Speaker 1: As a new year approaches, many people start reflecting on
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Speaker 1: they want the next year to be. Imagine if in
Speaker 1: two you were able to have clarity on what matters
Speaker 1: to you and then have the tools to live that out.
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Speaker 1: holidays everybody. In case you're just recently joining us, or
Speaker 1: however long you've been a listener of the show, you
Speaker 1: may not realize that we have over seven years of
Speaker 1: incredible episodes in our archive. We've had so many wonderful
Speaker 1: guests that we've decided to hand pick a few of
Speaker 1: our favorites during this holiday season as we have some
Speaker 1: time off. And these may be new to you, but
Speaker 1: if not, they are certainly worth another listen. So we
Speaker 1: hope you'll enjoy part one of this two part series
Speaker 1: with James Clear. The same way that money compounds are
Speaker 1: multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiplies
Speaker 1: you repeat them over time. Welcome to the one you
Speaker 1: feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance of
Speaker 1: the thoughts we have quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think, ring true, and yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf m Thanks for joining us, everybody. Today's guest
Speaker 1: is James Clear, who has been on the show before,
Speaker 1: which was an amazing episode and everybody loved it. The
Speaker 1: second interview is really fun because Eric and I were
Speaker 1: able to record it live in person with James, so
Speaker 1: you'll hear a little bit of that room reverb and everything.
Speaker 1: But there's just something I love with all of these
Speaker 1: interviews that we've done live like this. There's something about
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's possibly the nonverbal communication and
Speaker 1: the way that Eric is able to interact with people
Speaker 1: just seems to really bring out the best. And this
Speaker 1: new interview with James Clear is no exception. He has
Speaker 1: a new book called Atomic Habits and Easy and Proven
Speaker 1: Way to build good habits and break bad ones. James's
Speaker 1: work 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: subscribe 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. Hi, James,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Hey, we have had very few
Speaker 1: guests who have appeared twice, so welcome to Select Club.
Speaker 1: Very nice, Thank you. I'm glad I crossed the threshold
Speaker 1: the opportunity. Yeah. Well, our first interview was really well
Speaker 1: loved by listeners, so I'm excited to do it again.
Speaker 1: You have a new book called Atomic Habits that is
Speaker 1: coming out. I think it's out today, So congratulations on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, And we'll jump into that in just a minute.
Speaker 1: But let's start like we always do, with the parable.
Speaker 1: There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and thinks
Speaker 1: about it for a second. He looks up at his
Speaker 1: grandfather and he says, grandfather, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in 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,
Speaker 1: like what is the difference between eating a burger and
Speaker 1: fries for lunch or eating a salad. There's not really
Speaker 1: a whole lot of difference there. You know, at the
Speaker 1: end of the night, you look basically the same in
Speaker 1: the mirror, at the scale weighs more or less the same. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you compound those choices over two or five
Speaker 1: or 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 in 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 run,
Speaker 1: they add up to very different outcomes. Yeah. You say
Speaker 1: in the book that we often dismiss small changes because
Speaker 1: 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, are 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 to laid. It's the
Speaker 1: same with habits. Often the most significant outcomes are on
Speaker 1: the ladder half of the curve. Yeah, and that idea
Speaker 1: of habits being double edged swords will cover a couple
Speaker 1: of different times in the book. You have the four
Speaker 1: laws of behavior change, which will cover but they all
Speaker 1: have an inverse which covers the bad habits. You know,
Speaker 1: here's what you do if you want to build a
Speaker 1: good habit. Here's what you want to do if you
Speaker 1: want to build or you want to get rid of
Speaker 1: a bad habit. Bad habits seemed to build themselves pretty easily. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's that same sort of thing. And I
Speaker 1: think that I love this line where you say your
Speaker 1: outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits, right, And
Speaker 1: I do think that that is one of the things
Speaker 1: that's so hard with building new habits or you know,
Speaker 1: starting a new exercise routine or whatever. Like you said,
Speaker 1: you don't see the results right away. You you do
Speaker 1: the work for a while, and then eventually, if you
Speaker 1: keep it up, you start to see the results. Let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that idea that you
Speaker 1: said that habits often appear to make no difference until
Speaker 1: you cross sort of this critical uh threshold. You use
Speaker 1: some examples in the book. You just used them with money.
Speaker 1: The other one that I thought was such a good
Speaker 1: example is bamboo. Yeah, so bamboo uh. For like the
Speaker 1: first five years, it kind of grows these extensive roots
Speaker 1: systems underground and doesn't look like anything, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to show for it. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I will shoot, you know, sixty or eighty
Speaker 1: feet into the air in just a few weeks, and right,
Speaker 1: it's it's nuts that that's how it actually grows. Um
Speaker 1: cancer is another example that I've given the book. You know,
Speaker 1: it's undetectable for most of its life in the body,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, it takes over the
Speaker 1: body in months and this um this idea of this
Speaker 1: like compounding aspect, it's prevalent in many areas of life.
Speaker 1: But the idea is that you need to build the
Speaker 1: foundation for you to hit this transition and to see
Speaker 1: the results. Um. You know. Another example I've given the book,
Speaker 1: I like to use the metaphor of heating up an
Speaker 1: ice cube, and it's kind of like, imagine you're in
Speaker 1: a cold room. You can see your breath. You've got
Speaker 1: this ice cube on the table, it's like twenty five degrees.
Speaker 1: You heat it up 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 reps, 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 an 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 I 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 at some point
Speaker 1: I got to this like conclusion where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm setting all these goals, but only some of them
Speaker 1: are working out. Clearly, goal setting is not the thing
Speaker 1: that's determining whether I'm making progress or not. So I
Speaker 1: should say before I get super anti goals or talk
Speaker 1: about the downsides of goals. I'm not saying goals are useless.
Speaker 1: I think will 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.
Speaker 1: So for example, say you have a messy room or
Speaker 1: your garage is like, you know, completely filled with clutter,
Speaker 1: and you set a goal to clean it. If you
Speaker 1: get really motivated, then you might, you know, spend all
Speaker 1: afternoon cleaning it and whatever, and you end up with
Speaker 1: a clean room or clean garage after that. But if
Speaker 1: you don't fix the messy, sloppy habits that lead to
Speaker 1: a dirty room in the first place, then you turn
Speaker 1: around 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 um, I
Speaker 1: relate with this one a lot. You say that goals
Speaker 1: restrict your happiness. They kind of create this like artificial
Speaker 1: finish line for Okay, once I hit my goal, then
Speaker 1: I'll be happy. Once I achieved this milestone, then I
Speaker 1: can be successful. And again, this is something that I've
Speaker 1: slipped into so many times over the years, you know,
Speaker 1: with my business, for example, for a long time, I
Speaker 1: told myself, if I can just get featured in the
Speaker 1: New York Times, then I'd be set, which of course
Speaker 1: is a complete lie. You know. Like now now it's
Speaker 1: happened a couple of times. I've been in there, and
Speaker 1: it's great. It's a nice spike for a week, and
Speaker 1: then things go back to my life. And so, there
Speaker 1: is no single event that is going make or break
Speaker 1: you as an entrepreneur, and really probably no single meal
Speaker 1: that will make or break you as a dieter, as
Speaker 1: someone who's trying to eat nutritiously, no single workout that
Speaker 1: will make or break your health. Um, it's really about
Speaker 1: the long term process and the habits that you maintain
Speaker 1: that determine how far you walk along that path. A
Speaker 1: lot of emotions surface during the holiday season, happiness, sadness, joy, excitement, stress,
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Speaker 1: slash Wolf. And here's the rest of part one with
Speaker 1: James Clear. There's something you say in the back of
Speaker 1: the book. You you're writing, some sort of like common
Speaker 1: sense observations or whatever, that that show how some of
Speaker 1: these things would be true, And one of them was
Speaker 1: happiness is simply the absence of desire. We had a
Speaker 1: guest not too long ago. She came came out in
Speaker 1: the last few weeks, but you know, her basic idea was,
Speaker 1: you know, you get what you want, and you think
Speaker 1: that's what made you happy. What made you happy was
Speaker 1: that you stopped wanting something else. You know, and goals
Speaker 1: are that way. I mean, I relate with that so much,
Speaker 1: with like, you know, when just when this thing gets here,
Speaker 1: when that thing gets here. I mean, I think I've
Speaker 1: lived I think a lot of us live a huge
Speaker 1: portion of our life in that way. And my problem
Speaker 1: was always so I get the thing I thought I wanted,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be any happier. And instead of questioning the
Speaker 1: whole train of thinking, I think, well, that thing just
Speaker 1: wasn't good in it, right, and maybe I must need
Speaker 1: to want something else. That must be the problem. If
Speaker 1: 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 we do.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a desire to change your current state,
Speaker 1: if you're happy, then you, by definition, are happy with
Speaker 1: your current state. Right, You are content with where you're at.
Speaker 1: But anytime a desire arises and you desire to change
Speaker 1: your state, you now are not content with where you're at.
Speaker 1: And so happiness is the absence of desire. It's the
Speaker 1: absence of the desire to change your current state. Right,
Speaker 1: And it's hard to practice, you know, it's and that
Speaker 1: actually perhaps that word provides a little insight into it.
Speaker 1: It is a practice. It's not a it's not a
Speaker 1: finish line. You can't permanently be in a state of
Speaker 1: no desire, but you can practice returning to a state
Speaker 1: of contentment or returning to a state of not wanting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we're wired to sit in a state of
Speaker 1: complete contentment because we're wired to seek food to I mean, like,
Speaker 1: so what keeps us alive? It makes sense you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a human if you didn't, That's right. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it's it's there. It's like a lot of things. I
Speaker 1: think it's a question of like what is the ratio
Speaker 1: of that in your life compared you know what, what
Speaker 1: ratio is helpful or useful? You know, you know, talking
Speaker 1: about goals in relation to happiness as well. One of
Speaker 1: the other things is goals kind of like box you
Speaker 1: into this either or outcome or like either you achieve
Speaker 1: your goal and you're happy, assuming the goal does make
Speaker 1: 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 also continue to make progress even
Speaker 1: if it doesn't look exactly like the goal you had
Speaker 1: in your mind at the beginning. Used a word their identity,
Speaker 1: and you talk about that. There are three layers of
Speaker 1: behavior change, right, one is we change your outcomes, the
Speaker 1: second is we change our processes, and then the last
Speaker 1: is we change our identity. So talk about the role
Speaker 1: of identity in building good habits or or changing behavior. Well,
Speaker 1: in a sense, I think true behavior change is actually
Speaker 1: identity change because um, you can imagine, like it's one
Speaker 1: thing to say I want this, but it's something very
Speaker 1: different to say I am this. You know, like once
Speaker 1: you adopt an identity, adopt a particular belief you're not
Speaker 1: even really pursuing behavior change anymore. You're just acting in
Speaker 1: alignment with the type of person you already believe that
Speaker 1: you are. So one of the examples that I give
Speaker 1: in the book is like, imagine that you have two
Speaker 1: people who are smokers and are trying to quit. And
Speaker 1: the first person you offer a cigarette and they you
Speaker 1: offer them a cigarette and they say, no thanks, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to quit. The second person you offer them a
Speaker 1: cigarette and they say, oh, no thanks, I'm not a smoker,
Speaker 1: and same action. They're both turning down the cigarette. But
Speaker 1: the first person still identifies as someone who is a
Speaker 1: smoker and they're trying to do something they're not. The
Speaker 1: second person is like, I'm a non smoker, and that
Speaker 1: signals a shift in identity. And that is a powerful
Speaker 1: thing because once you see yourself as that kind of person,
Speaker 1: you have additional reason to reinforce that behavior. And this
Speaker 1: comes back to why I think small habits are important
Speaker 1: because the natural question anybody has at this point, they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you buy into this idea that identity and behavior
Speaker 1: are linked, it's like, well, how can I change my identity?
Speaker 1: Then that seems like a difficult thing to do. And
Speaker 1: I think the answer is small habits and tiny actions
Speaker 1: are the best method we have for shaping our identity.
Speaker 1: And 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 they 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 is a little different than what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about here, because it's asking you to believe
Speaker 1: something without having evidence for it. And there's a worth
Speaker 1: word for beliefs that don't have evidence. We're called delusion.
Speaker 1: You know, at some point, like the brain doesn't like
Speaker 1: this distance. Um, but if you can turn around and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I've you know, I've written one sentence, uh, thirteen out
Speaker 1: of the last fourteen days, all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: have evidence of being a writer. And so your habits
Speaker 1: and 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 know,
Speaker 1: a lot of I think what leads to a good
Speaker 1: life is having thoughts that are constructive and productive and
Speaker 1: and all that. But we don't believe stuff that we
Speaker 1: don't believe. It's the whole. Like you know, you look
Speaker 1: in the mirror and say I'm beautiful. Well, if you
Speaker 1: don't feel beauty like I mean right, your brain rejects it.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times what I'm working with people,
Speaker 1: what I work on is um, you use the phrase
Speaker 1: in here, you know, Uh, I'm the kind of person
Speaker 1: who and I hear this all the time from people
Speaker 1: I work with. I'm the kind of person who can't
Speaker 1: finish what they start. I'm the kind of person that
Speaker 1: works out for a month and then quits. I'm the
Speaker 1: kind of person and a lot of times I think
Speaker 1: that the best place to start is to just can
Speaker 1: we just suspend judgment for a while, right? Can we
Speaker 1: just not fix ourselves into that identity? And then you're right,
Speaker 1: as we have contrary evidence, that belief changes. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: For years and years and years, I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of years, I wasn't on again, off again meditator. I
Speaker 1: do it, I get all inspired, and I would um
Speaker 1: do it for a while, and I would quit. And
Speaker 1: so I just had this sort of belief like I
Speaker 1: was the kind of person who just could never stick
Speaker 1: with it. And then through you know a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that we talked about in in your book
Speaker 1: here and and that, you know a lot of things
Speaker 1: I work with clients on all that, I got to
Speaker 1: 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 possible 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 time, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're not perfect. The minute it happens, they
Speaker 1: start going I knew it, I knew it, I knew
Speaker 1: I was the kind of person. I screwed up again,
Speaker 1: you know, And that sort of when that mental chatter
Speaker 1: takes over, it is not conducive to doing anything positive.
Speaker 1: We we sometimes think, if I'm just hard enough on myself,
Speaker 1: I'll do the right thing. But that doesn't really seem
Speaker 1: to be the way this works. I think your your
Speaker 1: idea of like putting your identity on the back burner
Speaker 1: for a little while while you accumulate some new evidence
Speaker 1: is a really good one. You know. It's like, don't
Speaker 1: criticize yourself for your faults, don't praise yourself for your success.
Speaker 1: Is just put your judgment on the side for a
Speaker 1: little while. Let's just leave it over there for a month, right,
Speaker 1: and just be willing to try to experiment with something
Speaker 1: new and you might surprise yourself. Um. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's where habits can come into play, if you
Speaker 1: let them surprise you in accumulated evidence of being this
Speaker 1: new person. It's the Carol Duet growth versus fixed mindset thing, right,
Speaker 1: I mean the growth mindset. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: people think it's silly or like, well, of course, the
Speaker 1: growth mindset, that's ridiculous. I'm never going to be an
Speaker 1: NBA player, Like, well, no, I'm not like I mean,
Speaker 1: you might have been able to be right, you're a
Speaker 1: tall guy. I was not gonna was not gonna in
Speaker 1: the in the cards for me. But that's not what
Speaker 1: a growth mindset says. It just says I can get better.
Speaker 1: Doesn't put a limit on how far I'll get better,
Speaker 1: just I can get better. And the fixed mindset says, no,
Speaker 1: this is the person I am. And so I think
Speaker 1: often again, just opening that door to like I can
Speaker 1: get better, I think that's actually a crucial distinction, you know,
Speaker 1: like the deliberate practice or growth mindset or any of
Speaker 1: these um grits, these strategies that are about, like, you know,
Speaker 1: you can become much more than what you think you can.
Speaker 1: Those strategies are not saying you can be anything. It's
Speaker 1: not saying a five ft four person is going to
Speaker 1: play in the n B a UM. But it is
Speaker 1: saying that anyone can get better if they're willing to
Speaker 1: practice and have this kind of growth ringset 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 the violin. Yeah, I'm not naturally musically talented in
Speaker 1: the way that I know lots of people who are.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been around a lot of people. I'm like,
Speaker 1: they're just gifted. It was never that way. But I'm
Speaker 1: a pretty decent guitar player, you know, because I just
Speaker 1: kept doing it. You know, I wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: I kept doing it, and so I was able to
Speaker 1: get 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 what
Speaker 1: looks like. So I break habits into four stages, and
Speaker 1: those four stages are Q, craving, response, and reward. And
Speaker 1: I do that for a very specific reason. So pretty
Speaker 1: much every habit and possibly every human behavior, you can say,
Speaker 1: cycles through these four stages. So first, there's some kind
Speaker 1: of queue or some kind of let's say raw data
Speaker 1: that you take in um often external doesn't have to be,
Speaker 1: but it's often visual. So for example, uh, the que
Speaker 1: could be you walk into a room and the room
Speaker 1: is dark, so you see that the room is dark.
Speaker 1: Then you have some kind of craving, and the craving
Speaker 1: is about how you interpret the queue. So it's about
Speaker 1: your prediction, and different people can have different cravings even
Speaker 1: if it's the same queue. Right. You can imagine two
Speaker 1: people walk into the kitchen and they see a pack
Speaker 1: of cigarettes on the counter, and one person is a smoker,
Speaker 1: and they interpret that que as oh, I have a
Speaker 1: craving to smoke this, you know, and the other person
Speaker 1: has never smoked. I was like, now just looks at
Speaker 1: a pac cigretts doesn't mean anything, right, So same que.
Speaker 1: Totally different interpretation. And the craving is crucial because how
Speaker 1: you interpret the cues and your life determines how you
Speaker 1: respond to them. And so if your interpretation is different,
Speaker 1: the response is different. So that leads you to the
Speaker 1: third stage, the response. So in my example, I was
Speaker 1: 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 out a
Speaker 1: light switch, that happens in what half a second, you know,
Speaker 1: the 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
Speaker 1: stages and if you do it enough and then you
Speaker 1: can go through all four stages pretty much on autopilot.
Speaker 1: You know, like when you walk into a dark room,
Speaker 1: you don't think I would like to be able to see,
Speaker 1: you know, like you don't have this conscious craving, but
Speaker 1: it's just naturally and implicitly there. And and really what
Speaker 1: I'm describing with those four stages is the process of learning,
Speaker 1: right because say take another half bit, 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: shoe 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. I'm still wearing slip on, Yes,
Speaker 1: they make it easy on yourself. So this is a
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 bom 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 it's dark,
Speaker 1: that's your cue or using cues um as a way
Speaker 1: to remind us to do a habit. But they're also
Speaker 1: the internal state which you describe, which is I get
Speaker 1: home from work, I'm stressed. The stress is the queue, right,
Speaker 1: So in that case, it's probably a combination of internal
Speaker 1: and external. Like let's say each you know, you come
Speaker 1: home from work and you step in the front door,
Speaker 1: so you have a context of walking in the door
Speaker 1: from work, So that's kind of physical. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I come in the door at five thirty, And then
Speaker 1: you also have this internal feeling of like I'm stressed
Speaker 1: and exhausted from a long day. And when you put
Speaker 1: all that together, that kind of is the thing that
Speaker 1: initiates the habit. Something that makes habits a little difficult
Speaker 1: to pin down or difficult to change is that, over time,
Speaker 1: it's often the case that habits are not triggered a
Speaker 1: single little cue, but actually by like the overall context
Speaker 1: of the environment. You know, So like you you go
Speaker 1: upstairs after work, and you change into comfortable clothes, and
Speaker 1: you make dinner, and then you finished dinner and the
Speaker 1: context of being in your living room at night leads
Speaker 1: 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 a habit of reading in this example,
Speaker 1: I just gave, Well, if you're trying to do that
Speaker 1: after dinner each night and you say, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: read on the couch instead. Well, that whole context is
Speaker 1: you have this association with it that's nudging you toward
Speaker 1: watching Netflix for three hours. And so it's often easier
Speaker 1: 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 talked 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. So,
Speaker 1: if you want to build a good habit for your cues,
Speaker 1: you want to make the cues of your good habits obvious.
Speaker 1: So the first laws make it obvious. For craving, you
Speaker 1: want to make it attractive. For the response, you want
Speaker 1: to make it easy, and for the reward, you want
Speaker 1: to make it satisfying. And so those four laws make
Speaker 1: it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying,
Speaker 1: give you sort of like a toolbox that you can
Speaker 1: use for building a good habit. And then if you
Speaker 1: want to break a bad habit, you just invert each
Speaker 1: of the four laws. So for your bad habits, you
Speaker 1: do want the cues. Instead of making it obvious, you
Speaker 1: want to make it invisible, make it unattractive, make it difficult,
Speaker 1: make it unsatisfying. And with those with the inversion of
Speaker 1: the four laws, you have this set of tools for
Speaker 1: increasing the likelihood that you'll be able to break a
Speaker 1: bad habit. And um, the way that I like to
Speaker 1: think about them is they're kind of like four levers,
Speaker 1: and when the levers are in the right positions, it's
Speaker 1: really easy to build good habits. It kind of this
Speaker 1: effortless and when they're in the wrong positions, you're kind
Speaker 1: of fighting this uphill battle. And so they my hope
Speaker 1: is that those four laws of behavior change give you
Speaker 1: a very practical guide for how to actually adjust your
Speaker 1: habits in daily life, like what can we really do
Speaker 1: about this? And they make the insights and the science
Speaker 1: about how habits work, and they turn that into an
Speaker 1: actionable framework. Join us next week for part two of
Speaker 1: the interview with James Clear. If what you just heard
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