'Fascinating . lively storytelling and cutting-edge science, The Ritual Effect sticks with you' Charles Duhigg A leading Harvard professor demonstrates the hidden power of everyday actions, showing how turning habits into rituals can improve our performance, our relationships and our workplaces We may think often about changing our habits. But habits automate us. Rituals -- ordinary practices that are imbued with symbolic meaning -- animate us. Once we know how, we can identify existing rituals and make them more effective - as well as create new ones to help improve our lives. Based on his own cutting-edge research, Harvard professor Michael Norton shows that our rituals -- from blowing out birthday candles to the traditions that your family have kept up for decades -- are transformative. Rituals turn black-and-white moments into technicolor. The impact of rituals is clear from science.

In one of Norton's own experiments, people singing karaoke performed better after enacting a ritual -- even when they didn't believe they would. Even one of the most cliché of all group rituals --- the trust fall - has been proven to have a positive effect on those involved. Describing those who have made effective use of rituals across business, sport, politics and culture, Norton shows how shifting from a habitual to a ritual mindset can add purpose and pleasure to life, and deepen our relationships.