Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Whatever outcomes you have or lifestyle you're enjoying right now,
Speaker 2: it's kind of a byproduct of the habits you've been running,
Speaker 2: and so if you want the outcome to change, it's
Speaker 2: actually the habits that need to change.
Speaker 1: Writer James Clear has helped millions of people achieve their
Speaker 1: big goals through small shifts and behavior, and he believes
Speaker 1: that our habits can have a powerful impact on how
Speaker 1: we see ourselves.
Speaker 2: True behavior change is really identity change. Every action you
Speaker 2: take is a vote for the type of person you
Speaker 2: wish to become. So your habits are how you embody
Speaker 2: a particular identity.
Speaker 1: On today's epsiodisode, a tactical guide for actually reaching our goals.
Speaker 1: I'm maya shucker and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: a show about who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in the face of a big change. If you're like me,
Speaker 1: you often set ambvicious goals like wanting to meditate or
Speaker 1: to cook more at home, but you struggle with execution,
Speaker 1: like sure, I want to read more in the evening,
Speaker 1: but when I sit down after work, Instagram is just
Speaker 1: way more appealing. So this is where James comes in.
Speaker 1: He believes that tiny changes in our habits are the
Speaker 1: key to reaching our long term goals. His best selling book,
Speaker 1: Atomic Habits distills the strongest insights from academic research, including
Speaker 1: how to break bad habits and form good ones, and
Speaker 1: he teaches us how to design our habits so they
Speaker 1: actually stick. We started our conversation with the basics, So
Speaker 1: let's start off with what a habit is. How do
Speaker 1: you define habits?
Speaker 2: Well, if you talk to an academic or researcher, they're
Speaker 2: probably going to say, hey, technically, a habit is a
Speaker 2: behavior that's more or less automatic or mindless, So like
Speaker 2: brushing your teeth, or tying your shoes, or unplugging the
Speaker 2: toaster after each use, like things that you don't even
Speaker 2: really think about, you know, usually it's thirty seconds or
Speaker 2: last two minutes or lastening. They're very quick, automatic routines.
Speaker 2: But there is this interesting thing about habits, which is
Speaker 2: that's not usually the way we talk about it culturally.
Speaker 2: Like if I were to ask you, hey, what are
Speaker 2: some habits you're trying to build, You're probably not going
Speaker 2: to tell me something mindless and automatic. You're probably going
Speaker 2: to say, I want to get in the habit of
Speaker 2: writing every day, or I want to get in the
Speaker 2: habit of going to the gym four days a week.
Speaker 2: And I know what you mean when you say that,
Speaker 2: you mean I want it to be this regular practice,
Speaker 2: this ritual that I repeat consistently. But that stuffs pretty effort.
Speaker 2: Puone requires concentration and careful thought, like especially writing. You
Speaker 2: know it's ever going to be mindless, the way that
Speaker 2: brushing your teeth might be.
Speaker 1: Why are good habits so hard to pick up and
Speaker 1: bad habits so hard to kick?
Speaker 2: What is the difference between a good habit of bad habit? Well,
Speaker 2: most behaviors produce multiple outcomes across time, So broadly speaking,
Speaker 2: let's say that a behavior has an immediate outcome and
Speaker 2: an ultimate outcome, like kind of the canonical example of
Speaker 2: a bad habit is smoking a cigarette. Well, the immediate
Speaker 2: outcome of smoking a cigarette might be that you reduce stress,
Speaker 2: or that you get to connect with a coworker outside
Speaker 2: the office, or many other things that we often would
Speaker 2: say serve you in some way or serve some need
Speaker 2: that you might have. It's only the ultimate outcome of
Speaker 2: continuing to smoke for ten or twenty years or whatever
Speaker 2: that is negative. Good habits are often the reverse, Like
Speaker 2: the immediate outcome of going to the gym for the
Speaker 2: first week is often unfavorable. Your body's sore, you feel
Speaker 2: foolish and stupid, You're worried that people are judging you
Speaker 2: or think you're doing the exercises wrong. It's only the
Speaker 2: ultimate outcome of sticking to a good habit for a
Speaker 2: year or two or three that you get the results
Speaker 2: that you want. And so I think my summary of
Speaker 2: what is a good habit and what is a bad
Speaker 2: habit is that the cost of your good habits is
Speaker 2: in the present, the cost of your bad habits is
Speaker 2: in the future.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I studied during my POSTOC
Speaker 1: in cognitive neuroscience is temporal discounting. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: there's lots of reasons why it's really hard to invest
Speaker 1: in good habits, But in addition to the rewards of
Speaker 1: the good habits not being salient in the moment, we
Speaker 1: also do discount the value of future rewards in a
Speaker 1: pretty significant way. So even if we're told intellectually, okay,
Speaker 1: this thing is going to pay off, our brains are
Speaker 1: wired it's such that we just don't assign the same
Speaker 1: value to those future rewards versus the present day ones.
Speaker 2: Sure, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, But
Speaker 2: my understanding of it is that for most of human
Speaker 2: history we evolved in what was roughly an immediate return environment.
Speaker 2: So your ancestors saw a storm on the horizon, they
Speaker 2: take shelter. Now that gives them in a media benefit.
Speaker 2: They need a meal, they forage for berries in the bush,
Speaker 2: that gives them an immediate benefit. And so our paleolithic
Speaker 2: prehistoric brains are largely the hardware that is the same
Speaker 2: as it has been for the last fifty thousand years.
Speaker 2: Grew up in an environment like that, or we're evolved
Speaker 2: in an environment like that, and then now in modern
Speaker 2: society we live, in many ways in a delayed return environment.
Speaker 2: You go to work now so you can get paid
Speaker 2: in two weeks. You study now so you can graduate
Speaker 2: in four years. You save for retirement now so that
Speaker 2: you can retire in two decades, and so a lot
Speaker 2: of the behaviors, a lot of the habits we want
Speaker 2: to build, have extreme temporal discounting going on. It's not
Speaker 2: even just like a day or two from now, it's
Speaker 2: many years from now, and we're not wired to work
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: Can you say more about why it's important that we're
Speaker 1: so intentional about how we build our habits.
Speaker 2: So first reason is your brain is building habits all
Speaker 2: the time, whether you think about it or not. So
Speaker 2: if you're going to be creating habits anyway, it benefits
Speaker 2: you to understand and what the process is and how
Speaker 2: it works so that you can design it to your
Speaker 2: benefit rather than to your detriment. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people feel like they're the victim of their habits.
Speaker 2: Oh I did that, I didn't even realize that, or oh,
Speaker 2: my habits are kind of happening to me. If you
Speaker 2: understand how it works, now you don't have to be
Speaker 2: the victim of your habits. You can be the architect
Speaker 2: of them. And as far as I can tell, you
Speaker 2: can only effectively direct your attention toward one thing at
Speaker 2: a time. The more that you can figure out how
Speaker 2: to offload stuff and not have to think about it,
Speaker 2: the more that you kind of have operations going on
Speaker 2: automatically in the background, and you can now direct your
Speaker 2: attention towards something else. If you had to think carefully
Speaker 2: about how to tie your shoes every time you did it,
Speaker 2: or how to brush your teeth every time you did it,
Speaker 2: or where the bread is and the pantry every time
Speaker 2: you grabbed for it. I mean, an individual day would
Speaker 2: become very cumbersome.
Speaker 1: By the way. Given my husband, Jimmy, I actually am
Speaker 1: searching for where the bread is every day in the country.
Speaker 2: Jimmy, if you're listening to this, stop moving to bread.
Speaker 1: I know, just keep it in one damn place.
Speaker 2: Okay, But yeah, you get that's the idea, you know,
Speaker 2: like your brain wants to do that so that you
Speaker 2: can more smoothly get through the day and focus on
Speaker 2: some of the other demands of life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You talk about the difference in your book between
Speaker 1: goals and systems. What do you mean by this?
Speaker 2: So your goal is your desired outcome, the target, the
Speaker 2: thing you're shooting for. Your system is the collection of
Speaker 2: habits that you follow each day. So almost by definition,
Speaker 2: your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results.
Speaker 2: Whatever outcomes you have or lifestyle you're enjoying or not
Speaker 2: enjoying right now, it's kind of a byproduct of the
Speaker 2: habits you've been running or the system you've been following
Speaker 2: for the last six months, year, two years. And so
Speaker 2: if you want the outcome to change, it's actually the
Speaker 2: habits that mean to change. And this doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: goals are useless, like I actually think goals are really
Speaker 2: helpful for setting a sense of direction, gaining clarity, figuring
Speaker 2: out what to optimize for. And I am someone who's
Speaker 2: very goal oriented, so in a lot of ways, I
Speaker 2: say all this stuff as a reminder to myself to
Speaker 2: try to focus a little bit more on the habits
Speaker 2: and the system and a little bit less on the
Speaker 2: outcome and the goal.
Speaker 1: I also think that when we engage with the kind
Speaker 1: of system that we want to build around us to
Speaker 1: achieve the goal, it actually has a nice sobering effect
Speaker 1: on the goal itself. So in a bubble, it's really
Speaker 1: easy to think audaciously, like incredibly ambitiously about the goal
Speaker 1: you're trying to achieve. But when you pressure test it
Speaker 1: in the context of a system, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the practical realities of how it is you're actually going
Speaker 1: to achieve that goal come into the light, and you
Speaker 1: might think to yourself, hmm, I might need a slightly
Speaker 1: more modest goal at least this time around. And that's
Speaker 1: not to say don't be ambitious, but that pressure testing
Speaker 1: is actually critical so that you don't feel that you're
Speaker 1: constantly failing or just set moonshots that you have no
Speaker 1: chance of reaching when it comes to day to day reality.
Speaker 2: I actually think it's a beautiful point. It's really wise
Speaker 2: of you to bring it up. A lot of the time,
Speaker 2: when I'm thinking about building my business, the first question
Speaker 2: that I feel like you should ask is how do
Speaker 2: I want to spend my days? And then inside of
Speaker 2: that you can ask questions like how could I grow
Speaker 2: the business more effectively, how can we reach more people?
Speaker 2: How can we make a bigger impact. But a lot
Speaker 2: of entrepreneurs start by asking how can we make the
Speaker 2: most money possible? And I feel like that's a very
Speaker 2: bad way to start, because you end up with a
Speaker 2: bunch of options that are not the way that you
Speaker 2: want to live your days. And so to your point
Speaker 2: about dreaming ambitiously, people will often come up with goals
Speaker 2: that they have for themselves, but then when they have
Speaker 2: to start implementing that or thinking about the system, they realize, oh,
Speaker 2: this isn't how I want to spend my time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, this isn't what I want to be doing.
Speaker 2: And what you find is that a lot of the
Speaker 2: people you're jealous of, or the results that you're envious of,
Speaker 2: a lot of the things that you kind of wish. Oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know what if I had what they had. You
Speaker 2: don't want to do what is required. You're not even
Speaker 2: interested in living that life. You know, there are many
Speaker 2: things like sometimes I I'll talk to some of my
Speaker 2: entrepreneur friends and just say something like, whatever the optimal
Speaker 2: way is to make money, you probably don't even want
Speaker 2: to do that. Like, you probably don't even want to
Speaker 2: make the most money because it's a lifestyle. It's completely
Speaker 2: unrelated to how you want to be spending your time,
Speaker 2: and you could transfer that into pretty much any domain
Speaker 2: in life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I really like that. And I think, look,
Speaker 1: some of us have the luxury of thinking how do
Speaker 1: I want to spend my days? Others of us don't
Speaker 1: have that luxury, and we just have so many demands
Speaker 1: on our time and our resources. And so the reason
Speaker 1: why it's good to engage with systems at the outset
Speaker 1: of goal pursuit is that there will just be natural
Speaker 1: constraints and limitations on imagine single mom of three working
Speaker 1: two shifts to make ends meet. They need to set
Speaker 1: reasonable goals given the demands on their time. So it's
Speaker 1: useful no matter what your starting point is. So you've
Speaker 1: convinced us that systems are important. I mean, they're really
Speaker 1: the driver of whether or not we achieve our goals.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us, James, about the four elements of
Speaker 1: habit formation, and then we can talk about how to
Speaker 1: try to optimize given those elements.
Speaker 2: Sure. So there's a much longer scientific discussion of the
Speaker 2: cinnatomic habits, but the brief summary is that I like
Speaker 2: to break a habit into four different stages, and I
Speaker 2: think if you understand these four stage you understand how
Speaker 2: habits work. So the first step is there's a queue.
Speaker 2: So there's something that you notice or gets your attention.
Speaker 2: So for example, you hear a siren, that's an ambulance
Speaker 2: coming up from behind you. That's an auditory queue that
Speaker 2: starts the habit of pulling to the side of the road.
Speaker 2: Or you see a plate of cookies on the counter
Speaker 2: in the kitchen, that might be a visual queue that
Speaker 2: starts the habit of eating a cookie. After the queue,
Speaker 2: the second step is the craving. There's some kind of
Speaker 2: interpretation that your brain makes about what's going on. So
Speaker 2: you see the plate of cookies in the counter visual queue,
Speaker 2: your brain thinks, oh, that'll be sweet, sugary, tasty, enjoyable.
Speaker 2: And so it's actually this moment of assigning a favorable
Speaker 2: meaning to the cookie that gives you this motivation, the urge,
Speaker 2: the desire to walk over, pick it up and take
Speaker 2: a bite. So that's the third step the response, and
Speaker 2: then finally there's a reward. Oh, it is in fact sweet, sugary, tasty, enjoyable.
Speaker 2: So Q craving response reward, And you can kind of
Speaker 2: imagine those four stages like going around a clock Q
Speaker 2: craving response reward, Q raving response reward. And the more
Speaker 2: that you cycle around that clock, the tighter that feedback
Speaker 2: loop becomes. The more that behaviors are preceded by a
Speaker 2: reliable queue and followed by an enjoyable reward, the tighter
Speaker 2: the habit is, and the more ingrained and automatic it becomes.
Speaker 2: And so that's kind of the very brief scientific description
Speaker 2: of what's going on in your brain when you're building
Speaker 2: a habit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what if the queue is simply a thought, Like
Speaker 1: for a lot of times, the queue is simply I
Speaker 1: want jalapino kettle potato chips, And it's like, I don't
Speaker 1: really know if there's a physical que in my environment
Speaker 1: or a particular context. It just that I know that
Speaker 1: thing's delicious, and so my brain during the middle of
Speaker 1: the day will just serve it up.
Speaker 2: Yep. The answer to this is going to differ depending
Speaker 2: on which researcher expert you talk to. For myself, I
Speaker 2: don't know. Some people believe that internal cues are a
Speaker 2: thing that they can arise spontaneously, and then that that
Speaker 2: could somehow dry before it. I guess I'll just say
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that spontaneous thoughts exist. It seems as
Speaker 2: if life is a very long, cascading chain of cause
Speaker 2: and effect, and that every thought actually comes from somewhere,
Speaker 2: even if you can't pin it down yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no question, just from like a physics point
Speaker 1: of view, that the thought about the kettle chips was
Speaker 1: preceded by something. But it does feel different to me
Speaker 1: when the queue is a plate of chocolatech of cookie
Speaker 1: sitting on the counter, versus when the queue is a
Speaker 1: flurry of subconscious thoughts that are then followed by wanting
Speaker 1: the kettle chips. Because in that frame I feel like
Speaker 1: I have less control over whether or not I get
Speaker 1: access to that queue. I don't even know what served
Speaker 1: it up in the first place. It was just a
Speaker 1: random smattering of thoughts that unfold it in a particular sequence.
Speaker 1: That's why it feels relevant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, habits of thought seem to be very hard to interrupt,
Speaker 2: you know. It's like, if this is bubbling up for me,
Speaker 2: how do I fix this habit where all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I feel like I have this urge to do something
Speaker 2: or to eat something, or to ruminate on something. And
Speaker 2: I will say that I don't have a great answer
Speaker 2: to that. It's not like saying, hey, if you don't
Speaker 2: want to eat more peanut butter, let's just keep jars
Speaker 2: of peanut butter out of the house, exact because now
Speaker 2: there's a lot of friction between you and the action, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those neurons are inside your damn head. Can't run
Speaker 1: away from them, folks can't lock them up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And so it's a very tricky thing and
Speaker 2: I don't know that I have a good answer to it.
Speaker 1: After the break, James teaches us how we can build
Speaker 1: habits that actually stick. We also discuss how our identity
Speaker 1: can shape our habits, and how our habits can shape
Speaker 1: our identity. We'll be back in a moment with a
Speaker 1: slight change of plants. Let's talk about how we can
Speaker 1: make good habits stick. Talk to me about the four
Speaker 1: laws of habit building, and then for each one, I'd
Speaker 1: love to ask you a couple of questions.
Speaker 2: Sure, let me just give a brief summary and then
Speaker 2: we can dive in. If you want a habit to stick,
Speaker 2: there are basically four things that you want to happen.
Speaker 2: So you want the cues of your good habits to
Speaker 2: be obvious, so the first laws to make it obvious.
Speaker 2: You want the craving to be attractive, to be compelling,
Speaker 2: so the second laws to make it attractive. The more
Speaker 2: compelling or enticing or motivating a habit is, the more
Speaker 2: likely are going to feel like you want to do it.
Speaker 2: The third laws you want to make it easy. The easier,
Speaker 2: more convenient, frictionalless simple habit is, the more likely it
Speaker 2: is to be performed. And then the fourth and final
Speaker 2: laws you want to make it satisfying. The more satisfying
Speaker 2: or enjoyable habit is, the more rewarding or pleasurable it
Speaker 2: is the more likely you are to feel compelled to
Speaker 2: do it in the future. So if you're sitting there
Speaker 2: and you're thinking, no, I have this habit, I keep
Speaker 2: procrastinating on it. I just can't quite seem to get started.
Speaker 2: You can just go through those four laws and ask yourself,
Speaker 2: how can I make the behavior more obvious? How can
Speaker 2: I make it more attractive? How can I make it easier?
Speaker 2: How can I make it more satisfying? And the answers
Speaker 2: to those questions will reveal different steps that you can take.
Speaker 1: So let's start with how we can make things more obvious.
Speaker 1: What are some examples?
Speaker 2: I think one interesting thing you can do is just
Speaker 2: hold a habit in the back of your mind that
Speaker 2: you're thinking about building, and then walk into the rooms
Speaker 2: where you spend most of your time each day and
Speaker 2: look around and ask yourself, what is this space designed
Speaker 2: to encourage? What behaviors are obvious here? What behaviors are
Speaker 2: easy here? And you're going to start to notice different things. So,
Speaker 2: for example, I had a reader who wanted to practice
Speaker 2: guitar more frequently. He would go once a week and
Speaker 2: then he would not practice, and he'd show up with
Speaker 2: the next lesson and his instructor would say, you haven't practiced,
Speaker 2: and so he took his guitar out of the case,
Speaker 2: put it on a stand in the middle of the
Speaker 2: living room. He would pass it thirty times a day,
Speaker 2: and so he's more likely to pick it up and play.
Speaker 2: So get you get the idea right, which is you're
Speaker 2: just trying to make the thing that you want to
Speaker 2: do more obvious, and you're trying to make the thing
Speaker 2: you don't want to do less obvious and increase friction there.
Speaker 1: What do we do in situations where we really don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of control over our environment. This actually
Speaker 1: became quite salient during quarantine for me. So I remember
Speaker 1: I was working basically from my kitchen, and so there
Speaker 1: was no ability for me to make something like obvious
Speaker 1: you're not obvious in that context or as much harder too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what if we can't do something about this?
Speaker 2: So COVID is a very easy example that you just mentioned.
Speaker 2: You know a lot of people suddenly they're working from
Speaker 2: the kitchen or from their living room. Now I can
Speaker 2: snack all day or turn on TV anytime or whatever.
Speaker 2: So this is a strategy. It comes from BJ Fogg,
Speaker 2: Professor at Stanford, and he's got this kind of tiny
Speaker 2: habits method. I refer to it in atomic habits as
Speaker 2: habit stacking, because you're going to stack your new habit
Speaker 2: on top of an old one. But the idea is
Speaker 2: just that in FOG's insight, which I think is really smart,
Speaker 2: is that it's often easier to stick to a new
Speaker 2: habit if you chain it or link it to something
Speaker 2: that you just did before. So let's take your example
Speaker 2: of working in the kitchen. Maybe something you already do
Speaker 2: each morning is that you make a cup of coffee,
Speaker 2: and maybe there's some new productive behavior that you want
Speaker 2: to do so that you get into the swing of
Speaker 2: your day. You know, just say work on the most
Speaker 2: important past, just to use a general thing, but it
Speaker 2: could be more specific if you know what it is
Speaker 2: for your job. So your habit stack could be something
Speaker 2: like I walk into the kitchen, I make my cup
Speaker 2: of coffee. After I pour my cup of coffee, I
Speaker 2: will immediately start working on the most important thing. And
Speaker 2: you give yourself this order of events that things always
Speaker 2: happen in the same way, and so you kind of
Speaker 2: try to link the habit to a specific queue in
Speaker 2: that environment.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about making things attractive. So what does this
Speaker 1: mean in the context of habit formation. I'm assuming you
Speaker 1: mean I should just bring a life size poster like
Speaker 1: David Beckham with me everywhere I go.
Speaker 2: Honestly, though like that could do. It depends on what
Speaker 2: the habit is. So I think my current answer to
Speaker 2: this I wish I had written this in the book,
Speaker 2: but I didn't. It is worth asking yourself what would
Speaker 2: this look like if it was fun. One of the
Speaker 2: most common New Year's resolutions is to exercise more. And
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of people are exercising or
Speaker 2: going to the gym in January just because they feel
Speaker 2: like they should go to the gym, or that like
Speaker 2: society wants them to or they're expected to. And there
Speaker 2: are many ways to live an active lifestyle. Some people
Speaker 2: like lifting weights like a bodybuilder, and that's great, but
Speaker 2: you don't have to do that. You could kayak or
Speaker 2: rock climb, or go for a run or do yoga.
Speaker 2: Like we could come up with an almost infinite list
Speaker 2: of what that might look like, and you should choose
Speaker 2: the version of that habit that is most fun to you.
Speaker 2: And this doesn't mean that every habit in your life
Speaker 2: is going to feel like going to a concert. Right,
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that like your habits are going to
Speaker 2: feel like the most fun thing that you do. But
Speaker 2: most things in life, there may not be like a
Speaker 2: thousand ways to do it, but there's almost always more
Speaker 2: than one way, and you can almost always find a
Speaker 2: version that is more fun than the default. And so
Speaker 2: I think you should start there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one thing we can suffer from I
Speaker 1: certainly suffer from this is having a bit of a
Speaker 1: purity complex around building new habits or certain behaviors. So
Speaker 1: one of my goals is to just eat more vegetables.
Speaker 1: Team I'm a vegetari, so you know, it's a pretty
Speaker 1: pretty substantial fraction of what I should be eating, but
Speaker 1: I don't. And so my goal is to eat salad
Speaker 1: more regularly. But I had a purity complex about it.
Speaker 1: So it's like, well, if I'm going to eat salad,
Speaker 1: then I should get the healthy dressing and I should
Speaker 1: be really sparing in terms of the toppings salad toppers
Speaker 1: I put on it. And my husband kind of changed
Speaker 1: my mind about this. He like makes his salad a
Speaker 1: party every day. There's like a party inside his bowl, James,
Speaker 1: and so I have become very expensive. In my definition
Speaker 1: of what a salad topper is, it could be crushed
Speaker 1: of potato chips. The other day, I put Snyder's honey
Speaker 1: mustard pretzels on top of my salad and I just
Speaker 1: go like I go to town with the salad. And
Speaker 1: what's remarkable, since implementing this new rule at work this
Speaker 1: whole year, I basically had salad for lunch like ninety
Speaker 1: percent of the time. And so that was a really
Speaker 1: good lesson for me, which is, if you're trying to
Speaker 1: introduce a new thing, you don't have to reach for
Speaker 1: perfection or feel like it's a painful, arduous process, and
Speaker 1: therefore it's virtuous. There's some middle ground there, and it
Speaker 1: actually led my habit to stick because I do look
Speaker 1: forward to I look forward to lunch now like a
Speaker 1: lunch that includes salad.
Speaker 2: That's a great example. There is so much truth to
Speaker 2: the fact that you should try to do things in
Speaker 2: the beginning that feel good and are enjoyable, and if
Speaker 2: you can find a way to make it enjoyable, then
Speaker 2: you have a reason to keep repeating it. And now
Speaker 2: that you're having salid ninety percent of days, sure, maybe
Speaker 2: there are little ways that you can start to optimize it.
Speaker 2: I think you bring up a good point about there's
Speaker 2: a certain type of person that has this mindset where
Speaker 2: it's like for it to be virtuous or for it
Speaker 2: to count, it has to be perfect, or it has
Speaker 2: to be done you know, really well.
Speaker 1: Or that or very hard in pa.
Speaker 2: I need to feel like I'm suffering otherwise it doesn't
Speaker 2: count yep. And that's a mindset that I do think,
Speaker 2: even if it has served you in your life where
Speaker 2: you found it useful in many ways, which I think
Speaker 2: a lot of the people who believe it because they
Speaker 2: feel like it's served them, it's worth releasing that for
Speaker 2: a little bit and at least experimenting and seeing what
Speaker 2: it might be like for it to be fun for
Speaker 2: a little bit and to get the habit established and
Speaker 2: you can scale it up and turn into something more.
Speaker 2: And this can take many different shapes, but I do
Speaker 2: think that this is a very deep truth about habits,
Speaker 2: which is a habit must be established before it can
Speaker 2: be improved. You know, it has to become the standard
Speaker 2: in your life before you can scale it up and
Speaker 2: optimize it and turn it into all the things that
Speaker 2: you want it to be. And so you figured out
Speaker 2: how to get salads established as part of your daily routine,
Speaker 2: and you made it fun, and once it was established, great,
Speaker 2: then there were so many ways that you could figure
Speaker 2: out how to make it healthier. But you try to
Speaker 2: figure out how do I get this going first? And
Speaker 2: I think that's a great lens to use. There's also
Speaker 2: another question that I think is worth just kind of
Speaker 2: thinking about or holding on to, which is a lot
Speaker 2: of people start by when they think about the habits
Speaker 2: they want to build. I think especially this is a
Speaker 2: pitfall for ambitious people or talented people who you know,
Speaker 2: really when you start sitting her down and thinking about
Speaker 2: what I want to achieve, your natural inclinations to be, like,
Speaker 2: what could I do on my best day? You know,
Speaker 2: what would it look like if I was at peak performance?
Speaker 2: What would it look like if I was really firing
Speaker 2: on all cylinders. You start to get excited about who
Speaker 2: that future peak performance you could be, and instead, I
Speaker 2: think it's almost better to ask yourself, what would I
Speaker 2: stick to even on my bad days?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I really like that.
Speaker 2: What would I stick to on my worst day? And
Speaker 2: that becomes the baseline for the new habit. You know,
Speaker 2: you're like, even when I don't feel like eating salad,
Speaker 2: I'll probably eat this one that tastes really good and
Speaker 2: has the potato chips on it, and it's like kind
Speaker 2: of fun and exciting, and you can come up with
Speaker 2: like what that might look like for me. For my
Speaker 2: writing habit, one of my objectives is just to write
Speaker 2: one sentence a day. It's like, look, even when I'm
Speaker 2: exhausted and the day has gone terribly and I haven't
Speaker 2: gotten anything done I wanted to get done, I can
Speaker 2: write one sentence before I go to sleep. So figure
Speaker 2: out what your baseline is for what you can stick
Speaker 2: to even on the bad days, and then great, if
Speaker 2: you feel better, scale it up from there. But I
Speaker 2: think your example is a nice way of seeing how
Speaker 2: that can work out.
Speaker 1: I this also, you know, fits into your make it
Speaker 1: easy bucket of habit formation. I love one of the
Speaker 1: stories that you talk about, which is a guy who
Speaker 1: is trying to commit to going to the gym.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's this reader, my name Mitch, and he's lost
Speaker 2: over one hundred pounds and now he's kept it off
Speaker 2: for more than a decade. And when he first started
Speaker 2: going to the gym, he had this strange little rule
Speaker 2: for himself where for the first six weeks he wasn't
Speaker 2: allowed to stay for longer than five minutes, so he
Speaker 2: would get in the car, drive to the gym, do
Speaker 2: half an exercise, get back to the car, drive home.
Speaker 2: He was mastering the art of showing up. He was
Speaker 2: figuring out how to make it part of his daily routine,
Speaker 2: how to make it fun or easy enough that he
Speaker 2: would do it. And there's this great quote from Ed
Speaker 2: Latimer where he says, the heaviest weight at the gym
Speaker 2: is the front door. Like, there are a lot of
Speaker 2: things in life that are like that. You know, the
Speaker 2: hardest step is the first.
Speaker 1: One, absolutely, And then what about the fourth law of
Speaker 1: habit building making it satisfying? How is this different from
Speaker 1: making something attractive? Is this more the residual feeling that
Speaker 1: you're left with after the experience.
Speaker 2: No, it's a good question. They're definitely related.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The make it attractive is often not exclusively, but often
Speaker 2: it's about your expectation of what the payoff is going
Speaker 2: to be. So it's the attractive part is usually about
Speaker 2: anticipation motivation, whereas the satisfying part is about the resolution
Speaker 2: of that anticipation. So making it attractive is like I
Speaker 2: expect this cookie to taste good. Making it satisfying is
Speaker 2: I just ate it, And it did in fact taste sweet, sugary, tasty, enjoyable.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But the point here that the kind of practical takeaway,
Speaker 2: and I refer to this in the book as the
Speaker 2: cardinal rule of behavior change, which is behaviors that get
Speaker 2: immediately rewarded get repeated, behaviors that get immediately punished get avoided.
Speaker 2: And it is such a basic, simple idea as soon
Speaker 2: as you hear it stated. But all human beings like
Speaker 2: to feel good. We all want to feel praised, to
Speaker 2: feel rewarded, We all want to feel satisfied and to
Speaker 2: enjoy experiences in life. And so the more that your
Speaker 2: habits can give you a positive emotion like that, the
Speaker 2: more likely you are to repeat them in the future.
Speaker 2: And we also, on the flip side, want to avoid
Speaker 2: things that have consequences that feel painful, that it cause
Speaker 2: you to suffer, that are unenjoyable. So the basic idea
Speaker 2: here is how do I feel after I can lead
Speaker 2: the habit, And the more that you feel good or
Speaker 2: enjoy it, the more likely are to show up again
Speaker 2: in the future. So that's kind of the big picture
Speaker 2: view of it.
Speaker 1: This is why my absolute favorite number one habit building
Speaker 1: strategy is temptation fundling, which is, you know, it was
Speaker 1: a concept created by my friend and former collaborator Katie Milkman,
Speaker 1: and essentially all temptation bundling is you pair the undesirable thing. Right.
Speaker 1: Let's say you have to fold laundry with a desirable thing,
Speaker 1: which in this case is of course listening to an
Speaker 1: episode of A Slight Change of Plans, right, And so
Speaker 1: you pair these two things, but really crucially you deny
Speaker 1: yourself the ability to do the pleasurable thing outside of
Speaker 1: the context of the undesirable activity.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So if you're not doing laundry, then you're not listening
Speaker 1: to your favorite episode of a podcast or a TV
Speaker 1: show or whatnot. And I cannot tell you what a
Speaker 1: game changer this has been for me in my life.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest reasons that I was drawn to
Speaker 1: your work, James, and what I found so refreshing in
Speaker 1: Atomic Habits is that you talk about habits in the
Speaker 1: context of identity.
Speaker 2: So we often talk about habits as mattering because of
Speaker 2: the external results they'll get you. But I think the
Speaker 2: real reason the habits matter is that every action you
Speaker 2: take is a vote for the type of person you
Speaker 2: wish to become. So your habits are how you embody
Speaker 2: a particular identity. So, for example, every morning that you
Speaker 2: make your bet, you embody the identity of someone who
Speaker 2: is clean and organized. Every time that you study biology
Speaker 2: for twenty minutes on Tuesday night, you embody the identity
Speaker 2: of someone who is studious. And individually these are small things,
Speaker 2: but collectively it's like casting votes on this pile and
Speaker 2: building up a body of evidence for being that kind
Speaker 2: of person. And the first time that you go out
Speaker 2: and shoot a basketball for five minutes, you don't suddenly think, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm a basketball player. But if you do that every
Speaker 2: day for the next six months or year or two years,
Speaker 2: at some point you kind of cross this invisible threshold
Speaker 2: where you say, hey, being a basketball player must be
Speaker 2: a big part of my life, Like that's kind of
Speaker 2: part of who I am. And I think this is
Speaker 2: ultimately where we're trying to get to, and this is
Speaker 2: in atomic habits. I call this identity based habits, but
Speaker 2: it's basically this idea that true behavior change is really
Speaker 2: identity change. It's really getting you to shift the story
Speaker 2: about who you are and what's normal for you. And
Speaker 2: if you start to take pride in that aspect of
Speaker 2: your story, if you start to believe I'm this kind
Speaker 2: of person who does this, it becomes a little easier
Speaker 2: to stick to the behavior. And I think that's the deeper,
Speaker 2: more meaningful reason to care about your habits and what
Speaker 2: they are, because they're shaping you every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love how subtle changes in the way
Speaker 1: that we frame things to ourselves or to others can
Speaker 1: have a big impact on our behavior. So the whole
Speaker 1: research on identity priming which says that we act in
Speaker 1: ways that align with our current identity or the identity
Speaker 1: that we aspire to have, so it can use health reinforcing.
Speaker 1: And you give the example of someone who's trying to
Speaker 1: quit smoking cigarettes and they're offered a cigarette and one
Speaker 1: person says, no thanks, I'm trying to quit, Okay, that
Speaker 1: person's identity is of being someone who's trying to change
Speaker 1: versus someone who says no thanks, I'm not a smoker.
Speaker 1: They no longer identify as someone who smokes, and that
Speaker 1: slight tweak in how we self identify can have a
Speaker 1: big impact on our subsequent decisions.
Speaker 2: I think that behavior and beliefs are two way street.
Speaker 2: So you know, what you believe influences the way you act,
Speaker 2: and the way you act influence is what you think
Speaker 2: about yourself. And so that's why I often encourage people
Speaker 2: start with, you know, one sales call or one push
Speaker 2: up or one minute meditation like that action can help
Speaker 2: cast a boat for believing something new about yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but the example that you're giving here, you can see
Speaker 2: how it works the other way as well. You know,
Speaker 2: we all have beliefs and identities that serve us and
Speaker 2: that hinder us. So things like I'm terrible remembering people's names,
Speaker 2: I'm not good at directions, I have a sweet tooth.
Speaker 2: These are all little stories that you tell yourself that
Speaker 2: reinforce a certain type of behavior. And progress often requires
Speaker 2: unlearning as much as it requires learning. And so one
Speaker 2: of the big challenges with the behavior changes, can I
Speaker 2: unlearn some of the identities that are no longer serving me? Yeah,
Speaker 2: And so that's a tricky thing, and I think the
Speaker 2: best way to do it is by taking small actions
Speaker 2: that cast votes for this new identity that you want
Speaker 2: to have and gradually let the new identity crowd out
Speaker 2: the older one. But it's not a one time thing.
Speaker 2: It's not a one day thing. It's a lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the more that you can start to embrace that,
Speaker 2: the more that you can start to foster and build
Speaker 2: these new identities.
Speaker 1: It seems so appealing to tether your identity to your
Speaker 1: behaviors because it is such a hugely motivating force. Right.
Speaker 1: If you self identify as a runner, you're more likely
Speaker 1: to run. If you self identify as a writer, you're
Speaker 1: more likely to write. But it's a double edged sword, right,
Speaker 1: because if we wrap our sense of self, our sense
Speaker 1: is self worth so much in our habits, then if
Speaker 1: you lose the ability to do something, it can be
Speaker 1: so destabilizing. Right. So let's imagine a woman who's been
Speaker 1: a runner for the last ten years, self identifies as
Speaker 1: a runner, then has kids and endures some sort of
Speaker 1: injury as a result of her pregnancy that renders are
Speaker 1: unable to run. Now you're not only mourning the loss
Speaker 1: of running, but you're mourning the loss of yourself in
Speaker 1: some more fundamental way. And so how do we think
Speaker 1: about that trade off so that the transitions in life.
Speaker 1: I mean, the show is all about slight changes of
Speaker 1: plan don't carry such a heavy burden.
Speaker 2: This is very common. I've heard about this from a
Speaker 2: lot of readers since the book has come out. So
Speaker 2: some other examples that are similar to what you're mentioning.
Speaker 2: A person who identifies as a soldier. They've been in
Speaker 2: the military for many years, and then they leave and
Speaker 2: they become a civilian. What am I now? I feel
Speaker 2: like I lost my identity. I recently heard from a
Speaker 2: mother who her kids have now grown and gone off
Speaker 2: to college, and she's suddenly an empty nester. She's like,
Speaker 2: for the last twenty years, I've been a mother, So
Speaker 2: you know, like I am still now, but in what way?
Speaker 2: You know, it feels so different. And so we all
Speaker 2: can think of these inflection points that we have in
Speaker 2: our life where we're kind of mourning the loss of
Speaker 2: a previous identity, or there's this trans from someone that
Speaker 2: we thought we were to this new stage or this
Speaker 2: new chapter. There is always going to be some part
Speaker 2: of greeting that is part of that. And you know,
Speaker 2: if your life is not going to look the same,
Speaker 2: then that I don't think. I don't think it's reasonable
Speaker 2: to tell people we just don't feel that way, you know,
Speaker 2: like that's a natural part of being human.
Speaker 1: Right, especially if it's constituted a part of your self worth,
Speaker 1: your self identity.
Speaker 2: But I do think there's an effective way to think
Speaker 2: about it, or maybe some useful things that you can
Speaker 2: do that don't necessarily remove it from your life, that feeling,
Speaker 2: but maybe lessen the blow or give you an effective
Speaker 2: way to move forward. So, in the case of the
Speaker 2: military example, I'm a soldier for a long time, I've
Speaker 2: become a civilian. What am I now? Well, you may
Speaker 2: not still be a soldier, but you could be the
Speaker 2: kind of person who falls through on their mission. You
Speaker 2: could be a good teammate, you could be the type
Speaker 2: of person who is reliable. And these are all qualities
Speaker 2: that were part of your life as a soldier and
Speaker 2: they can still be part of your life now as
Speaker 2: a civilian. And so I think that's one of the
Speaker 2: first questions is which of the traits or pieces of
Speaker 2: my previous identity are transferable into this new chapter. And
Speaker 2: so that I feel like maybe the label is different,
Speaker 2: but I don't have to lose who I am or
Speaker 2: how I operate. You know, or what I consider to
Speaker 2: be core parts of my personality, I can still find
Speaker 2: outlets for those, So I think that is one effective
Speaker 2: way to kind of manage that change.
Speaker 1: So, James, you've shared so much valuable content with us today.
Speaker 1: For the listener who's feeling energized to begin this new habit,
Speaker 1: what's your advice to them?
Speaker 2: I feel like sometimes the two best time frames to
Speaker 2: focus on are either ten years or one hour. So
Speaker 2: ten years is like, if you think about most of
Speaker 2: the meaningful things you're trying to achieve in your life,
Speaker 2: building a great marriage, raising kids that you're proud of,
Speaker 2: growing a successful business, or launching a startup, writing a book,
Speaker 2: getting in the best shape of your life, pick whatever
Speaker 2: it is for you. These are almost always multi year things,
Speaker 2: and so it's a big thing to try to accomplish.
Speaker 2: But I think just think about that big fisher thing
Speaker 2: you're trying to move toward, and then scale it down
Speaker 2: and ask yourself, what can I do in the next
Speaker 2: hour to move me toward where I want to be
Speaker 2: in ten years? And if you just make it granular
Speaker 2: like that and try to have one good step today,
Speaker 2: you turn around in a year or two or five
Speaker 2: or ten and probably be surprised by a lot of
Speaker 2: the progress that you made. So in that way, I
Speaker 2: think you can have a strategy where small habits are
Speaker 2: not just about doing things that are small, they're also
Speaker 2: about doing things that are powerful. And that's one of
Speaker 2: the main reasons why I chose the phrase atomic habits.
Speaker 2: It's not only tighty, it's also powerful.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed my
Speaker 1: conversation with James, don't miss the next two weeks of
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans. We're revisiting two of our
Speaker 1: favorite episodes. The first one is an episode on the
Speaker 1: science of making and keeping friends, and then a conversation
Speaker 1: about how a small shift in mindset can make stress
Speaker 1: work for us rather than against us. And I'm excited
Speaker 1: to share that we're back with the new season of
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans beginning in early March, and
Speaker 1: it is a goodie. We can't wait to share it
Speaker 1: with you. See you soon. A Slight Change of Plans
Speaker 1: is created, written, and executive produced by me Maya Schunker.
Speaker 1: The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our
Speaker 1: senior editor Kate Parkinson, Morgan, our producer Trisha Ba and
Speaker 1: our sound engineer Andrew Vastola. Louis Scara wrote our delightful
Speaker 1: theme song and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocal. A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker