The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

We may convince ourselves that we are decisive beings, making choices and reasoning our way through problems. Duke University researchers found that 40 percent of our daily activities are habits. Psychologist William James put it more starkly: “All of life, so far as its definite form, is but a mass of habits.” These are just a couple of the sources Charles Duhigg draws from in The Power of Habit.

Habit formation is built into the structure of our brain, as Duhigg describes in the early chapters of the book. It is a matter of efficiency. Thinking and deciding are demanding mental tasks. The brain gains efficiency through automation, chunking together even complex activities into routines we can perform with very little mental effort or attention.

The difficulty with this biological economy is that we form many habits without consciously choosing. Some of those habits may have negative consequences. This is the central point of the book. Habits can make or break us, so it is important to understand habits, how they are formed, and how they can be changed.

There is good news and bad news about habits. The bad news is that the encoding of habits in the brain seems to be permanent. The good news is that they can be overwritten with new, more powerful habits.

Duhigg breaks habits down into parts. A cue triggers the habit. We perform routine. Finally, that routine produces or acquires a reward. Eventually, we conflate the cue a reward, having a strong anticipation of the reward that creates a craving. This craving gives the habit its power. Changing habits involves inserting a new routine between the cue and reward that satisfies the craving (and hopefully producing a more positive result than the bad habit you’re hoping to change).

Changing a habit is difficult. Some habits can only change with much time, effort, and support. There is not one-size-fits-all approach to changing habits, but Duhigg presents a general framework.

·         -First, identify the routine you want to change.

·         -Next, experiment with rewards. By substituting different rewards, and tracking how you feel about it, you can isolate what you are really craving.

·         -Isolate the cue to see what is triggering the habit. Duhigg offers a simple handful of questions that can narrow down your search. Figure out what is happening just before you feel the craving.

·         -Finally, develop plan to implement a new routine that satisfies the craving. It will also be good to plan how you are going to handle the inevitable setbacks you’ll experience as you change your habits.

I was surprised by the moral stand on habits Duhigg took in the latter chapters of the book. He argues that if you know you have a habit that is dangerous or destructive, you have an obligation to do something about it. Fortunately, awareness of a habit puts you on the path to being able to do something about it. Unfortunately, that may be a rocky, uncomfortable, and difficult path.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Changing for Good by James O. Prochaska, John C. Norcross & Carlo C. DiClemente

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

No Excuses by Brian Tracy

Small Move, Big Change by Caroline L. Arnold

Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business. New York: Random House, 2012.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Though we might like to imagine ourselves exercising a lot of conscious control over our lives, a lot—perhaps half—of what we do in a day is habitual. Our habits can make us or break us. Fortunately, we can change our habits.

 Of course learning new habits is not always easy, especially when it comes to breaking old habits. We’ve learned a lot about how we how our brains work in forming habits that can help. James Clear organizes this into a system in Atomic Habits.

 Before he gets started, though, Clear makes an interesting point. Our identities can be wrapped up in our habits. It can be hard to stop a behavior we identify with. It can be hard to start something new and stick with it if we think of it as out of character for ourselves. If we want to be different, we have to believe we can be different and picture ourselves that way.

 Clear lays out four laws for creating habits that are easy to adopt. The inverse of these laws can make a behavior more difficult and help us break bad habits.

 Effective habits are obvious (in your face cues about what to do), attractive, easy and they provide immediate rewards. The more of these characteristics you can bring to your new habit the better. Set up your environment and daily routines to bring the behavior you want into your awareness. Find ways to link it to other things you want. Remove obstacles and concentrate on small, doable changes.  Find a way to get something  out of performing now (consistent with you goal) to carry you until the more long-term payoffs of the behavior kick in.

 The inverse of these work to weaken bad habits. Put reminder and triggers of old behaviors out of sight. Find ways to make it distasteful and unappealing. Put barriers in the way of performing the old habit---make it harder. Creates disincentive and make it costly.

 Clear provides several examples from his own life and from others. The book is peppered with references to his web site where he provides additional examples, forms and worksheets.

 I previously wrote about this book here.

 If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Changing for Good by James O. Prochaska, John C. Norcross & Carlo C. DiClemente

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Get Smart! by Brian Tracy

How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Small Move, Big Change by Caroline L. Arnold

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

This Year I Will... by M. J. Ryan

 Clear, James. Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Habits. New York: Avery, 2018.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Habits have a profound impact on our lives. They are behaviors we repeat, sometimes automatically, and by repetition, their effects accumulate. It would be great if our habits supported us in being the people we want to be, and if they did not reinforce things we would like to change. James Clear describes how habits work and a system for getting them to work for you in Atomic Habits.

Before working on habits, you need to work on beliefs. Beliefs always win out, and your habits are, to a degree, a manifestation of your beliefs. Fortunately, working on habits can support new beliefs about yourself. You can set up small wins that support your belief in your new identity.

You can also give yourself a break by taking the focus off goals, which can seem overwhelming. Instead, focus on systems. Focus on the things you do, especially the things you do repeatedly, that move you toward being who you want to be. Instead of noticing the gap between where you are and a goal, you can encourage yourself by noticing the progress you make.

Clear describes the process of habit formation. It starts with a cue, which triggers the brain to start a behavior in anticipation of a reward. We experience a craving, a motivation or desire for the reward. As a response, we perform the habitual behavior. Finally, we get a reward that satisfies the craving. Unfortunately, that reward may not satisfy us in helpful ways. We can take advantage of this system to reinforce new behavior patterns and interrupt old patterns.

We can take advantage of the cue by making them more obvious (to trigger wanted behavior) or making them invisible (to prevent the triggering of bad habits). We can rig the craving by making the potential reward more or less attractive. We can make it easier or more difficult to perform a habitual behavior. We can also make the reward more or less satisfying. To superpower these strategies, we can stack them.

In his book, Clear provides several ways to implement these strategies for making and breaking habits. As you develop and implement your habit change strategy, Clear encourages you to seek sweet spot. It will be challenging, and that sense of challenge can be a great motivator, but if you take on to much at once or too large a change, you are likely to experience a failure that can be disheartening. Little wins are great rewards, especially when the feel earned, so seek changes that you can realistically achieve, but that you’ll need to stretch to reach.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Changing for Good by James O. Prochaska, John C. Norcross & Carlo C. DiClemente

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Get Smart! by Brian Tracy

How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Small Move, Big Change by Caroline L. Arnold

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

This Year I Will... by M. J. Ryan

Clear, James. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones. New York: Avery, 2018.

Get Smart! by Brian Tracy

Results matter. According to Brian Tracy, results batter most; if you’re getting bad results it doesn’t matter much what your intentions were. If you want to change your results, you need to change your behavior. Changes in behavior start with changes in thinking. In Get Smart!, Tracy outlines the thinking habits and practices of successful people.

In general successful people have these thinking habits:

-they take a long-term view,

-they make time to think without distractions,

-they gather information and learn constantly,

-they have written goals,

-they focus on results,

-they stay positive,

-they are flexible and willing to stop activities that are no longer working,

-they are creative,

-the focus on what their customers really want, and

-they emulate the habits of other successful people.

Of course, Tracy elaborates on each of these items with additional details and suggestions.

Successful people also have habits that cut across many thinking practices. For instance, they take action; a great thought deserves to be put to use. The put most of their time and effort into the most valuable things they can do and try to eliminate activities that have low value. They take responsibility for themselves. They practice thinking and acting in ways that contribute to their success until it becomes a habit.

You can find these ideas in other places. However, Get Smart! has an advantage in that it is short an written in a style that is very easy to read. If you want thicker tomes to read, Tracy mentions several in the chapters of his book. If you want something you can read, digest, and put to use quickly, this is a good place to start.

Brian Tracy also wrote No Excuses.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Tracy, Brian. Get Smart! How to Think and Act Like the Most Successful and Highest-Paid People in Every Field. New York: Tarcher, 2016.

Small Move, Big Change by Caroline L. Arnold

In Small Move, Big Change, Caroline L. Arnold addresses those who have made big resolutions and failed to keep them. That is a large audience.

Without getting into depth about the first chapter, the reason we fail in our resolutions is habit. When we want to change behavior, we come against the resistance of all our already ingrained behaviors. The larger the change we try to make, the larger is the resistance we experience.

Arnold’s solution is what she calls microresolutions. This is exactly what it sounds like, a commitment to a very small change. It is very important that a microresolution be easy. It should be so small, simple, and easy that you’ll do it in spite of your old habits. Do it consistently, and in a short while it will be a new habit.

There are seven rules to making a good microresolution. The first is already mentioned: make it easy. It should be specific and measurable (you’ve probably seen this before if you’ve read other books about goal-setting). The new behavior should have intrinsic value that provides immediate rewards (for most of us a small reward now is more motivating than the big reward down the road). It should be personalized to the user. It should be liked to a cue. It should resonate with the user (and generally be stated in positive terms). Finally, only take on two microresolutions at a time; you don’t want to exhaust your willpower.

I especially like the suggestion to link the new behavior to a cue. In reviewing my successes in making a change, I’ve often tied the new thing I wanted to do to a trigger. Many of our habitual behaviors are triggered by cues. These cues could be the calendar, the clock, a feeling, a sensory experience, a word, or another behavior. Our cues sometimes aren’t even logically connected to the behaviors they trigger. This is a powerful takeaway for me. In my future goal-setting, I’ll intentionally think of cues that might make a good trigger for the new behavior I want to implement. Using cues allows one to piggyback new habits onto old ones.

All of Arnolds rules are intended to do the same thing: take advantage of the way we form habits. Instead of unconsciously developing habits that may or may not help us, we can intentionally form habits that, bit by bit, move us I the direction we want to go.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

This Year I Will... by M. J. Ryan

Arnold, Caroline L. Small Move, Big Change: Using Microresolutions to Transform Your Life Permanently. New York: Viking, 2014.

No Excuses by Brian Tracy

In his book No Excuses!, self-help, business and sales author Brian Tracy says that there are several strategies that can lead to success. Self-discipline makes them all work.

For Tracy, self-discipline is the same as self-control, self-denial, delayed gratification and self-mastery. As you might guess from this description, he relates discipline to character. One of the important aspects of exercising discipline, even more than what you achieve by it, is who you become by it. Self-discipline leads to greater character, courage and persistence.

Self-discipline is also important to having a great personal life. Our relationships with spouses, children and friends, our physical fitness, and even our happiness and internal peace can be improved by discipline.

Of course, as you would expect from Tracy, he addresses the importance of discipline in business and work. Discipline is important to success in every aspect of business.

If you’ve read many self-help or business books, you may have seen many of the ideas presented by Tracy in No Excuses! Even so, some are so simple, powerful, possibly obvious and often overlooked that they bear repeating.

-Always be improving your skills.

-Writing down your goals greatly increases the likelihood you will complete them.

-When you are at work, work.

-If you want to be wealthy, save money.

-Spend most of your time on your most valuable activities.

Tracy presents an interesting idea that you may not have seen elsewhere. Happiness is not an end to itself; it is not something you achieve. Instead, happiness arises out of the process of doing what you love, having great relationships and meeting needs. To paraphrase the cliché, happiness doesn’t come from reaching a destination, it comes from enjoying the journey.

Tracy brings up another worthy concept about discipline. Disciplining yourself in one area helps you to discipline yourself in another. Every chapter in the book is about using self-discipline in a different aspect of life. Don’t burn out trying to do it all at once. Pick an area or two that you find most important or needful and begin disciplining yourself in those areas. When you make a habit of being disciplined in those areas, it will be easier to be more self-disciplined in other areas as well.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel

The Richest Man Who Ever Lived by Steven K. Scott

The Thinking Life by P. M. Forni

Tracy, Brian. No Excuses! The Power of Self-Discipline. New York: MJF, 2010.

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This Year I Will... by M. J. Ryan

Many of us make New Year’s resolutions, but few of us keep them. There is less interest on the statistics of other goals, but it seems likely that resolutions are hard to keep whenever we make them. Self-help author and consultant M. J. Ryan would like to change that sorry state of affairs. Her book This Year I Will… has advice on how to turn goals into action and dreams into reality.

Ryan makes the important point that much of our behavior is habitual. We have repeated behaviors so many times that we unthinkingly return to them when we encounter the stimulus that triggers them. To complicate the matter, our behaviors fill a need or solve a problem. If they hadn’t they wouldn’t have become ingrained habits.

You don’t have to delve into you half-remembered childhood to change behavior, though. You just need to identify the underlying need or problem and find other means of dealing with them. Ideally, the new behaviors will also help you meet your goals instead of getting in the way.

I suppose I have made it sound easy.  It is not, and Ryan does not promise quick fixes. In fact, she warns her readers they will face internal resistance to change. There are parts of brain, power emotional parts that exert a lot of control over us, that see change as a threat and will not easily leave the familiar path. Ryan offers advice on how to handle this, and even how to get our emotional brain to help us instead of hinder our change.

The book is organized into short chapters. Ryan suggests you can go directly to the parts you need and return to the other parts later, or when they seem more useful. Instead of being a book you read through once, she wants This Year I Will… to be a reference you can return to when you need fresh ideas or a refresher on techniques you’ve used before.  Some of the subjects that stood out to me were

• concentrate on “what” instead of “why,”
• dealing with doubt,
• taking action,
• focusing on one or a few changes at a time,
• taking one step at a time (though sometimes we need a big goal to motivate us),
• track your progress (I’m a believer in this),
• have a Plan B (and C, and D…),
• tips for effective visualization,
• performance review, and
• remember to have fun.

There is more than that. The book is not a collection of unrelated mini-chapters. Though the book isn’t necessarily made to be read linearly, I found that later chapters tend to build on earlier ones. There is also a subtle shift from an almost wholly practical to a somewhat philosophical view. You’re not just doing a better job of setting and achieving goals. The goals you achieve and the habits you form shape and define your life.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

Ryan, M. J. This Year I Will…: How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True. New York: MJF, 2006.

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How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

As you might expect from the creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams is skeptical of the value of life advice from a cartoonist, even if he is that cartoonist. Even so, Adams has had very great success in his profession, so he might be doing something right even if he has a very wrongheaded explanation of it.

That is a point Adams makes in his book How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big. Some things work even if we don’t understand them. Some beliefs help us move toward the life we want even if they aren’t correct—often even if we know they’re wrong. Adams expresses skepticism about a lot of things, and encourages his readers to use discernment, but he is willing to use what works with our without a good explanation.

One of those things is affirmations. Adams does not believe that affirmations shape the universe, or that the human mind or will or being has the ability to do such a thing. In a late chapter of the book, he speculates on why they might have some effect or, more likely, how people might convince themselves that affirmations work. In any case, Adams correlates some of his greatest successes to his use of affirmations.

Of course, Adams’ life has not been one of uninterrupted success. The title of the book acknowledges his failures. He doesn’t get hung up on them. His view was that if he learned something or gained a new skill from a failed enterprise, he still gained something. In his estimation, “every sill you acquire doubles your odds of success.”

“Odds” is a good way to put it. When it comes down to it, success is a matter of luck. Adams believes that you can take steps to improve your ability to take advantage of the luck that comes your way

The way you do this is by implementing good systems. Adams doesn’t believe in goals. You feel like a failure if you haven’t achieved your goal; you lose your motivation when you complete your goal. Systems are things you can continue doing as long as they are useful. If you do something to implement your system, you’ve succeeded. A system is anything you do regularly in improve the likelihood that you’ll be happy in the long run.

To Adams, happiness is the heart of success. If you can sustain happiness, you’re successful in the ways that matter most. He describes it as a “chemistry experiment.” The idea is that we know a lot about what makes us happy and we just need to find the right mix of elements that fits our particular needs. To be happy one needs to maximize control  over their schedule, find ways to improve skills for a long time (especially in their careers and hobbies), imagine a better future, take care of health (diet, exercise and sleep), help others, and reduce daily decision-making by creating routines.

The book includes a host of other advice. Most of this advice is told in the context of Adams’ life story. He particularly focuses on his business and career failures (from which he learned useful things), the rise of Dilbert and his battle with a unique health problem.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Simple Pictures are Best by Nancy Willard with illustrations by Tomie De Paola

Toxic Success by Paul Pearsall

Adams, Scott. How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2013.

Essentialism by Greg McKeown

I’ve had friends complain about feeling spread thin. They’re doing so many things that they’re doing none of them well. The worst part of it is, they spend a lot of time on things that just don’t seem that important. I’ve felt that way myself.

According to Greg McKeown, there is an answer to this problem, but it takes discipline. He describes it in his book, Essentialism.

The practice of essentialism begins with a mindset. First, you control how you spend your time and energy. If you don’t control it, someone else will. Next, very few things are important. Finally, life is about tradeoffs, and choosing to do some things also means choosing not to do other things.

I other words, you can’t have it all. You can concentrate on the things that matter most. In this way, you can get more value out of what you do while doing less.

The discipline of essentialism begins with applying this way of thinking all the time. McKeown devotes close to half of the book to fleshing out this mindset before moving on to the process of applying it.

Perhaps it should not be surprising that that doing “less but better” involves taking time to think. Because it boils downs to the decisions you make, it’s worthwhile to make time and space to think. You have to know what is important, meaningful and valuable to you before you can start making choices about what to agree too and what to cut out. We get into trouble by saying yes to too many things without weighing the decision first.

You have to discipline yourself to cut out the less important stuff. You have to say no a lot. Perhaps some of the best advice McKeown offers is tips on saying no to people.

Oddly, McKeown doesn’t focus on making things happen in the manner of others writing about productivity. Instead, he suggests clearing the path. Find and eliminate constraints. Protect your time by allowing for plenty of it; be realistic about how much time and energy things really require. Pay attention to what is important right now. In order to spend time on the important things, you need to make space for it and protect that space. Over time, you can build systems and habits that help you.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

Developing the Leader Within by John Maxwell
The Difference Maker by John Maxwell 

Genesis

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

The Thinking Life by P. M. Forni

McKeown, Greg. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. New York: Crown Business, 2014.

Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg

You may be like me in the sense of wanting to get more done and falling short. I realize I can’t do all the things I imagine I might do. There aren’t enough hours in life for it and I can let much of it go. However, there are some things that are important to me. It bothers me that I make so little progress on them.

Journalist Charles Duhigg considers this problem of productivity in Smarter Faster Better. Rather than turning to standard self-help fare, he sought out scientifically supported strategies.

For instance, there is a lots said in self-help books about motivation. Duhigg makes the interesting point that motivation can be learned. We can learn to push ourselves to make decisions and take action.

That is a neat concept. If you see motivation as a skill, you can quit beating yourself up and accept that you are not good at motivating yourself yet. Instead, you can focus on improving the skill. You can reward yourself for the effort—however imperfect—and seek lessons to do better next time.

You might start with Duhigg’s tip to think of what it feels like to be in control and how good it is. The memory, and the positive emotion attached to it, may be the boost that gets you moving. Also ask yourself why you are doing something; uncover why it is meaningful to you.

You can learn to pay attention to the right things at the right time, too. Productive people have good mental models that help them ignore the noise and see the details that make a difference. You can develop these models by telling yourself stories throughout the day about what you expect, why you expect it and how your experience matches or varies from the tale.

This imagination can help you make decisions. We can’t know the future, but if we accept uncertainty and imagine the possibilities—good and bad—we can make good guesses.

Another bit of advice from Duhigg is that when you learn something new, you should do something with it. In the last chapter of the book, he recaps by showing how he used the strategies to get his research and writing done.

Charles Duhigg also wrote The Power of Habit.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

A Mind for Numbers by Barbara A. Oakley

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

Future Bright by Martin E. Martinez

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Get Smart! by Brian Tracy

Learn Better by Ulrich Boser

Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Duhigg, Charles. Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets to Being Productive in Life and Business. New York: Random House, 2016.

Become a Better You by Joel Osteen

Become a Better You was Joel Osteen’s follow-up to his first book, Your Best Life Now. Osteen even presents the book as a continuation of the theme and purpose of its predecessor.

Each chapter is a topical sermon on reaching your potential in some aspect of life. The aspects are personal growth, positive self-image, relationships, habits, faith and passion.

I have previously criticized Osteen for taking self-help advice and wrapping it up in religion. I see Norman Vincent Peale and Robert H. Schuller in much the same light. A defense all of these pastors might raise is that they are focusing on practical matters of living well. A head full of religious knowledge that doesn’t change your life for the better is doing no good; it’s not the life Christians are called to.

I agree. I also see in Jesus and the apostles teachers who could both delve deep into the scripture and provide very practical instruction based on it. Religious meditation and working to make the world a better place—even if little seems to come of it—go hand-in-hand in Christianity.

In one area Osteen has a strong foundation: relationships. It is clear from the Bible that God cares very much about how we relate to and treat each other. Osteen’s use of scriptures are apropos in these chapters. The sermons hold up when read with a Bible in the other hand; something that is weaker in the other chapters.

Joel Osteen also wrote

Break Out

I Declare

Readings from Your Best Life Now

You Can, You Will

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

Complaint Free Relationships by Will Bowen

Creative Living for Today by Maxwell Maltz

Faith by Jimmy Carter

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good by Robert H. Schuller

The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology by Maxwell Malts

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Self-Love by Robert H. Schuller

You Can Become the Person You Want to Be by Robert H. Schuller

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Osteen, Joel. Become a Better You: Seven Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day. New York: Free Press, 2007.