Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show. You may not
Speaker 1: realize we have years and years of incredible episodes in
Speaker 1: our archives. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've
Speaker 1: decided to hand pick one of our favorites that may
Speaker 1: be new to you, but if not, it's definitely worth
Speaker 1: another listen. This week is a two part series, so
Speaker 1: we hope you'll enjoy part two with James Clear. If
Speaker 1: I leave the phone in another room, then I never
Speaker 1: go get it in the morning, which is always so
Speaker 1: funny to me because I never wanted it enough to
Speaker 1: put in forty five seconds of work. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true,
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking,
Speaker 1: our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Hey guys, here's part
Speaker 1: two of the interview with James Clear. He has a
Speaker 1: new book called Atomic Habits and Easy and Proven Way
Speaker 1: to Build Good Habits and Break bad Ones. James's work
Speaker 1: has appeared in The New York Times, Time and Entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: and on CBS This Morning, and he has taught in
Speaker 1: colleges around the world. His website, James Clear dot com,
Speaker 1: receives millions of visitors each month and hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: subscribed to his email newsletter. He's the creator of the
Speaker 1: Habits Academy, the premier training platform for organizations and individuals
Speaker 1: that are interested in building better habits in life and work.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about making it obvious. One of the
Speaker 1: things that you talk about in the book, and there's
Speaker 1: so much research behind it, is you say environment is
Speaker 1: the invisible hand that shapes human environment. So a lot
Speaker 1: of the making obvious or invisible, right, the inversion of
Speaker 1: that law is really about how we structure our environment. Right.
Speaker 1: So let me just give you some tangible examples. Um,
Speaker 1: many of our habits are a response to the physical
Speaker 1: cues that are in our environment. And uh so let's
Speaker 1: take the habit of watching television. You know, like if
Speaker 1: you walk into pretty much any living room, where do
Speaker 1: all the couches and chairs face all face the TV?
Speaker 1: So it's like, what is this room design to get
Speaker 1: you to do? Right, it's the most obvious thing in
Speaker 1: that environment, the very prevalent que So there are a
Speaker 1: variety of things you could do to change that. So
Speaker 1: in this case, we're talking about an inversion of the
Speaker 1: first law, make it invisible to watch TV. So you
Speaker 1: could take the remote control and you could put it
Speaker 1: in a drawer instead of leaving it out on the
Speaker 1: coffee table. You could take the television itself and put
Speaker 1: it inside a wall unit or behind like a cabinet indoors.
Speaker 1: You could also increase the friction associated with the task,
Speaker 1: so like if you wanted to, you could take the
Speaker 1: batteries out of the remote control, and then that adds
Speaker 1: like an extra five or ten seconds, and maybe it's
Speaker 1: enough time for you to be like, I do I
Speaker 1: really want to watch this right now? Am I just
Speaker 1: turning it on? Mindlessly. Um, you could unplug the TV
Speaker 1: after each use and then only plug it back in
Speaker 1: if you can say the name of the show you
Speaker 1: want to watch, so you're not allowed to just like
Speaker 1: mindlessly turn Netflix on and find something. Um. And if
Speaker 1: you really wanted to be extreme about it and you
Speaker 1: wanted to reduce the cues, you could take the TV
Speaker 1: off the wall, put it in the closet, and then
Speaker 1: only take it out when you really wanted to watch
Speaker 1: something bad enough to set it up again. But the
Speaker 1: point here is that there's kind of like a range
Speaker 1: of options. And the more that you can increase the
Speaker 1: steps between you and the bad behaviors and reduce the steps,
Speaker 1: but when you and the good behaviors, uh, And the
Speaker 1: more that you can make the cues of your good
Speaker 1: habits obvious, the more likely you are to to fall
Speaker 1: into those. So to give you another example, UM, when
Speaker 1: I wanted to build a flossing habit, I realized that
Speaker 1: I brushed my teeth twice a day, but I just
Speaker 1: didn't floss consistently. And one of the reasons was because
Speaker 1: I had floss hidden away in a drawer in the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I just like wouldn't think about it I would, I
Speaker 1: would forget it because it wasn't obvious. So I bought
Speaker 1: one of those a little bowl and uh, some of
Speaker 1: the flossers, and I put them in the bowl and
Speaker 1: put it right next to my toothbrush. And now I
Speaker 1: brush my teeth. Put the toothbrush down, pick flosser up,
Speaker 1: do it right then. And that was pretty much all
Speaker 1: I had to do to build the habit of flossing.
Speaker 1: It kind of surprised me that like that was the
Speaker 1: only change the need to happen. But it just once
Speaker 1: it was obvious, it fell into place. And many habits
Speaker 1: are like that. And unfortunately, the cues of many bad
Speaker 1: habits are also like that, and so if you can
Speaker 1: cut them out, if you can reduce exposure to those
Speaker 1: negative cues, you often find that the bad habit fades away. Now. Really,
Speaker 1: the other classic example of that is if you want
Speaker 1: to play guitar more, don't have it in a case,
Speaker 1: which is one of those things that is one true.
Speaker 1: But when I think about it, I'm like, man, what
Speaker 1: what what creatures? We are? As humans? It takes eight
Speaker 1: seconds to take a guitar out of a case, And
Speaker 1: yet truly, that difference of eight seconds makes a ton
Speaker 1: of difference in I mean, A, it's that I see
Speaker 1: it because it's out. But B there is just even
Speaker 1: and this will get this gets more to make it
Speaker 1: easy stage. But but just even that little bit of
Speaker 1: friction of having to open the case get it out.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's ridiculous, but that's you know, it works.
Speaker 1: So a friend of mine plays the violin, and he
Speaker 1: was not practicing nearly as much as he wanted to
Speaker 1: or needed to. So he took his violin. He placed
Speaker 1: it right in the middle of his living room floor
Speaker 1: on a stand, and he was like, now I pass
Speaker 1: it like, you know, a dozen times a day. So
Speaker 1: I end up playing like an hour a day just
Speaker 1: because it's there. And this also your example the guitar,
Speaker 1: the guitar case. It shows how like habits can bleed
Speaker 1: into each other and how it can be useful too.
Speaker 1: So like let's say that you go to guitar lessons,
Speaker 1: you have an instructor, or you play with a band
Speaker 1: or whatever. When you come home, you already have a
Speaker 1: habit of what you do with your guitar when you
Speaker 1: come home. Usually you keep in the case and you
Speaker 1: put in the closet or put it in the you know,
Speaker 1: in the corner or whatever. Um. But instead it can
Speaker 1: be really useful to build a new habit of When
Speaker 1: I get home, I take my guitar out of the
Speaker 1: case and I put it on the stand in the
Speaker 1: middle of the living room, around the side of the whatever,
Speaker 1: right in an obvious location, because just that action of
Speaker 1: what you do with it when you come home makes
Speaker 1: it easier for you to pick it up again throughout
Speaker 1: the day and play it. Yeah. What you just described
Speaker 1: there as a borderline of two things and implementation intention
Speaker 1: and habit stacking, right, Yeah, so habit stacking, I think
Speaker 1: it's it's this really useful method for building a new habit.
Speaker 1: And um, I first heard about it from B. J.
Speaker 1: Fauk because it's professor at Stanford and the big Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah he does, yes, I think he does call it anchoring. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: his idea is like, you want to anchor this new
Speaker 1: habit to a previous one that you have, right, do
Speaker 1: you wanna in my language, you want to stack the
Speaker 1: new habit on top of the old one. So for example,
Speaker 1: you could let's say you want to build the habit
Speaker 1: of meditation. You could say, when I make my morning
Speaker 1: cup of coffee, I will meditate for sixty seconds. Or
Speaker 1: after I make my morning cup of coffee, I will
Speaker 1: meditate for sixty seconds. And that's basically the formula for this.
Speaker 1: As you say, after blank, I will blank. So in
Speaker 1: the case of the guitar one you could say after
Speaker 1: I come home from work or after I come home
Speaker 1: from a guitar practice, I will place my guitar, take
Speaker 1: my guitar out of the case and place it on
Speaker 1: the stand. Uh. And the more that you can come
Speaker 1: up with good habits stacks like that, the more you
Speaker 1: can prime your environment for taking the effective action. They're
Speaker 1: so useful also because a lot of times, what again,
Speaker 1: when I'm working with people about putting this stuff into
Speaker 1: actual practice, is the time of the day isn't always consistent.
Speaker 1: So ideally, say I meditate it seven am every morning,
Speaker 1: But the problem is different things happen. But you do
Speaker 1: walk your dog every morning. It might be seven o'clock,
Speaker 1: might be seven oh five, mightbe six thirty, might be eight.
Speaker 1: You know. So the the advantage of that habit stacking
Speaker 1: or anchoring is that you can the time doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be exact. You don't get thrown off if you
Speaker 1: miss your time because you're you're you're tying it to
Speaker 1: something that is going to happen, but it might be
Speaker 1: a little bit variable. You get late home late from
Speaker 1: work instead of I meditate at six, I meditate when
Speaker 1: I walk in the door from work. Is a you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, It's a more practical, great point.
Speaker 1: It flexes with your right and that's why it's important
Speaker 1: to choose triggers for your habits stack that are things
Speaker 1: you actually already do every day and are I guess
Speaker 1: more specific would be better, Like if it's a vague
Speaker 1: thing like, um, you know, after I get home from work,
Speaker 1: I will organize one item of clothing in my closet
Speaker 1: or something like that, Well that's fine, but like it
Speaker 1: actually would be better if it was more specific, like
Speaker 1: after I take off my shoes from work, I will
Speaker 1: organize one item of clothing my closet. And because of
Speaker 1: the specificity of it, it makes it very clear when
Speaker 1: to act. YEA, all right, let's keep moving. I've got
Speaker 1: about ten more things we could talk about there. But
Speaker 1: I do think that idea of specificity is so critical,
Speaker 1: knowing when where as much exactness as you can have
Speaker 1: is such a big is such a big deal. Let's
Speaker 1: get on too. Number two, make it attractive. So you know,
Speaker 1: different habits are attractive to us at different times, So
Speaker 1: timing is part of it, um. But the more that
Speaker 1: you view a habit as attractive, the more likely you
Speaker 1: are to feel motivated to do it. And I think
Speaker 1: one important area to focus on here is social environment.
Speaker 1: So we've talked a little bit about physical environment and
Speaker 1: how that can prompt your habits, but social environment often
Speaker 1: determines what habits we find attractive. So you know, everyone
Speaker 1: is part of multiple tribes. Some of the tribes that
Speaker 1: we're part of are really big, like what it means
Speaker 1: to be American, or what it means to be French,
Speaker 1: or what it means to be Buddhist or Christian or whatever, um.
Speaker 1: And some of the tribes are small, like what it
Speaker 1: means to be a member of your local CrossFit gym,
Speaker 1: or a neighbor on your street, or to volunteer at
Speaker 1: your local school. But all of these tribes, large and small,
Speaker 1: have a set of shared expectations, a set of shared
Speaker 1: behaviors that are part of them. So just imagine some
Speaker 1: habits that, like most people do like when you step
Speaker 1: onto the elevator you turn around to face the front,
Speaker 1: or if you have a job interview, you wear a
Speaker 1: suit and a tie or a dress or something nice. Now,
Speaker 1: there's no reason that you have to do those things, right,
Speaker 1: Like you could face the back of the elevator. You
Speaker 1: could wear a bathing suit to a job interview, like
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't have to do it, but you
Speaker 1: do because it violates the shared expectations of the group. Right,
Speaker 1: you don't do it because it goes against the grain
Speaker 1: of what the tribe wants. And so the lesson there
Speaker 1: is that when habits go with the expectations of the
Speaker 1: tribes that we are a part of, they're very attractive
Speaker 1: because they help you belong, they help you fit in,
Speaker 1: you get praised and approved of by others are doing them.
Speaker 1: When habits go against the grain of our tribes, they're
Speaker 1: very unattractive. And so whether or not you feel motivated
Speaker 1: to do something is often contingent upon the people that
Speaker 1: you're surrounded by. And uh, the punchline here, the practical
Speaker 1: takeaway is you want to join groups where your desired
Speaker 1: behavior is the normal behavior, because if it's normal in
Speaker 1: that group, it's going to seem attractive to you because
Speaker 1: it will be the type of thing that helps you
Speaker 1: fit in. This is why you see people, you know,
Speaker 1: like people join across fit Jim and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden they start eating paleo and they buy certain types
Speaker 1: of shoes, and they, you know, like all they pick
Speaker 1: up all these other habits that they weren't even trying
Speaker 1: to do in the first place. They were just trying
Speaker 1: to get fit, but they do those because that's what
Speaker 1: it means to be part of that tribe. They start
Speaker 1: to get friends there and then they collect all these
Speaker 1: other habits. So um the caveat that I like to
Speaker 1: add to that because in a sense, when you ask
Speaker 1: people to change their habits, you're kind of asking them
Speaker 1: to change their tribe to a certain degree. And that
Speaker 1: can be hard. That can be intimidating, and if you're
Speaker 1: if you're is either I get to do the habits
Speaker 1: that I want to do, but I have to be alone.
Speaker 1: I have to like leave the tribe I'm in to
Speaker 1: go do this new thing, or I have to stick
Speaker 1: with my old habits, which aren't really the greatest. But
Speaker 1: I get to stay as part of the group. I
Speaker 1: get to keep my friends and family, then we would
Speaker 1: often we often choose to be wrong with the crowd
Speaker 1: than right by ourselves. And um, it takes a very
Speaker 1: bold and courageous thing to be on your own. And
Speaker 1: so it's easier to go from one tribe to another.
Speaker 1: It may still not be easy overall, but it's easier
Speaker 1: if you have a new group of friends to go to.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think it's important to have like
Speaker 1: shared context with that new group, or to try to
Speaker 1: find these like mutually beneficial areas of overlap so that
Speaker 1: you can be friends quickly around one thing while you're
Speaker 1: trying to pick up the new habit. So let me
Speaker 1: just give one more example, Um, Steve cam It's a
Speaker 1: friend of mine who runs a company called nerd Fitness,
Speaker 1: and nerd Fitness is all about getting in shape, but
Speaker 1: it's specifically organized for people who identify as nerds, who
Speaker 1: are into up Star Wars or video games or the
Speaker 1: Marvel Universe, spider Man, Batman, whatever. And my point here
Speaker 1: is that if you're joining that group, getting in shape
Speaker 1: is still an intimidating thing. It doesn't change the habit
Speaker 1: of getting fit, but you can maybe bond with people
Speaker 1: over like your mutual love of Star Wars and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: now I'm friends with Mark and Lisa, and because we're friends,
Speaker 1: you know they work out three days a week, so
Speaker 1: maybe you know, if they can do it, I can
Speaker 1: do it too. And if you have that mutual area
Speaker 1: of overlap to develop a sense of belonging and friendship around,
Speaker 1: it becomes easier to adopt the habits of that new tribe.
Speaker 1: So it still requires effort, but I think that can
Speaker 1: help make those new habits more attractive. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things about technology that is so useful is
Speaker 1: that the Internet in particular, is that you can find
Speaker 1: people to support you on the changes you're trying to make,
Speaker 1: even if those people aren't really it's not you can't
Speaker 1: get them into your life physically easily, whether that be
Speaker 1: their physical location, whether that be you've got a job
Speaker 1: in a family and so you don't have much time
Speaker 1: to be out. You could still get some of that
Speaker 1: support and that tribe and that belonging. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's I don't think it's as good as in real life,
Speaker 1: but it is an option, and I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of people I think just say, well, I can't
Speaker 1: change all other stuff, so I just don't even look
Speaker 1: for that group, whereas a step in the right direction
Speaker 1: is can I find that support, encouragement, guidance online. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's just getting better. I actually just talked to someone.
Speaker 1: They had a ship, had a fascinating idea for this
Speaker 1: business where it's work. They're working with self improvement ideas. So,
Speaker 1: you know, weight loss group or things like that, but
Speaker 1: through virtual reality. And so you know, now right now,
Speaker 1: you join like a Facebook group, you know, and you
Speaker 1: you get support for your weight loss goal or whatever.
Speaker 1: And that's fine, that's better than nothing. It's it's great.
Speaker 1: But we all know instinctively that being part of the
Speaker 1: Facebook group is not the same thing as like being
Speaker 1: in a room with people who share your goals. But
Speaker 1: if you can put on a headset and suddenly you
Speaker 1: like step into this room, it's kind of like you're
Speaker 1: watching a screen or in a video game, and now
Speaker 1: you're in the same room with ten other people who
Speaker 1: are one person's in Montana, somebody else is in Arizona.
Speaker 1: People are spread out all over, but you all have
Speaker 1: the same goals. Um, then suddenly it starts to feel
Speaker 1: very real and uh, and so I think we're going
Speaker 1: to see more of that over the next decade or
Speaker 1: two and certainly well into the future, where you can
Speaker 1: basically replicate what it feels like in real life. And
Speaker 1: now suddenly you can be the parent who works a
Speaker 1: sixty hour week and has two kids at home and
Speaker 1: you only have time from eight to nine pm. But
Speaker 1: during that one hour slot you can connect with people
Speaker 1: from all over who shared the same goals. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's great. It's one of the things I spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time wrestling with my own in my
Speaker 1: own head, is all right, we've got this show and
Speaker 1: there's a you know, we've got a got a large
Speaker 1: number of listeners, right who have similar values. You know,
Speaker 1: How how is it that we could use this thing
Speaker 1: that's virtual and make it more supportive. We have a
Speaker 1: Facebook group that works good, it's nice, but it's it
Speaker 1: is different, you know, and you know, it's it's very
Speaker 1: difficult to organize, you know, um meetups in a hundred
Speaker 1: different you know, we're not that big, right you know?
Speaker 1: So I think often about that, How what what are
Speaker 1: ways to create some of that benefit for the community. Um,
Speaker 1: So I'm always looking for other options. So I'm I'll
Speaker 1: ping you afterwards to learn more about that. Ye all right,
Speaker 1: how about number three? Make it easy? So, if you're
Speaker 1: trying to think, like, where should I start with a habit,
Speaker 1: what's the first thing I should do? This is probably
Speaker 1: where I would recommend starting, which is essentially making your
Speaker 1: habits as easy and convenient as possible. The more um,
Speaker 1: the more frictionless the habit is, the more convenient it is,
Speaker 1: the more likely you are to fall through. So, just
Speaker 1: as an obvious example of this, consider your phone. You know,
Speaker 1: we all have our smartphones on us all the time,
Speaker 1: and one of the things about smartphones is that they
Speaker 1: are so frictionless, so easy to use, that we slide
Speaker 1: into them all the time, even if we don't really
Speaker 1: want to. So I had an interesting thing that I
Speaker 1: realized recently. So this year I've started doing a new
Speaker 1: habit where I leave my phone in another room until
Speaker 1: lunch each day. So I have a home office, so
Speaker 1: it's not that far away. It's maybe like forty five
Speaker 1: seconds up the stairs and into another room. Well, if
Speaker 1: my phone is next to me, if it's on the desk,
Speaker 1: I'm like everybody else, I'll check it every three minutes.
Speaker 1: You know, like I'm just looking at because it's there.
Speaker 1: But if I do that, if I leave the phone
Speaker 1: in another room, then I never go get it in
Speaker 1: the morning, which is always so funny to me because
Speaker 1: it's like, well, I was checking it like a hundred
Speaker 1: times over the three hours, but I never so in
Speaker 1: a sense you would think I wanted to look at it,
Speaker 1: but I never wanted it enough to put in forty
Speaker 1: five seconds of work. And so this is the the
Speaker 1: inversion of the of the third law, which is make
Speaker 1: it difficult. But the point here is that if you
Speaker 1: can add a little bit of friction to the bad habits,
Speaker 1: they often fade away, and if you can reduce the
Speaker 1: friction of the good habits, they often rise up and
Speaker 1: become much easier to perform. Now, the simplest way to
Speaker 1: do this for building a good habit is to practice
Speaker 1: what I call the two minute rule, and the two
Speaker 1: minute rules. Basically, you take whatever habit that you're trying
Speaker 1: to build and you scale it down to just the
Speaker 1: first two minutes, so you know, do thirty minutes of
Speaker 1: yoga becomes take out your yoga mat, or read twenty
Speaker 1: five books a year becomes read one page um or
Speaker 1: write a book becomes right one sentence, whatever you can
Speaker 1: do in two minutes or less. And the key here
Speaker 1: is that you're really trying to automate or habitualize the
Speaker 1: first two minutes of the behavior, just the beginning of it.
Speaker 1: And this is way more powerful than maybe at first
Speaker 1: seems uh. And the reason is because a habit must
Speaker 1: be established before it can be improved. If you don't
Speaker 1: master the art of showing up, if you don't master
Speaker 1: the art of just doing the habit every day, then
Speaker 1: there's nothing to optimize. So I had a reader who
Speaker 1: actually did this. He he ended up losing over a
Speaker 1: hundred pounds. And one of the things that he did
Speaker 1: was that he went to the gym, but he had
Speaker 1: a rule where he wasn't allowed to stay for longer
Speaker 1: than five minutes. And it sounds silly, right, It sounds
Speaker 1: kind of ridiculous because it's like, why would you go
Speaker 1: to the gym for only five minutes? But what you
Speaker 1: realize is he was mastering the art of showing up.
Speaker 1: He became the type of person who would go to
Speaker 1: the gym every day, even if it was just for
Speaker 1: five minutes. And then after like six weeks, he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm coming here all the time. I kind
Speaker 1: of feel like staying longer figuring out what program I
Speaker 1: should do or get a personal trainer or whatever. But
Speaker 1: it's really crucial to do that. I think you need
Speaker 1: to optimize for the starting line rather than the finish line.
Speaker 1: Most people are always optimizing for the finish line. How
Speaker 1: much money do I want to earn, how much weight
Speaker 1: do I want to lose the next six months? Whatever? Um.
Speaker 1: But if you optimize for the starting line, how can
Speaker 1: I master the art of going to the gym for
Speaker 1: just five minutes? Then you've got options because you're actually
Speaker 1: there every day. Uh. And the same thing is true
Speaker 1: for you know, if you write one sentence today, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be hard for me to write book if
Speaker 1: I only write one sentence. Well that's true, but you
Speaker 1: literally can't write a book if you aren't the type
Speaker 1: of person who at least every day. So I think
Speaker 1: it's important to scale it down to the first two
Speaker 1: minutes and master that. And once you make it as
Speaker 1: easy as possible, when you master the art of showing up,
Speaker 1: then you can optimize and improve from there. Yet, my
Speaker 1: meditation habits a classic example of this because I would
Speaker 1: meditate for a while and I quit, and then I
Speaker 1: pick up another book, and they'd say she meditate thirty
Speaker 1: minutes a day. So I'd sit down to meditate for
Speaker 1: thirty minutes a day, which was you know, I've joked
Speaker 1: before like when I sit down to meditate, like the
Speaker 1: circus comes to town. You know, that's a long time
Speaker 1: to spend with the circus when you're not used to it.
Speaker 1: When I said, you know what, I'm going to meditate
Speaker 1: for two minutes every day, then I built that and
Speaker 1: then I could go to three and five, and I
Speaker 1: mean it totally changed everything because it was something I
Speaker 1: was able to do um and and I think, and
Speaker 1: this leads us a little bit into four, you know,
Speaker 1: which is to make it satisfying. I was able to
Speaker 1: have the satisfaction of feeling like I met I'm meditating
Speaker 1: every day, right, instead of the I did good for
Speaker 1: two days, and I did crappy for five, and I
Speaker 1: did okay for one that daily day after day began
Speaker 1: two is you know, all the way back to the
Speaker 1: identity to I started to feel like I'm a meditator.
Speaker 1: I'm doing it feels good I'm satisfied, I want to
Speaker 1: do it again. And Bill, I think that is one
Speaker 1: of such a fundamental ideas that make it easy. And
Speaker 1: even if it's small, it can still reinforce that identity
Speaker 1: like you just mentioned. And if it reinforces the identity,
Speaker 1: if it helps you believe that, hey, I am a meditator,
Speaker 1: then even though it's small and actually is big, you know,
Speaker 1: it's meaningful. Um. And so I think for that reason
Speaker 1: that's a really good place to start if you're looking
Speaker 1: to be able to have it is scale it down,
Speaker 1: master the art, showing up and reinforce that identity. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I will talk with people about that, Like, Okay, you
Speaker 1: know what, how about we start with meditating for three
Speaker 1: minutes a day. You know, I'm not gonna get peaceful
Speaker 1: meditating three minutes a day, No, you may not, but
Speaker 1: you can become a meditator. But you can become a meditator, right,
Speaker 1: but you can you can progress and um, you know yeah,
Speaker 1: just that that's starting. Smallness is so critical alright. Number four.
Speaker 1: So the fourth law is to make it satisfying. And
Speaker 1: the idea here is it's really about the ending of
Speaker 1: the habit. You want to you want whenever I habit finishes,
Speaker 1: you want to feel successful in some way. You want
Speaker 1: to feel satisfied in some way. And the reason is
Speaker 1: because if you enjoy a habit, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: there's this pleasure dorble emotional signal in the brain where
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, this felt good, you should do this
Speaker 1: again next time. And so, in a sense, we could
Speaker 1: say positive emotions cultivate habits and negative emotions destroy them.
Speaker 1: When you have this satisfying emotion associated with it, you
Speaker 1: want to do it again next time. And um. There
Speaker 1: are a variety of examples of this, some of them
Speaker 1: some of the best ones are from businesses. So toothpaste
Speaker 1: is a common example that's given. There's no reason that
Speaker 1: toothpaste needs to taste minty. It doesn't. The mint flavor
Speaker 1: doesn't actually increase the effectiveness of the toothpaste itself. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make it clean your teeth better, but it does
Speaker 1: lead to a clean mouth feel and makes it more
Speaker 1: satisfying to brush your teeth. And because it's more satisfying
Speaker 1: and enjoyable, you have a reason to turn around again
Speaker 1: and do it the next time. UM. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite examples recent examples from car manufacturers. So a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, BMW added this feature to one of
Speaker 1: their cars where if you really slammed on the accelerator
Speaker 1: impressed on the gas, it would pump additional engine growl
Speaker 1: through the speakers in the car, so it made it
Speaker 1: more satisfying to press on the gas. Um Forward had
Speaker 1: a similar setup where they had like this valve that
Speaker 1: normally the car would be sound proofed and if you
Speaker 1: really slammed on the gas, the valve would open and
Speaker 1: let the engine noise in. But the the idea here
Speaker 1: is that there's some additional immediate satisfaction with drying driving
Speaker 1: the car, and that gets you to enjoy it and
Speaker 1: want to repeat it and so on and uh. The
Speaker 1: same is true for any habit, but it's really about
Speaker 1: the speed. It's really about feeling successful right away. And
Speaker 1: this is one of the challenges with building good habits
Speaker 1: or breaking bad ones, is that behaviors often produce multiple
Speaker 1: outcomes across time, and those outcomes are somewhat misaligned. So
Speaker 1: for a bad habit, the immediate outcomes often favorable. You know,
Speaker 1: like if you eat a donut right now, it's sugary
Speaker 1: and tasty and feels good. Sweet, but the ultimate outcome
Speaker 1: if you continue that habit for a month or year
Speaker 1: or whatever is unfavorable. Um for good habits, it's usually
Speaker 1: the reverse, right, Like, the immediate outcome of going to
Speaker 1: the gy him right now is you sweat. It's effortful,
Speaker 1: requires energy and sacrifice. But the ultimate outcome that you're
Speaker 1: in shape a month or a year from now is favorable.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of the battle of building good
Speaker 1: habits and breaking bad ones is about figuring out how
Speaker 1: to take those long term consequences of your bad habits
Speaker 1: and pull them into the present moment so you feel
Speaker 1: like a little bit of the pain right now and
Speaker 1: you have a reason to avoid it, and taking the
Speaker 1: long term rewards of your good habits and pulling those
Speaker 1: into the present moment so that you feel successful and
Speaker 1: feel satisfied right now, and I have a reason to
Speaker 1: show up again. And the ultimate example of this is
Speaker 1: a reinforcement of your desired identity. If you feel like,
Speaker 1: for example, so to continue its exercise one I just said.
Speaker 1: You know, the immediate outcome for exercise is that it's
Speaker 1: effortful and require sacrifice. It's not that enjoyable, But that
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be true. And this is one reason
Speaker 1: why it's important to choose forms of exercise that you
Speaker 1: really enjoy. You know, like, not everybody has to lift
Speaker 1: like a bodybuilder. If you want to go hiking or
Speaker 1: cycling or kayaking or whatever, do whatever form is most
Speaker 1: pleasing to you, because if it makes you feel good
Speaker 1: in the moment, you're gonna want to repeat it again
Speaker 1: in the future. Similarly, if you can kind of reframe
Speaker 1: this using that growth mindset kind of thing that we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier and see it as, Hey, every time
Speaker 1: I show up at the gym, I am being the
Speaker 1: type of person who doesn't miss workout, So I'm reinforcing
Speaker 1: that identity. Well, now, as soon as you walk in
Speaker 1: the door and do one rep, you can feel satisfied.
Speaker 1: You can feel good about the the effort, even if
Speaker 1: you're still waiting for those delayed rewards to accumulate in
Speaker 1: the background, for the scale to change, or for you
Speaker 1: to get stronger or whatever um And so I think
Speaker 1: what you see is that people who are often appear
Speaker 1: to be good at delaying gratification from the outside. It's like, man,
Speaker 1: he shows up at the gym multiple days a week,
Speaker 1: he must be really good at delaying gratification and like
Speaker 1: working hard for a long term goal. Often for the
Speaker 1: person in themselves, it doesn't feel that way. They instead
Speaker 1: are focused on an alternative way to feel immediately satisfied
Speaker 1: in the moment. It's like, exercise makes me feel good.
Speaker 1: It reinforces my identity of someone who doesn't miss workouts,
Speaker 1: get to hang out with my friends, it feels good
Speaker 1: to move my body a little bit, whatever. But they're
Speaker 1: focused on the immediate outcome that is pleasurable rather than
Speaker 1: the delayed gratification that they're waiting for. Yep, and back
Speaker 1: to b J Fog, he talks a lot about celebrating victories, right,
Speaker 1: I think that's the that's the reason, right, if you
Speaker 1: celebrate even the little change that feels good. You know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be big, but you just need
Speaker 1: some positive emotional signal in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: other the one that worked for me for exercise was
Speaker 1: when I went from exercising because I would look better
Speaker 1: in the future, or because I wouldn't have a heart
Speaker 1: attack in the future all that when I really became
Speaker 1: very focused on every single time in my life I've
Speaker 1: ever exercised, I felt better when I was done. There's
Speaker 1: never been a time where I was like I wish
Speaker 1: I didn't do that. So that's what I focus on,
Speaker 1: is like, it'd be great if I could focus on like, boy,
Speaker 1: it feels good to be on the treadmill, And actually
Speaker 1: sometimes I can, as I've gotten better, but I do
Speaker 1: know that, you know, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes
Speaker 1: from now, I'll feel good right then. And the same
Speaker 1: thing with eating, Like I've started to really focus on
Speaker 1: like after I eat, like crap, how does it feel
Speaker 1: right then in that moment you know, like, oh I
Speaker 1: feel full or I feel you know, you know, like
Speaker 1: trying to to shrink that that window of of gratification,
Speaker 1: you know, between the result and it's It is such
Speaker 1: a tricky thing. We're not well wired for that something
Speaker 1: that's you know, planning for something that's way out in
Speaker 1: the future. We're yeah, we're definitely wired evolutionarily speaking for
Speaker 1: immediate gratification because we had to beef to survive, you know,
Speaker 1: like you had to account for is there a lion
Speaker 1: threatening right me right now? Or is there a storm
Speaker 1: that I need to take shelter from or to have
Speaker 1: I eaten today? Like it's very near term, immediate focused.
Speaker 1: But the downside of that in modern society is that
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of unintended consequences that that now come,
Speaker 1: some of which we just talked about. But as a
Speaker 1: final example of this, it can be very useful to
Speaker 1: have immediate satisfaction for habits that what I would call
Speaker 1: are like habits of avoidance. So things like I don't
Speaker 1: want to drink alcohol for thirty days, or I don't
Speaker 1: want to go out to eat at restaurants is often
Speaker 1: um or I don't want to spend money on Amazon today.
Speaker 1: In a sense, those people set challenges like that for
Speaker 1: themselves a lot. But those habits like that are really
Speaker 1: hard because they're not inherently satisfying, you know, like what
Speaker 1: is the what is the satisfaction of not going out
Speaker 1: to eat at the restaurant? Right You're just like resisting
Speaker 1: temptation to go out. So I had a reader who
Speaker 1: wanted to do that. He and his wife wanted to
Speaker 1: eat out less and cook more meals at home. And
Speaker 1: so what they did was they opened up a savings
Speaker 1: account and they labeled it trip to Europe. And then
Speaker 1: whenever they wouldn't go out to eat at a restaurant,
Speaker 1: they would transfer fifty dollars over the account. And being
Speaker 1: able to see that fifty dollars go over and the
Speaker 1: savings account grow in the moment was just a little
Speaker 1: bit of immediate satisfaction that suddenly made it rewarding to
Speaker 1: stay at home and look the meal. Um. And so
Speaker 1: little hacks like that that give you some a little
Speaker 1: bit of immediate pleasure in the moment can be really
Speaker 1: useful for sticking to some of those behaviors that otherwise
Speaker 1: wouldn't feel very satisfying. Ye, and keeping track of our
Speaker 1: habits is one of those things that is really useful.
Speaker 1: And you make that point that part one of the
Speaker 1: main things that makes it useful is it it makes
Speaker 1: it more satisfying. Yeah, it feels good to like, you know,
Speaker 1: I write down all my workouts right along the exercises
Speaker 1: and the reps and the sets and all that, and
Speaker 1: closing my journal at the end of a workout feels
Speaker 1: good to have banked another one and you know, and
Speaker 1: written written it down. And uh, the simplest version of
Speaker 1: that is just whenever you do a habit, you put
Speaker 1: next on the calendar for that day. But it's nice
Speaker 1: to have like a visual measurement of the progress you've made.
Speaker 1: It feels good to see yourself making progress and crossing
Speaker 1: off those habits exactly. Well, James, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time. I think we've we've rapidly run out
Speaker 1: of time, but thanks for coming on again. Congrats on
Speaker 1: the new book, and thanks for sharing all this with
Speaker 1: our listeners. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the opportunity. And um, if people want to check out
Speaker 1: the book, it's it's called Automic Habits and you can
Speaker 1: just go to Atomic Habits dot com. Yep. Absolutely, we
Speaker 1: will have links in the show notes directly to that,
Speaker 1: and all your other stuff on your tons are great
Speaker 1: right on your website too, so we'll point people there. Great.
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