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