Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to the week between Christmas and
Speaker 1: New Year's. I hope you are having a great holiday season.
Speaker 1: If you're not, if you're one of those people that
Speaker 1: dislikes this time of year, then I hope you're coping
Speaker 1: with it the best you can and getting through it.
Speaker 1: What we're gonna do over the next several days is
Speaker 1: re release some of our best episodes on behavior change
Speaker 1: and habit change in preparation for the New Year's Many
Speaker 1: of you are making New Year's resolutions, and hopefully these
Speaker 1: will help you strengthen those. I think that the end
Speaker 1: of a year and the beginning of a new decade
Speaker 1: are great time is to kind of reflect on what's
Speaker 1: working well in our lives and what's not. And these
Speaker 1: episodes should help you once you've done that reflection, to
Speaker 1: maybe put some of those things more into practice in
Speaker 1: your life. If you are looking at your life and
Speaker 1: you're realizing you could use a little bit of help
Speaker 1: with these things you've been trying over and over again
Speaker 1: haven't had much success, you might want to consider the
Speaker 1: one you feed transformation program. You can go to Eric
Speaker 1: Zimmer dot coach slash application. We'll have a all together
Speaker 1: there's no pressure on that call, and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: how you might implement some of these strategies for you.
Speaker 1: And now here is the episode. This is the first
Speaker 1: of two episodes we did about a little over a
Speaker 1: year and a few months ago with James Clear about
Speaker 1: habit change. We're going to re release these two as
Speaker 1: well as a couple others between now and the New
Speaker 1: Year's I hope these are helpful to you, and as always,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening and supporting us. The same way
Speaker 1: that money compounds are multiplies through compound interest, the effects
Speaker 1: of your habits multiplies you repeat them over time. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 1: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negative by
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us, everybody. Today's guest is James Clear, who
Speaker 1: has been on the show before, which was an amazing
Speaker 1: episode and everybody loved it. The second interview is really
Speaker 1: fun because Eric and I were able to record it
Speaker 1: live in person with James, so you'll hear a little
Speaker 1: bit of that room reverb and everything. But there's just
Speaker 1: something I love with all of these interviews is that
Speaker 1: we've done live like this. There's something about I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's possibly the nonverbal communication, and then the
Speaker 1: way that Eric is able to interact with people just
Speaker 1: seems to really bring out the best. And this new
Speaker 1: interview with James Clear is no exception. 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: Hi James, welcome to the show. Hey, great stalk to you.
Speaker 1: We have had very few guests who have appeared twice,
Speaker 1: so welcome to Still at Club. Very nice, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I crossed the threshold. Appreciate the opportunity. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: our first interview was really well loved by listeners, so
Speaker 1: I'm excited to do it again. You have a new
Speaker 1: book called Atomic Habits that is coming out. I think
Speaker 1: it's out today, so congratulations on that. Yeah, thank you,
Speaker 1: And we'll jump into that in just a minute. But
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do with the parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: a battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandson stops and thinks about it
Speaker 1: for a second. He looks up at his grandfather and
Speaker 1: he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says,
Speaker 1: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 1: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a great story. So right now, in
Speaker 1: the context of where I'm at right now, I think
Speaker 1: a lot about like what habits are we feeding? You know,
Speaker 1: this is one of the things I say earlier in
Speaker 1: the book that habits can compound for you or against you.
Speaker 1: And this is essentially what that parable is saying, right that,
Speaker 1: like whatever one you feed is the one that has magnified,
Speaker 1: the one that gains strength over time. And habits are
Speaker 1: a lot like that, you know, like on any given day,
Speaker 1: it's really easy to overlook the importance of them. They
Speaker 1: don't really seem like a whole lot. I mean, you know, like,
Speaker 1: what is the difference between eating a burger and fries
Speaker 1: for lunch or eating a salad. There's not really a
Speaker 1: whole lot of difference there. You know, at the end
Speaker 1: of the night, you look basically the same in the mirror.
Speaker 1: The scale weighs more or less the same um. But
Speaker 1: if you compound those choices over two or five or
Speaker 1: ten years, you end up with a very different outcome.
Speaker 1: It's only like a decade later that the importance of
Speaker 1: your daily habits becomes like fully apparent and you see
Speaker 1: how critical those daily choices are. So in a sense,
Speaker 1: I think this idea of the one you feed for
Speaker 1: me right now, I think a lot about like what
Speaker 1: habits a my feeding? Um? You know, like, what what
Speaker 1: daily actions am I taking that are either one percent
Speaker 1: better or one percent worse? And uh, over the long
Speaker 1: run they add up to very different outcomes. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: say in the book that we often dismiss small changes
Speaker 1: because they don't seem to matter very much in the moment.
Speaker 1: That strikes me as so true. You also say small
Speaker 1: changes equal big results. They can, um, you know. So
Speaker 1: this idea that habits are like a double edged sword,
Speaker 1: I think is something that it recurs multiple times throughout
Speaker 1: the book because pretty much any of the things that
Speaker 1: can work for you with habits, like having an environment
Speaker 1: that is well designed for a particular task, or being
Speaker 1: in a tribe or in a social group that nudges
Speaker 1: you in a certain direction, they also can work against you,
Speaker 1: you know, like peer pressure can be positive or negative
Speaker 1: in this particular example. Um. But but if you can
Speaker 1: manage to orient those forces in the right direction, then
Speaker 1: you can end up with some really powerful habits in
Speaker 1: the long run. And you know, I like to say
Speaker 1: that habits of the compound interest of self improvement. And
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is the same way that
Speaker 1: money compounds are multiplies. Through compound interest, the effects of
Speaker 1: your habits multiplies. You repeat them over time, and it's
Speaker 1: it's not really like that linear curve where you just
Speaker 1: put in a little bit of work and you get
Speaker 1: a little bit results and just kind of goes up
Speaker 1: at a forty five year angle. It feels more like
Speaker 1: the compound interest curve where in the beginning you don't
Speaker 1: really see anything. You know, like I just gave that
Speaker 1: example of eating salad for lunch versus eating a burger
Speaker 1: and fries. But similarly, you could say, like, what's the
Speaker 1: difference between studying Chinese for an hour tonight or not
Speaker 1: sitting at all? Not a whole lot, Like you haven't
Speaker 1: learned the language either way. It feels like you put
Speaker 1: work in or you don't poke work in, you're at
Speaker 1: the same point in the curve. But if you continue
Speaker 1: that the same way that like saving for retirement, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden like couple of decades later, your compound
Speaker 1: and all the greatest returns are delayed. It's the same
Speaker 1: with habits. Often the most significant outcomes are on the
Speaker 1: latter half of the curve. Yeah, and that idea of
Speaker 1: habits being double edged swords will cover a couple of
Speaker 1: different times in the book. You have the four laws
Speaker 1: of behavior change, which will cover but they all have
Speaker 1: an inverse which covers the bad habits. You know, here's
Speaker 1: what you do if you want to build a good habit.
Speaker 1: Here's what you want to do if you want to
Speaker 1: build you want to get rid of a bad habit.
Speaker 1: Bad habits seemed to build themselves pretty easily. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that same sort of thing. And I think that
Speaker 1: I love this line where you say your outcomes are
Speaker 1: a lagging measure of your habits, right, And I do
Speaker 1: think that that is one of the things that's so
Speaker 1: hard with building new habits or you know, starting a
Speaker 1: new exercise routine or whatever. Like you said, you don't
Speaker 1: see the results right away. You you do the work
Speaker 1: for a while, and then eventually, if you keep it up,
Speaker 1: you start to see the results. Let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that idea that you said that habits
Speaker 1: often appear to make no difference until you cross sort
Speaker 1: of this critical threshold. You use some examples in the book.
Speaker 1: You just used them with money. The other one that
Speaker 1: I thought was such a good example is bamboo. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So bamboo, Uh, for like the first five years, it
Speaker 1: kind of grows these extensive roots systems underground and doesn't
Speaker 1: look like anything, and you know, there's nothing to show
Speaker 1: for it. And then all of a sudden, I will
Speaker 1: shoot you know, sixty or eighty feet into the air
Speaker 1: in just a few weeks, and right, it's it's that
Speaker 1: that's how it actually grows. UM. Cancer is another example
Speaker 1: that I've given the book. You know, it's undetectable for
Speaker 1: most of its life in the body, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it takes over the body in months.
Speaker 1: And this um this idea of this like compounding aspect.
Speaker 1: It's prevalent in many areas of life. But the idea
Speaker 1: is that you need to build the foundation for you
Speaker 1: to hit this transition and to see the results. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, another example I've given the book, I like
Speaker 1: to use the metaphor of heating up an ice cube,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like, imagine you're in a cold room.
Speaker 1: You can see your breath. You've got this ice cube
Speaker 1: on the table, it's like twenty five degrees. You heat
Speaker 1: it up twenty six, twenty nine, and still like nothing
Speaker 1: has happened. There's just this ice cube sitting there thirty one.
Speaker 1: And then you go from thirty one to thirty two
Speaker 1: degrees and it's this one degree shift, no different than
Speaker 1: all the other little shifts that came before. But suddenly
Speaker 1: you hit this phase transition and the ice cube melts.
Speaker 1: And habits aren't exactly like that, but the process of
Speaker 1: building a habit is often feels like that. It's similar,
Speaker 1: you know, where like you're banking work, you're putting in
Speaker 1: your ups and you don't really feel like you have
Speaker 1: much to show for it. And a lot of the
Speaker 1: time that can be very frustrating when you're in the
Speaker 1: process of trying to change something because you're like, man,
Speaker 1: I've been running for three months, Like why hasn't my
Speaker 1: body changed? But it's important to realize that complaining about
Speaker 1: working for three months or six months or a little
Speaker 1: while on a goal or on a habit and not
Speaker 1: having the results you want. It's kind of like complaining
Speaker 1: about heating and ice cube from thirty one degrees. You know, like,
Speaker 1: the work isn't wasted, is just being stored, and you
Speaker 1: have to be willing to stick with it long enough
Speaker 1: to break through that plateau and let it hit that
Speaker 1: phase transition and release the results. And that again, it's
Speaker 1: difficult to feel in the moment, but but in the
Speaker 1: long run, it can lead you in a really good place. Right.
Speaker 1: And this leads to another idea that comes up in
Speaker 1: the book a lot, which is that we spend too
Speaker 1: much time focused on goals, and you recommend focusing on
Speaker 1: systems instead. So first, let's talk about why a focus
Speaker 1: on goals can be counterproductive. Well, so, first of all,
Speaker 1: I mean this is coming from someone who I set
Speaker 1: goals for so many areas in my life for many years.
Speaker 1: I mean it was very goal oriented, right. I would
Speaker 1: set goals for like the grades I wanted to get
Speaker 1: in school, or how much weight I wanted to lift
Speaker 1: in the gym, or what I wanted my business to
Speaker 1: do over the next quarter, all kinds of stuff, and uh,
Speaker 1: sometimes I would achieve those goals, but a lot of
Speaker 1: the time I wouldn't. And so at some point I
Speaker 1: got to this like conclusion where it's like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: setting all these goals, but only some of them are
Speaker 1: working out. Clearly, goal setting is not the thing that's
Speaker 1: determining whether I'm making progress or not. So I should
Speaker 1: say before I get super anti goals or talk about
Speaker 1: the downsides of goals. I'm not saying goals are useless.
Speaker 1: I think goals still have a purpose, and the purposes
Speaker 1: that they provide clarity, They provide a sense of direction.
Speaker 1: If you have a goal, you know where to focus
Speaker 1: your attention and energy, and that's good. But after you
Speaker 1: set a goal, it's pretty much good to immediately put
Speaker 1: it on the shelf. And I think that this is
Speaker 1: hard for us to do because we live in a
Speaker 1: society that really prioritizes goals or prioritizes results. Like take
Speaker 1: the news for example, Um, it's pretty much only a
Speaker 1: news story once it's out an outcome. You know, like
Speaker 1: you're never going to hear a news story that's, uh,
Speaker 1: man eats chicken and salad for lunch, right, It's only
Speaker 1: going to be a story like six months later when
Speaker 1: it's like man loses fifty pounds um. So we're very
Speaker 1: outcome focused and this is just magnified even more by
Speaker 1: social media because we see everybody's results all day long,
Speaker 1: and I think because of that, because we're inundated with results,
Speaker 1: we tend to overvalue them. We tend to think, oh,
Speaker 1: it's all about the goal, it's all about achieving this
Speaker 1: big results, about the outcome, and so we get very
Speaker 1: outcome and goal focused, but in fact, every outcome is
Speaker 1: preceded by some kind of process and this is this
Speaker 1: gets into some of the downsides of being overly focused
Speaker 1: on goals, which is we think that what we need
Speaker 1: to do is change our results. We think that what
Speaker 1: we need to do is to achieve a goal, but
Speaker 1: really the goal is not the thing that needs to change. So,
Speaker 1: for example, say you have a messy room or your
Speaker 1: garage is like, you know, completely filled with clutter, and
Speaker 1: you set a goal to clean it. If you get
Speaker 1: really motivated, then you might you know, spend all afternoon
Speaker 1: cleaning it and whatever, and you end up with a
Speaker 1: clean room or clean garage after that. But if you
Speaker 1: don't fix the messy, sloppy habits that lead to a
Speaker 1: dirty room in the first place, then you turn around
Speaker 1: a month later and you've got a messy room again.
Speaker 1: And so the outcome is just a natural consequence of
Speaker 1: the habits. It's like we try to treat a symptom
Speaker 1: without treating the cause. We just want to have this outcome,
Speaker 1: but in fact, the real thing that needs to change
Speaker 1: or the habits behind it, and that is what I
Speaker 1: would call your system. The system is your collection of
Speaker 1: habits that naturally lead to whatever the results are in
Speaker 1: your life right now. Yeah. I think the classic example
Speaker 1: of that, right that most people can relate with is
Speaker 1: the diet. I go on a diet. Okay, my goal
Speaker 1: is to lose thirty pounds, ten pounds, five pounds, I
Speaker 1: change my life. I do it. As soon as I
Speaker 1: hit my goal, I go all right, did it right?
Speaker 1: And next thing I know, I'm thirty pounds heavier. Right.
Speaker 1: It's that yo yo effect. The other one that I
Speaker 1: love that you say about goals, and and I relate
Speaker 1: with this one a lot. You say the goals restrict
Speaker 1: your happiness. They kind of create this like artificial finish
Speaker 1: line for Okay, once I hit my goal, then I'll
Speaker 1: be happy. Once I achieved this milestone, then I can
Speaker 1: be successful. And again, this is something that I've slipped
Speaker 1: into so many times over the years, you know, with
Speaker 1: my business, for example, for a long time I told myself,
Speaker 1: if I can just get featured in the New York Times,
Speaker 1: then I'd be set, which of course is a complete lie,
Speaker 1: you know. Like now, now it's happened a couple of times.
Speaker 1: I've been in there, and it's great. It's a nice
Speaker 1: spike for a week, and then things go back to
Speaker 1: my life. And so there is no single event that
Speaker 1: is going to make or break you as an entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: and really probably no single meal that will make or
Speaker 1: break you as a dieter, as someone who's trying to
Speaker 1: eat nutritiously, no single workout that will make or break
Speaker 1: your health. Um, it's really about the long term process
Speaker 1: and the habits that you maintain that determine how far
Speaker 1: you walk along that path. If you need a little
Speaker 1: more help implementing some of these strategies you're hearing about,
Speaker 1: or making change in general in your life, I'd like
Speaker 1: you to consider the one you Feed Transformation program. It's
Speaker 1: one on one work with me where we find out
Speaker 1: what's not working in your life and we find a
Speaker 1: way to get things working people have worked with me
Speaker 1: on all sorts of things, whether it be building foundational
Speaker 1: practices like exercise, meditation and eating right, or launching a business,
Speaker 1: or creative pursuits, or challenging relationships and emotions, emotional eating,
Speaker 1: lots of different things. So what I'd encourage you do,
Speaker 1: if you're interested, is to sign up for a time
Speaker 1: for us to talk. It's a free thirty minute call.
Speaker 1: I'll make sure you get some value out of it.
Speaker 1: I will not be trying to hard sell you and
Speaker 1: convince you need to sign up for the program. If
Speaker 1: it's a fit, it'll be clear to both of us
Speaker 1: and we can talk about how to move forward at
Speaker 1: that point. I hear from a lot of people who
Speaker 1: take a call with me that they've been really nervous
Speaker 1: about doing it, and they've been afraid to do it.
Speaker 1: They thought that maybe the program is outlandishly expensive to
Speaker 1: work with me. And while the program is a financial commitment,
Speaker 1: most everybody who I've told the price too has thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's a very good value for everything that they're getting
Speaker 1: out of it. I actually work hard to keep it
Speaker 1: reasonable so that more people can afford to participate in
Speaker 1: the program. If you'd like to make changes in your
Speaker 1: life and you're serious about making them, Let's get a
Speaker 1: call together and talk briefly. At the very least, you'll
Speaker 1: get something actionable out of it, and I will get
Speaker 1: to know more of you. So you can go to
Speaker 1: Eric Zimmer dot coach slash application, fill out a quick
Speaker 1: form about what you're looking to change, and find thirty
Speaker 1: minutes for you and I to talk together. I'd love
Speaker 1: to get to know you better. That's Eric Zimmer dot
Speaker 1: coach slash application. And here's the rest of part one
Speaker 1: with James Clear. There's something you say in the back
Speaker 1: of the book. You you're writing, some sort of like
Speaker 1: common sense observations or whatever that that show how some
Speaker 1: of these things would be true. And one of them
Speaker 1: was happiness is simply the absence of desire. We had
Speaker 1: a guest not too long ago. She came came out
Speaker 1: in the last few weeks, but you know, her basic
Speaker 1: idea was, you know, you get what you want and
Speaker 1: you think that's what made you happy. What made you
Speaker 1: happy was that you stopped wanting something else. You know,
Speaker 1: and goals are that way. I mean I relate with
Speaker 1: that so much. With like, you know, when just when
Speaker 1: this thing gets here, when that thing gets here, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I've lived. I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: live a huge portion of our life in that way.
Speaker 1: And my problem was always so i'd get the thing
Speaker 1: I thought I wanted, I wouldn't be any happier, and
Speaker 1: instead of questioning the whole train of thinking, I think, well,
Speaker 1: that thing just wasn't good in it, right, Maybe I
Speaker 1: must need to want something else. That must be the problem.
Speaker 1: If I just had a girlfriend, then I get the girlfriend,
Speaker 1: I'm not happy, and now she's the problem, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean. So, it's such a pernicious way of thinking
Speaker 1: that is so deeply embedded in in everything that that
Speaker 1: we do. If you don't have a desire to change
Speaker 1: your current state, if you're happy, then you, by definition,
Speaker 1: you are happy with your current state. You're content with
Speaker 1: where you're at. But anytime a desire arises and you
Speaker 1: desire to change your state, you now are not content
Speaker 1: with where you're at. And so happiness is the absence
Speaker 1: of desire. It's the absence of the desire to change
Speaker 1: your current state. And it's hard to practice, you know,
Speaker 1: it's and that actually, perhaps that word provides little insight
Speaker 1: into it. It is a practice. It's not a it's
Speaker 1: not a finish line. You can't permanently be in a
Speaker 1: state of no desire, but you can practice returning to
Speaker 1: a state of contentment or returning to a state of
Speaker 1: not wanting. Yeah, I mean we're wired to sit in
Speaker 1: a state of complete contentment because we're wired to seek food.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, so what keeps us alive? What makes sense?
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be a human if you didn't, That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's it's there. It's like a lot of things.
Speaker 1: I think it's a question of like what is the
Speaker 1: ratio of that in your life compared you know what,
Speaker 1: what ratio is helpful or useful? You know, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about goals in relation to happiness as well. One
Speaker 1: of the other things is goals kind of like box
Speaker 1: you into this either or outcome or like either you
Speaker 1: achieve your goal and you're happy assuming the goal does
Speaker 1: make you happy, or anything else happens and you're not. Right.
Speaker 1: And that's another reason why I think focusing on a
Speaker 1: system is really great because there are many ways that
Speaker 1: a system can run. It doesn't have to just be
Speaker 1: one finite, narrow outcome and anytime the system is running,
Speaker 1: you can feel satisfied with it. So just take the
Speaker 1: process of like writing a book. If writing a book
Speaker 1: is your goal, you can only be happy in your
Speaker 1: head if the book is written done. But if you're
Speaker 1: focusing on the system of being the type of person
Speaker 1: who writes each day or something, they're like a million
Speaker 1: ways that could happen. You could journal, you could write
Speaker 1: a poem, you could write one sentence, you could write
Speaker 1: a chapter, you could just write emails. Um. There are
Speaker 1: so many things that you could do to reinforce that
Speaker 1: identity of being a writer and um, and I think
Speaker 1: that that provides like much more leeway in being gracious
Speaker 1: with yourself and in uh also continue to make progress
Speaker 1: even if it doesn't look exactly like the goal you
Speaker 1: had in your mind. Begin used or their identity and
Speaker 1: you talk about that there are three layers of behavior change, right,
Speaker 1: one is we change your outcomes, the second is we
Speaker 1: change our processes, and then the last is we change
Speaker 1: our identity. So talk about the role of identity in
Speaker 1: building good habits or or changing behavior. Well, in a sense,
Speaker 1: I think true behavior change is actually identity change because um,
Speaker 1: you can imagine like It's one thing to say I
Speaker 1: want this, but it's something very different to say I
Speaker 1: am this. You know, like, once you adopt an identity,
Speaker 1: adopt a particular belief, you're not even really pursuing behavior
Speaker 1: change anymore. You're just acting in alignment with the type
Speaker 1: of person you already believe that you are. So one
Speaker 1: of the examples that I give in the book is like,
Speaker 1: imagine that you have two people who are smokers and
Speaker 1: are trying to quit. And the first person you offer
Speaker 1: a cigarette and they you offer them a cigarette and
Speaker 1: they say, no thanks, I'm trying to quit. The second
Speaker 1: person you offer them a cigarette and they say, oh,
Speaker 1: no thanks, I'm not a smoker, and same action. They're
Speaker 1: both turning down the cigarette. But the first person still
Speaker 1: identifies as someone who is a smoker and they're trying
Speaker 1: to do something they're not. The second person is like,
Speaker 1: I'm a non smoker, and that signals a shift in identity,
Speaker 1: and that is a powerful thing because once you see
Speaker 1: yourself as that kind of person, you have additional reason
Speaker 1: to reinforce that behavior. And this comes back to why
Speaker 1: I think small habits are important, because the natural question
Speaker 1: anybody has at this point they're like, Okay, if you
Speaker 1: buy into this idea that identity and behavior are linked,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, how can I change my identity? Then
Speaker 1: that seems like a difficult thing to do. And I
Speaker 1: think the answer is small habits and tiny actions are
Speaker 1: the best method we have for shaping our identity. And
Speaker 1: the reason I say that is because, in a sense,
Speaker 1: your habits are how you embody a particular identity. You know,
Speaker 1: every time you make your bed in the morning, you
Speaker 1: embody the identity of someone who is clean and organized.
Speaker 1: Every time you go to the gym, you embody the
Speaker 1: identity of someone who is a fit person. Every time
Speaker 1: you write one sentence, you embody the identity of someone
Speaker 1: who is a writer. And it's kind of like every
Speaker 1: action you take is a vote for the type of
Speaker 1: person that you want to become, the type of person
Speaker 1: that you believe that you are, And as you cast
Speaker 1: these votes, as you repeat these little habits, you kind
Speaker 1: of build up evidence of being that type of person.
Speaker 1: And I really think the evidence there is like a
Speaker 1: crucial part, because it gives you something to root the identity,
Speaker 1: and it gives you proof of being that kind of person.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of the time, people will say things
Speaker 1: like fake it til you make it, but fake it
Speaker 1: till you make it a little different than what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about here, because it's asked you to believe something
Speaker 1: without having evidence for it. And there's a worth word
Speaker 1: for beliefs that don't have evidence. We're called delusion. You know.
Speaker 1: At some point, like the brain doesn't like this distance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if you can turn around and say, hey, I've
Speaker 1: you know, I've written one sentence, uh thirteen out of
Speaker 1: the last fourteen days, all of a sudden, you have
Speaker 1: evidence of being a writer. And so your habits and
Speaker 1: actions give you proof of who you are, and gradually,
Speaker 1: over time they can reshape your identity a little bit
Speaker 1: or expand or upgraded in some aspects. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that idea about delusion is is so important because you
Speaker 1: know a lot of I think what leads to a
Speaker 1: good life is having thoughts that are constructive and productive
Speaker 1: and and all that. But we don't believe stuff that
Speaker 1: we don't believe. It's the whole. Like you know, you
Speaker 1: look in the mirror and say I'm beautiful. Well, if
Speaker 1: you don't feel beau like I mean right, your brain
Speaker 1: rejects it and a lot of times what I'm working
Speaker 1: with people, what I work on is um. You use
Speaker 1: the phrase in here, you know, Uh, I'm the kind
Speaker 1: of person who and I hear this all the time
Speaker 1: from people I work with. I'm the kind of person
Speaker 1: who can't finish what they start. I'm the kind of
Speaker 1: person that works out for a month and then quits.
Speaker 1: I'm the kind of person and a lot of times
Speaker 1: I think that the best place to start is to
Speaker 1: just can we just suspend judgment for a while, right?
Speaker 1: Can we just not fix ourselves into that identity? And
Speaker 1: then you're right, as we have contrary evidence, that belief changes.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. For years and years and years, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of years, I wasn't on again, off again meditator.
Speaker 1: I do it, I get all inspired and I would
Speaker 1: um do it for a while, then I would quit.
Speaker 1: And so I just had this sort of belief like
Speaker 1: I was the kind of person who just could never
Speaker 1: stick with it. And then through you know a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that we talked about in in your
Speaker 1: book here and and that you know a lot of
Speaker 1: things I work with clients on all that, I got
Speaker 1: to a point where I became a daily meditator you know,
Speaker 1: for a lot of years, you know, several years in
Speaker 1: a row, like every day, and then recently there's been
Speaker 1: a lot going on and I fell out of the
Speaker 1: habit a little bit. But the whole time that I
Speaker 1: was out of the habit, it just felt like a
Speaker 1: matter of time till I picked it up again, because
Speaker 1: I thought of myself as I'm someone who meditates, That's
Speaker 1: what I do. So it was just there was this
Speaker 1: dissonance inside. It wasn't the dissonance of I'm a failure,
Speaker 1: I screwed up again. It was just the dissonance of like,
Speaker 1: I'm a meditator and I'm not meditating, and so I
Speaker 1: found my way back to it. It was just very
Speaker 1: interesting for me to have that experience as somebody who
Speaker 1: had had the opposite belief about myself for so long. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting how identity can also like pull you back
Speaker 1: to center, you know, like if you if it's working
Speaker 1: for you, and uh, this comes back to that notion
Speaker 1: that we talked about earlier, which is that habits are
Speaker 1: a double edged sword, and so identity can work for
Speaker 1: you or against you. Right, it can be a very
Speaker 1: empowering thing, like I'm a meditator, or it can be
Speaker 1: a negative thing like I'm bad at directions, or I'm
Speaker 1: terrible at math, or I can't I don't remember people's names,
Speaker 1: I'm the type of person who works out for a
Speaker 1: month and doesn't do it anymore. And that all of
Speaker 1: those are just examples of your identity reinforcing negative habits
Speaker 1: rather than positive ones. I think what starts to happen
Speaker 1: is what I see people do is if they think
Speaker 1: they're the kind of person to start something and then
Speaker 1: doesn't stick with it the minute they don't stick with
Speaker 1: it for a day, which happens to everyone all the
Speaker 1: time time, right, I mean, we're not perfect. The minute
Speaker 1: it happens, they start going I knew it. I knew it,
Speaker 1: I knew I was the kind of person. I screwed
Speaker 1: up again, you know, And that sort of when that
Speaker 1: mental chatter takes over, it is not conducive to doing
Speaker 1: anything positive. We we sometimes think, if I'm just hard
Speaker 1: enough on myself, I'll do the right thing. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't really seem to be the way this works. I
Speaker 1: think your your idea of like putting your identity on
Speaker 1: the back burner for a little while while you accumulate
Speaker 1: some new evidence is a really good one. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, don't criticize yourself for your faults, don't praise
Speaker 1: yourself for your success. Is just put your judgment on
Speaker 1: the side for a little while. Let's just leave it
Speaker 1: over there for a month, right, and just be willing
Speaker 1: to try and to experiment with something new and you
Speaker 1: might surprise yourself. Um. And I think that that's where
Speaker 1: habits can come into play, if you let them surprise
Speaker 1: you in accumulate evidence of being this new person. It's
Speaker 1: the Carol Duet growth versus fixed mindset thing, right, I
Speaker 1: mean the growth mindset. You know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: think it's silly or like well of or the growth mindset.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. I'm never going to be an NBA player, Like, well, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not like I mean, you might have been able
Speaker 1: to be right, you're a tall guy. I was not
Speaker 1: gonna was not gonna in the in the cards for me.
Speaker 1: But that's not what a growth mindset says. It just
Speaker 1: says I can get better, doesn't put a limit on
Speaker 1: how far I'll get better, just I can get better.
Speaker 1: And the fixed mindset says, no, this is the person
Speaker 1: I am, and so I think often again just opening
Speaker 1: that door to like I can get better. I think
Speaker 1: that's actually a crucial distinction, you know, like the deliberate
Speaker 1: practice or growth mindset or any of these um grits,
Speaker 1: These strategies that are about like, you know, you can
Speaker 1: become much more than what you think you can. Those
Speaker 1: strategies are not saying you can be anything. It's not
Speaker 1: saying a five ft four person is going to play
Speaker 1: in the n B a UM. But it is saying
Speaker 1: that anyone can get better if they're willing to practice
Speaker 1: and have this kind of growth mindset and so on.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is true. Humans are learning machines,
Speaker 1: and you know, like you might not be a concert
Speaker 1: violinist if you start practicing the violin, but anybody who
Speaker 1: practices and has an open mindset will get better at
Speaker 1: playing violin. Yeah. I'm not naturally musically talented in the
Speaker 1: way that I know lots of people who are. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been around a lot of people I'm like, they're
Speaker 1: just gifted. It was never that way. But I'm a
Speaker 1: pretty decent guitar player, you know, because I just kept
Speaker 1: doing it. You know, I wanted to do it, I
Speaker 1: kept doing it, and so I was able to get
Speaker 1: way better than I ever thought I could have gotten,
Speaker 1: you know, um, just by doing it and so um.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the four stages of habits, and
Speaker 1: then we'll go into the four rules. Sure, so I'll
Speaker 1: explain them a little bit from a conceptual level and
Speaker 1: then give you maybe one or two examples. See and
Speaker 1: see what it looks like. So I break habits into
Speaker 1: four stages, and those four stages are Q, craving, response,
Speaker 1: and reward. And I do that for a very specific reason.
Speaker 1: So pretty much every habit and possibly every human behavior
Speaker 1: you can say, cycles through these four stages. So first,
Speaker 1: there's some kind of que or some kind of let's
Speaker 1: say raw data that you take in um. Often external,
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be, but it's often visual. So for example, uh,
Speaker 1: the que could be you walk into a room and
Speaker 1: the room is dark, so you see that the room
Speaker 1: is dark. Then you have some kind of craving, And
Speaker 1: the craving is about how you interpret the queue. So
Speaker 1: it's about your prediction, and different people can have different
Speaker 1: cravings even if it's the same queue. Right, you can
Speaker 1: imagine two people walk into the kitchen and they see
Speaker 1: a pack of cigarettes on the counter, and one person
Speaker 1: is a smoker and they interpret that que as oh
Speaker 1: I have a craving to smoke this, you know, and
Speaker 1: the other person has never smoked. I was like, now
Speaker 1: just looks at a pack cigretts doesn't mean anything, right,
Speaker 1: So same que Totally different interpretation. And the craving is
Speaker 1: crucial because how you interpret the cues in your life
Speaker 1: determines how you respond to them. And so if your
Speaker 1: interpretation is different, the response is different. So that leads
Speaker 1: you to the third stage the response. So in my example,
Speaker 1: I was giving you walk in que the room is dark, craving.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to see or want to
Speaker 1: reduce the uncertainty of being in a dark room. Response,
Speaker 1: I flip on the light switch. And then the final
Speaker 1: step is the reward, which in this case is you're
Speaker 1: able to see the room is lit. And of course,
Speaker 1: in that example of the habit of flipping on a
Speaker 1: light switch, that happens in what half a second, you know,
Speaker 1: a fraction of a second. I mean we're going through
Speaker 1: this process endlessly and all the time, and it's happening
Speaker 1: very rapidly. Your your brain is going through these four stages,
Speaker 1: and if you do it enough, and then you can
Speaker 1: go through all four stages pretty much on autopilot. You know,
Speaker 1: like when you walk into a dark room, you don't
Speaker 1: think I would like to be able to see, you know,
Speaker 1: like you don't have this conscious craving, but it's just
Speaker 1: naturally and implicitly there. And and really what I'm describing
Speaker 1: with those four stages is the process of learning, right,
Speaker 1: because say you take another habit, like tying your shoes, Well,
Speaker 1: the Q might be you have this shoe on your
Speaker 1: foot that's untied. Craving is I want to have the
Speaker 1: shoes secure. I want to have the shoe tied. Response,
Speaker 1: I try to tie my shoes. Reward Well, maybe the
Speaker 1: first couple of times you do it, you're not good
Speaker 1: at tying your shoes, so then you know it doesn't work,
Speaker 1: like the nod as all messed up. You can't figure
Speaker 1: it out. But then you know, as a kid, you
Speaker 1: practice tying your shoes hundred times, five hundred times, thousand times,
Speaker 1: pretty soon you can tie your shoes on autopilots just
Speaker 1: a habit. You can go through the queue, the craving,
Speaker 1: the response, and the reward. You're not even thinking about it.
Speaker 1: You can have a conversation with somebody else, you can
Speaker 1: think about what's on your to do list for the
Speaker 1: morning and so on. That's why I'm still wearing slip ons. Yes, there,
Speaker 1: you make it easy on yourself. So this is ah.
Speaker 1: This is ultimately the purpose that habits serve, right. They
Speaker 1: allow us to solve the problems that we face in life,
Speaker 1: the recurring problems. Some of them are small, like needing
Speaker 1: to tie your shoe. Some of them are bigger, like
Speaker 1: what do I do when I come home from work
Speaker 1: each day and I feel exhausted? What are my habits
Speaker 1: for dealing with that? And uh. But the point is,
Speaker 1: whenever you face a problem repeatedly, your brain starts to
Speaker 1: automate the solution, and it does that by going through
Speaker 1: these four stages and learning how to respond to the
Speaker 1: cues and problems that you face throughout life. And so
Speaker 1: those cues could be internal or external. So the one
Speaker 1: we talked about you walk into the room though that
Speaker 1: it's dark, that's your queue or using queues um as
Speaker 1: a way to remind us to do a habit. But
Speaker 1: they're also the internal state which you describe, which is
Speaker 1: I get home from work. I'm stressed. The stress is
Speaker 1: the queue, right, So in that case, it's probably a
Speaker 1: combination of internal and external. Like let's say each you know,
Speaker 1: you come ome from work and you step in the
Speaker 1: front door, so you have a context of walking in
Speaker 1: the door from work. So that's kind of physical. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I come in the door at five thirty,
Speaker 1: and then you also have this internal feeling of like,
Speaker 1: I'm stressed and exhausted from a long day. And when
Speaker 1: you put all that together, that kind of is the
Speaker 1: thing that initiates the habit. Something that makes habits a
Speaker 1: little difficult to pin down or difficult to change is that,
Speaker 1: over time, it's often the case that habits are not
Speaker 1: triggered by a single little cue, but actually by like
Speaker 1: the overall context of the environment. You know. So like
Speaker 1: you you go upstairs after work and you change into
Speaker 1: comfortable clothes, and you make dinner, and then you finished dinner,
Speaker 1: and the context of being in your living room at
Speaker 1: night leads to the habit of watching Netflix for three hours. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's not really any one thing in the living room,
Speaker 1: but it's the overall situation. And uh, this is one
Speaker 1: reason why it can often be easier to build new
Speaker 1: habits in a new environment. Right, Because let's say that
Speaker 1: you want to build the habit of reading in this
Speaker 1: example I just gave. Well, if you're trying to do
Speaker 1: that after dinner each night and you say, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read on the couch instead, Well, that whole context
Speaker 1: is you have this association with it that's nudging you
Speaker 1: toward watching Netflix for three hours. And so it's often
Speaker 1: easier to change it up a little bit, like you could, um,
Speaker 1: you buy a new chair and put it in the
Speaker 1: corner of the room and that's the reading chair, and
Speaker 1: the only thing that you do in that chair as
Speaker 1: you read. And so you try to associate this new
Speaker 1: habit with a new area or context so that you
Speaker 1: aren't fighting like all the old stimuli that are nudging
Speaker 1: you toward your previous habits. Well, let's go into the
Speaker 1: four rules of behavior change, because this is really where
Speaker 1: we start to get practical suggestions for how to change things. Right,
Speaker 1: So we just talk through those four stages que, craving, response,
Speaker 1: and reward, And for each stage, I've come up with
Speaker 1: a law, which I'll call the four Laws behavior change.
Speaker 1: So if you want to build a good habit. For
Speaker 1: your cues, you want to make the cues of your
Speaker 1: good habits obvious. So the first laws make it obvious.
Speaker 1: For craving, you want to make it attractive. For the response,
Speaker 1: you want to make it easy. And for the reward,
Speaker 1: you want to make it satisfying. And so those four
Speaker 1: laws make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy,
Speaker 1: make it satisfying, give you sort of like a toolbox
Speaker 1: that you can use for building a good habit. And
Speaker 1: then if you want to break a bad habit, you
Speaker 1: just invert each of the four laws. So for your
Speaker 1: bad habits, you do want the cues. Instead of making
Speaker 1: it obvious, you want to make it invisible, make it unattractive,
Speaker 1: make it difficult, make it unsatisfying. And with those with
Speaker 1: the inversion of the four laws, you have this set
Speaker 1: of tools for increasing the likelihood that you'll be able
Speaker 1: to break a bad habit. And um, the way that
Speaker 1: I like to think about them is they're kind of
Speaker 1: like four levers, and when the levers are in the
Speaker 1: right positions, it's really easy to build good habits. It
Speaker 1: kind of this effort us and when they're in the
Speaker 1: wrong positions, you're kind of fighting this uphill battle, and
Speaker 1: so they My hope is that those four laws of
Speaker 1: behavior change give you a very practical guide for how
Speaker 1: to actually adjust your habits in daily life, like what
Speaker 1: can we really do about this? And they make the
Speaker 1: insights and the science about how habits work, and they
Speaker 1: turn that into an actionable framework. Join us next week
Speaker 1: for part two of the interview with James Clear. If
Speaker 1: what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider
Speaker 1: making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head
Speaker 1: over to one you Feed dot net slash support. The
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