Speaker 1: The same way that money compounds are multiplies through compound interest,
Speaker 1: the effects of your habits multiplies you repeat them over time.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like 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 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. Thanks for joining us, everybody.
Speaker 1: Today's guest is James Clear, who has been on the
Speaker 1: show before, which was an amazing episode and everybody loved it.
Speaker 1: The second interview is really fun because Eric and I
Speaker 1: were able to record it live in person with James,
Speaker 1: so you'll hear a little bit of that room reverb
Speaker 1: and everything. But there's just something I love with all
Speaker 1: of these interviews that we've done live like this. There's
Speaker 1: something about I don't know if it's possibly the nonverbal communication,
Speaker 1: and then the way that Eric is able to interact
Speaker 1: with people just seems to really bring out the best.
Speaker 1: And this new interview with James Clear is no exception.
Speaker 1: He has a new book called Atomic Habits and Easy
Speaker 1: and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones.
Speaker 1: James's work has appeared in The New York Times, Time
Speaker 1: and Entrepreneur, and on CBS This Morning, and he has
Speaker 1: taught in colleges around the world. His website, James Clear
Speaker 1: dot com receives millions of visitors each month and hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands subscribed to his email newsletter. He's the creator
Speaker 1: of the Habits Academy, the premier training platform for organizations
Speaker 1: and individuals that are interested in building better habits in
Speaker 1: life and work. I also wanted to mention that we
Speaker 1: have a new mini episode series that Eric is doing.
Speaker 1: It's one a week and it's for Patreon supporters at
Speaker 1: ten dollars a month. Eric discusses a specific topic for
Speaker 1: each episode and they've been really great so far. Of course,
Speaker 1: if you're a Patreon supporter, you also get the usual
Speaker 1: post show conversations, which are continuing conversations after each episode ends.
Speaker 1: Those are exclusively for supporters, and also which is nice,
Speaker 1: the episodes are ad free, and I just want to
Speaker 1: remind you that when you subscribe on Patreon for the
Speaker 1: one You Feed podcast, you're really doing something great for
Speaker 1: the world. There is, of course plenty of people who
Speaker 1: need to listen to this podcast, they need the message
Speaker 1: in the oration, but they would not be able to
Speaker 1: afford to be supporters. So of course your contribution helps
Speaker 1: us continue making the one You Feed podcast, and you
Speaker 1: can almost think of it as a gift to those
Speaker 1: people who cannot afford to be contributors. So thanks everybody.
Speaker 1: Go to one you feed dot net slash support to
Speaker 1: become a supporter. And here is part one of our
Speaker 1: interview with James Clear. Part two will be next week.
Speaker 1: Hi James, welcome to the show. Hey great. We have
Speaker 1: had very few guests who have appeared twice, so welcome
Speaker 1: to select club. Very nice. Thank you. I'm glad I
Speaker 1: crossed the threshold. Apreciate the opportunity. Yeah, well, our first
Speaker 1: interview was really well loved by listeners, so I'm excited
Speaker 1: to do it again. You have a new book called
Speaker 1: Atomic Habits that is coming out. I think it's out today,
Speaker 1: So congratulations on that. Yeah, thank you, And we'll jump
Speaker 1: into that in just a minute. But let's start like
Speaker 1: we always do, with the parable. There's a grandfather who's
Speaker 1: talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are
Speaker 1: two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second.
Speaker 1: He looks up at his grandfather. He says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Yeah, I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: great story. So right now, in the context of where
Speaker 1: I'm at right now, I think a lot about like
Speaker 1: what habits are we feeding? You know, this is one
Speaker 1: of the things I say earlier in the book that
Speaker 1: habits can compound for you or against you. And this
Speaker 1: is essentially what that parable is. Saying right that, like
Speaker 1: 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, 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 are 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 dismissed small changes because
Speaker 1: they don't seem to matter very much in the moment.
Speaker 1: That strikes me is 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 as well does line for a particular task, or
Speaker 1: being in a tribe or in a social group that
Speaker 1: nudges you in a certain direction, they also can work
Speaker 1: against you, you know, like peer pressure can be positive
Speaker 1: or negative in this particular example. Um. But but if
Speaker 1: you can manage to orient those forces in the right direction,
Speaker 1: then you can end up with some really powerful habits
Speaker 1: in the long run. And you know, I like to
Speaker 1: say that habits of the compound interest of self improvement.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is the same way
Speaker 1: that money compounds or multiplies through compound interest, the effects
Speaker 1: of your habits multiplies you repeat them over time, and
Speaker 1: it's it's not really like that linear curve where you
Speaker 1: just put in a little bit of work and you
Speaker 1: get a little bit results and just kind of goes
Speaker 1: up at a forty five year angle. It feels more
Speaker 1: like the compound interest curve, where in the beginning you
Speaker 1: don't really see anything. You know, like I just gave
Speaker 1: that example of eating salad for lunch versus eating a
Speaker 1: burger and fries. But similarly you could say, like, what's
Speaker 1: the difference between studying Chinese for an hour tonight or
Speaker 1: not sitting at all? Not a whole lot, Like you
Speaker 1: haven't learned the language. Either way I feel is like
Speaker 1: you put work in or you don't broke work in,
Speaker 1: you're at the same point of the curve. But if
Speaker 1: you continue that the same way that, like saving for retirement,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like couple of decades later, your
Speaker 1: compound and all the greatest returns are delayed. It's the
Speaker 1: same with habits. Often the most significant outcomes are on
Speaker 1: the latter 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 languere. You say your outcomes
Speaker 1: are a lagging measure of your habits, right, And I
Speaker 1: do think that that is one of the things that's
Speaker 1: so hard with building new habits or you know, starting
Speaker 1: a new exercise routine or whatever. Like you said, you
Speaker 1: don't see the results right away. You you do the
Speaker 1: work for a while, and then eventually, if you keep
Speaker 1: it up, you start to see the results. Let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that idea that you said
Speaker 1: that habits often appear to make no difference until you
Speaker 1: cross sort of this critical threshold. You use some examples
Speaker 1: in the book. You just used them with money. The
Speaker 1: other one that I thought was such a good example
Speaker 1: is bamboo. Yeah. So bamboo, Uh, for like the first
Speaker 1: five years, it kind of grows these extensive roots systems
Speaker 1: underground and doesn't look like anything, and you know, there's
Speaker 1: nothing to show for it. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I will shoot, you know, sixty or eighty feet into
Speaker 1: the air in just a few weeks. And right, it's
Speaker 1: it's nuts that that's how it actually grows. UM Cancer
Speaker 1: 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 and 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 six ty nine, and still
Speaker 1: like nothing has happened. There's just this ice cube sitting
Speaker 1: there thirty one. And then you go from thirty one
Speaker 1: to thirty two degrees and it's this one degree shift,
Speaker 1: no different than all the other little shifts that came before.
Speaker 1: But suddenly you hit this phase transition and the ice
Speaker 1: cube melts and habits aren't exactly like that, but the
Speaker 1: process of building a habit is often feels like that.
Speaker 1: It's similar, you know. We're like you're banking work, you're
Speaker 1: putting in your reps, and you don't really feel like
Speaker 1: you have much to show for it. And a lot
Speaker 1: of the time that can be very frustrating when you're
Speaker 1: in the 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, it's 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.
Speaker 1: Right And this leads to another idea that comes up
Speaker 1: in the book a lot, which is that we spend
Speaker 1: too much time focused on goals and you recommend focusing
Speaker 1: on systems instead. So first, let's talk about why I
Speaker 1: focus 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 one at some
Speaker 1: point 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 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 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, the 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 there, and it's great.
Speaker 1: It's a nice spike for a week, and then things
Speaker 1: go back to the life. And so there is no
Speaker 1: single event that is going to make or break you
Speaker 1: as an entrepreneur, and really probably no single meal that
Speaker 1: will make or break you as a dieter, as someone
Speaker 1: who's trying to eat nutritiously, no single workout that will
Speaker 1: make or break your health. Um, it's really about the
Speaker 1: long term process and the habits that you maintain that
Speaker 1: determine how far you walk along that path. There's something
Speaker 1: you say in the back of the book. You you're writing,
Speaker 1: some sort of like common sense observations or whatever that
Speaker 1: that show how some of these things would be true,
Speaker 1: And one of them was happiness is simply the absence
Speaker 1: of desire. We had a guest not too long ago.
Speaker 1: She came came out in the last few weeks, but
Speaker 1: you know, her basic idea was, you know, you get
Speaker 1: what you want, and you think that's what made you happy.
Speaker 1: What made you happy was that you stopped wanting something else.
Speaker 1: You know, and goals are that way. I mean I
Speaker 1: relate with that so much, with like, you know, when
Speaker 1: just when this thing gets here, when that thing gets here.
Speaker 1: I mean I think I've lived I think a lot
Speaker 1: of us live a huge portion of our life in
Speaker 1: that way. And my problem was always so I'd get
Speaker 1: the thing I thought I wanted, I wouldn't be any happier.
Speaker 1: And instead of questioning the whole train of thinking, I think,
Speaker 1: well that thing just wasn't good in it, and maybe
Speaker 1: I must need to want something else. That must be
Speaker 1: the problem. I if I just had a girlfriend, then
Speaker 1: I get the girlfriend, I'm not happy, and now she's
Speaker 1: the problem, you know, I mean, so, it's such a
Speaker 1: pernicious way of thinking that is so deeply embedded in
Speaker 1: in everything that that we do. If you don't have
Speaker 1: a desire to change your current state, if you're happy,
Speaker 1: then you, by definition, you are happy with your current state.
Speaker 1: You're content with where you're at. But anytime a desire
Speaker 1: arises and you desire to change your state, you now
Speaker 1: are not content with where you're at. And so happiness
Speaker 1: is the absence of desire. It's the absence of the
Speaker 1: desire to change your current state. And it's hard to practice,
Speaker 1: you know, it's and that actually perhaps that word provides
Speaker 1: a little insight into it. It is a practice. It's
Speaker 1: not a it's not a finish line. You can't permanently
Speaker 1: be in a state of no desire, but you can
Speaker 1: practice returning to a state of contentment or returning to
Speaker 1: a state of not wanting. Yeah, I mean we're wired
Speaker 1: to sit in a state of complete contentment because we're
Speaker 1: wired to seek food to I mean, like, so what
Speaker 1: keeps us alive? It makes sense. You wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: human if you didn't, That's right. So it's it's there.
Speaker 1: It's like a lot of things. I think it's a
Speaker 1: question of like what is the ratio of that in
Speaker 1: your life compared you know what, what ratio is helpful
Speaker 1: or useful? You know, you know, talking about goals in
Speaker 1: relation to happiness as well. One of the other things
Speaker 1: is goals kind of like box you into this either
Speaker 1: or outcome where like either you achieve your goal and
Speaker 1: you're happy assuming the goal does make you happy, or
Speaker 1: anything else happens and you're not. And that's another reason
Speaker 1: why I think focusing on a system is really great
Speaker 1: because there are many ways that a system can run.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to just be one finite, narrow outcome.
Speaker 1: And anytime the system is running, you can feel satisfied
Speaker 1: with it. So just take the process of like writing
Speaker 1: a book. If writing a book is your goal, you
Speaker 1: can only be happy in your head if the book
Speaker 1: is written. But if you're focusing on the system of
Speaker 1: being the type of person who writes each day or something,
Speaker 1: they're like a million ways that could happen. You could journal,
Speaker 1: you could write a poem, you could write one sentence,
Speaker 1: you could write a chapter, you could just write emails. Um.
Speaker 1: There are so many things that you could do to
Speaker 1: reinforce that identity of being a writer and um, and
Speaker 1: I think that that provides like much more leeway in
Speaker 1: being gracious with yourself and in also continue to make
Speaker 1: progress even if it doesn't look exactly like the goal
Speaker 1: you had in your mind. The beginning used a word
Speaker 1: their identity, and you talk about that there are three
Speaker 1: layers of behavior change, right, one is we change your outcomes,
Speaker 1: the second is we change our processes, and then the
Speaker 1: last is we change our identity. So talk about the
Speaker 1: role 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 it.
Speaker 1: And the first person you offer a cigarette and they
Speaker 1: you offer them a cigarette and they say, no, thanks,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to quit. The second person you offer them
Speaker 1: a cigarette and they say, oh, no thanks, I'm not
Speaker 1: a smoker, and same action. They're both turning down the cigarette.
Speaker 1: But the first person still identifies as someone who is
Speaker 1: a smoker and they're trying to do something they're not.
Speaker 1: The second person is like, I'm a non smoker, and
Speaker 1: that signals a shift in identity, and that is a
Speaker 1: powerful thing, because once you see yourself as that kind
Speaker 1: of person, you have additional reason to reinforce that behavior.
Speaker 1: And this comes back to why I think small habits
Speaker 1: are important because the natural question anybody has at this point,
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, if you buy into this idea that
Speaker 1: identity and behavior are linked, it's like, well, how can
Speaker 1: I change my identity? Then that seems like a difficult
Speaker 1: thing to do, and I think the answer is small
Speaker 1: habits and tiny actions are the best method we have
Speaker 1: for shaping our identity. And the reason I say that
Speaker 1: is because, in a sense, your habits are how you
Speaker 1: embody a particular identity. You know, every time you make
Speaker 1: your bed in the morning, you embody the identity of
Speaker 1: someone who is clean and organized. Every time you go
Speaker 1: to the gym, you embody the identity of someone who
Speaker 1: is a fit person. Every time you write one sentence,
Speaker 1: you embody the identity of someone who is a writer.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of like every action you take is
Speaker 1: a vote for the type of person that you want
Speaker 1: to become, the type of person that you believe that
Speaker 1: you are. And as you cast these votes, as you
Speaker 1: repeat these little habits, you kind of build up evidence
Speaker 1: of being that type of person. And I really think
Speaker 1: the evidence there is like a crucial part because it
Speaker 1: gives you something to root the identity, and it gives
Speaker 1: you proof of being that kind of person. Because a
Speaker 1: lot of the time people will say things like fake
Speaker 1: it til you make it, but fake it til you
Speaker 1: make it a little different than what I'm talking about here,
Speaker 1: because it's asking you to believe something without having evidence
Speaker 1: for it. And there's a worth word for beliefs that
Speaker 1: don't have evidence. We're called delusion. You know, at some point,
Speaker 1: like the brain doesn't like this distance. Um, but if
Speaker 1: you can turn around and say, hey, I've you know,
Speaker 1: I've written one sentence, uh, thirteen out of the last
Speaker 1: fourteen days, all of a sudden, you have evidence of
Speaker 1: being a writer. And so your habits and actions give
Speaker 1: you proof of who you are, and gradually, over time
Speaker 1: they can reshape your identity a little bit or expand
Speaker 1: or upgraded in some aspects. Yeah, I think that idea
Speaker 1: about delusion is is so important because you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of I think what leads to a good life
Speaker 1: is having thoughts that are constructive and productive and and
Speaker 1: all that. But we don't believe stuff that we don't believe.
Speaker 1: It's the whole. Like you know, you look in the
Speaker 1: mirror and say I'm beautiful. Well, if you don't feel
Speaker 1: beauty like I mean right, your brain rejects it. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times what I'm working with people, what
Speaker 1: I work on is um, you use the phrase in here,
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, I'm the kind of person who and
Speaker 1: I hear this all the time from people I work
Speaker 1: with I'm the kind of person who can't finish what
Speaker 1: they start. I'm the kind of person that works out
Speaker 1: for a month and then quits. I'm the kind of
Speaker 1: person and a lot of times I think that the
Speaker 1: best place to start is to just can we just
Speaker 1: suspend judgment for a while, right? Can we just not
Speaker 1: fix ourselves into that identity? And then you're right, as
Speaker 1: we have contrary evidence, that belief changes. It's interesting. For
Speaker 1: years and years and years, I mean a lot of years,
Speaker 1: I wasn't on again, off again meditator. I do it,
Speaker 1: I get all inspired, and I would um do it
Speaker 1: for a while, then I would quit. And so I
Speaker 1: just had this sort of belief like I was the
Speaker 1: kind of person who just could never stick with it.
Speaker 1: And then through you know a lot of the things
Speaker 1: that we talked about in in your book here and
Speaker 1: and that, you know a lot of things I work
Speaker 1: with clients on all that, I got to a point
Speaker 1: where I became a daily meditator, you know, for a
Speaker 1: lot of years, you know, several years in a row,
Speaker 1: like every day. And then recently there's been a lot
Speaker 1: going on and I fell out of the habit a
Speaker 1: little bit, but the whole time that I was out
Speaker 1: of the habit. It just felt like a matter of
Speaker 1: time till I picked it up again, because I thought
Speaker 1: of myself as I'm someone who meditates, That's what I do.
Speaker 1: So it was just there was this dissonance inside. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the dissonance of I'm a failure, I screwed up again.
Speaker 1: It was just the dissonance of like, I'm a meditator
Speaker 1: and I'm not meditating, and so I found my way
Speaker 1: back to it. It was just very interesting for me
Speaker 1: to have that experience as somebody who had had the
Speaker 1: opposite belief about myself for so long. Yeah, that's interesting
Speaker 1: how identity can also like pull you back to center,
Speaker 1: you know, like if you if it's working for you,
Speaker 1: and uh, this comes back to that notion that we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, which is that habits are a double
Speaker 1: edged sword, and so identity can work for you or
Speaker 1: against you. Right. It can be a very empowering thing,
Speaker 1: like I'm a meditator, or it can be a negative
Speaker 1: thing like I'm bad at directions or I'm terrible at math,
Speaker 1: or I can't I don't remember people's names, or I'm
Speaker 1: the type of person who you know works out for
Speaker 1: a month and doesn't do it anymore, and that all
Speaker 1: of those are just examples of your identity reinforcing negative habits.
Speaker 1: Rather pause, I think what starts to happen is what
Speaker 1: I see people do is if they think they're the
Speaker 1: kind of person to start something and then doesn't stick
Speaker 1: with it the minute they don't stick with it for
Speaker 1: 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 and to experiment with
Speaker 1: something new, and you might surprise yourself. Um And I
Speaker 1: think that that's where habits can come into play, if
Speaker 1: you let them surprise you in accumulate evidence of being
Speaker 1: this new person. It's the Carol Diet growth versus fixed
Speaker 1: mindset thing, right, I mean the growth mindset. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people think it's silly or like, well,
Speaker 1: of course, the growth mindset. That's ridiculous. I'm never going
Speaker 1: to be an NBA player. I'm like, well, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not like. I mean, you might have been able to
Speaker 1: be right, you're called guy. I was not gonna was
Speaker 1: not gonna in the in the cards for me. But
Speaker 1: that's not what a growth mindset says. It just says
Speaker 1: I can get better, doesn't put a limit on how
Speaker 1: far I'll get better, just I can get better. And
Speaker 1: the fixed mindset says, no, this is the person I am.
Speaker 1: And so I think often again, just opening that door
Speaker 1: to like I can get better, I think that's actually
Speaker 1: a crucial distinction, you know, like the deliberate practice or
Speaker 1: growth mindset or any of these Um, grits. These strategies
Speaker 1: that are about, like, you know, you can become much
Speaker 1: more than what you think you can. Those strategies are
Speaker 1: not saying you can be anything. It's not saying a
Speaker 1: five ft four person is going to play in the
Speaker 1: NBA UM, But it is saying that anyone can get
Speaker 1: better if they're willing to practice and have this kind
Speaker 1: of growth ringset and so on. And I think that
Speaker 1: that is true. Humans are learning machines and you know,
Speaker 1: like you might not be a concert violinist if you
Speaker 1: start practicing the violin, but anybody who practices and has
Speaker 1: an open mindset will get better at playing the violin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not naturally musically talented in the way that I
Speaker 1: know lots of people who are. I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: around a lot of people. I'm like, they're just gifted.
Speaker 1: It was never that way. But I'm a pretty decent
Speaker 1: guitar player, you know, because I just kept doing it.
Speaker 1: You know, I wanted to do it. I kept doing it,
Speaker 1: and so I was able to get way better than
Speaker 1: I ever thought I could have gotten, you know, um,
Speaker 1: just by doing it and so um. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the four stages of habits and then we'll go
Speaker 1: into the four rules. Sure, so I'll explain them a
Speaker 1: little bit from a conceptual level and then give you
Speaker 1: maybe one or two examples, see and see what looks like.
Speaker 1: So I break habits into four stages, and those four
Speaker 1: stages are Q, craving, response, and reward. And I do
Speaker 1: that for a very specific reason. So pretty much every
Speaker 1: habit and possibly every human behavior, you can say, cycles
Speaker 1: through these four stages. So first, there's some kind of
Speaker 1: que or some kind of let's say raw data that
Speaker 1: 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 like
Speaker 1: a pack cigarettes 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 in 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: 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
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
Speaker 1: see you know, like you don't have this conscious craving,
Speaker 1: but it's just naturally and implicitly there. And uh, and
Speaker 1: really what I'm describing with those four stages is the
Speaker 1: process of learning, right, because say you take another habit,
Speaker 1: like tying your shoes, Well, the Q might be you
Speaker 1: have this shoe on your foot that's untied. Craving is
Speaker 1: I want to have the shoes secure. I want to
Speaker 1: have the shoe tied. Response, I try to tie my shoes. Reward, Well,
Speaker 1: maybe the first couple of times you do it, you're
Speaker 1: not good at tying your shoes, so then you know
Speaker 1: it doesn't work, like the nod as all messed up.
Speaker 1: You can't figure it out. But then you know, as
Speaker 1: a kid, you practice tying your shoes hundred times, five
Speaker 1: hundred times, thousand times, pretty soon you can tie your
Speaker 1: shoes on autopilots, just a habit. You can go through
Speaker 1: the queue, the craving, the response, and the reward. You're
Speaker 1: not even thinking about it. You can have a conversation
Speaker 1: with somebody else, you can think about what's on your
Speaker 1: to do list for the morning and so on. That's
Speaker 1: why I'm still wearing slip ons. Yes, they make it
Speaker 1: easy on yourself. So this is ah, this is ultimately
Speaker 1: the purpose that habits serve, right. They allow us to
Speaker 1: solve the problems that we face in life, the recurring problems.
Speaker 1: Some of them are small, like meaning to tie your shoe.
Speaker 1: Some of them are bigger, like what do I do
Speaker 1: when I come home from work each day and I
Speaker 1: feel exhausted? What are my habits for dealing with that?
Speaker 1: And uh. But the point is, whenever you face a
Speaker 1: problem repeatedly, your brain starts to automate the solution, and
Speaker 1: it does that by going through these four stages and
Speaker 1: learning how to respond to the cues and problems that
Speaker 1: you face throughout life. And so those cues could be
Speaker 1: internal or external. So the one we talked about you
Speaker 1: walk into the room though it's dark, that's your cue
Speaker 1: or using cueues um as a way to remind us
Speaker 1: to do a habit. But they're also the internal state
Speaker 1: which you describe, which is I get home from work,
Speaker 1: I'm stressed. The stress is the queue, right, So in
Speaker 1: that case, it's probably a combination of internal and external.
Speaker 1: Like let's say each you know, you come over from
Speaker 1: work and you step in the front door, so you
Speaker 1: have a context of walking in the door from work.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of physical. Um, you know, I come
Speaker 1: in the door at five thirty, and then you also
Speaker 1: have this internal feeling of like I'm stressed and exhausted
Speaker 1: from a long day. And when you put all that together,
Speaker 1: that kind of is the thing that initiates the habits.
Speaker 1: Something that makes habits a little difficult to pin down
Speaker 1: or difficult to change is that, over time, it's often
Speaker 1: the case that habits are not triggered by a single
Speaker 1: little cue, but actually by like the overall context of
Speaker 1: the environment. You know, So like you you go upstairs
Speaker 1: after work and you change into comfortable clothes, and you
Speaker 1: make dinner, and then you finished dinner and the context
Speaker 1: of being in your living room at night leads to
Speaker 1: the habit of watching Netflix for three hours. Um, And
Speaker 1: 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 first laws make it obvious. For craving, you want
Speaker 1: to make it attractive. For the response, you want to
Speaker 1: make it easy and for the reward, you want to
Speaker 1: make it satisfying. And so those four laws make it obvious,
Speaker 1: make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying, give
Speaker 1: you sort of like a toolbox that you can use
Speaker 1: for building a good habit. And then if you want
Speaker 1: to break a bad habit, you just invert each of
Speaker 1: the four laws. So for your bad habits, you do
Speaker 1: want the cues. Instead of making it obvious, you want
Speaker 1: to make it invisible, make it unattractive, make it difficult,
Speaker 1: make it unsatisfied. 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 is effortless.
Speaker 1: And when they're in the wrong positions, you're kind of
Speaker 1: fighting this uphill battle. And so they my hope is
Speaker 1: that those four laws of behavior change give you a
Speaker 1: very practical guide for how to actually adjust your habits
Speaker 1: in daily life, like what can we really do about
Speaker 1: the us? And they make the insights and the science
Speaker 1: about how habits work, and they turned 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
Speaker 1: was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to
Speaker 1: the One You Feed podcast. Head over to one you
Speaker 1: Feed dot net slash support. The One You Feed podcast
Speaker 1: would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.