Society for Research Synthesis. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, and Rockefeller Foundation. Prior to joining USC, Professor Wood was James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Professor of Marketing at Duke University.

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