Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 1: What's that? Will?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: I know you and I both love old ad campaigns.
Speaker 3: They're so fun, so interesting. They're like a great sign
Speaker 3: of the time. So I'm gonna go way back to
Speaker 3: nineteen twenty eight for this one, and I'm talking about
Speaker 3: Lucky Strike here. Lucky Strike cigarettes, of course, and they
Speaker 3: launched this splashy new ad campaign. It was designed to
Speaker 3: attract female customers. So the ad showed this young woman
Speaker 3: with a chic flapper haircut, and under there was this
Speaker 3: tagline and it said, to keep a slender figure, no
Speaker 3: one can deny reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.
Speaker 3: And so the campaign was the brainchild of this Lucky
Speaker 3: Strike president. His name was George Washington Hill, and he'd
Speaker 3: been trying to figure out a way to combat the
Speaker 3: stigma against women smoking in public. And this was his
Speaker 3: big idea, encouraging weight conscious women to curb their appetite
Speaker 3: for sweets by taking up a new habit smoking.
Speaker 1: Which is probably a little worse for you, I mean
Speaker 1: just eating some candy, right, I guess so, But it's
Speaker 1: an interesting social experiment to see if you can get
Speaker 1: them to put down one thing for another.
Speaker 3: And you know, today, honestly, we're of course horrified by
Speaker 3: these ads, but back then they were really effective. So
Speaker 3: Lucky Strike sales soared more than two hundred percent, and
Speaker 3: even proper society women began tucking packs of cigarettes and
Speaker 3: their purses along with their lipstick and whatever else. But
Speaker 3: there was one group of people who were outraged by
Speaker 3: these ads. Can you guess who these people were?
Speaker 2: Doctors?
Speaker 3: No, no, this was the nineteen twenties. Make they loved
Speaker 3: the cigarettes, so doctors were chain smoking. But I'm actually
Speaker 3: talking about the candy industry. So they actually threatened Lucky
Speaker 3: Strike with litigation for implying that sweets make you gain weight.
Speaker 3: So intil the ads wound down, but marketing historians believe
Speaker 3: that the single tagline led more women to start smoking
Speaker 3: than any other promotional effort in history.
Speaker 2: And there's the reason I bring this up, Mango.
Speaker 3: It's that the whole campaign was based on the idea
Speaker 3: that if you just make up your mind, you can
Speaker 3: replace one habit with another. Now, this year, like every
Speaker 3: New Year, a lot of folks celebrated by making resolutions
Speaker 3: things like eating healthier, going to the gym, all that
Speaker 3: sort of stuff. But the problem is changing a habit
Speaker 3: isn't as easy as Lucky Strike wanted people to believe.
Speaker 1: It's really crazy to think that a tobacco company might
Speaker 1: lie to us.
Speaker 3: It's just so surprising you're right about that. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you can't trust Big Tobacco, who can you trust mango? Anyway,
Speaker 3: all of this made me curious about the science of habits,
Speaker 3: like how we developed them, why they're so hard to break,
Speaker 3: and what it really takes to make changes in our
Speaker 3: everyday lives. And because we're in the habit of tackling
Speaker 3: tough questions around here, we found some answers, so let's
Speaker 3: dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 3: I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
Speaker 3: good friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and over there in the
Speaker 3: booth eating a salad with one hand while bench pressing
Speaker 3: this enormous I can't even describe how big this barbell
Speaker 3: is massive just using that other hand. It's our friend
Speaker 3: and producer Dylan Fagan. I would say I'm impressed by
Speaker 3: his commitment to fitness, but I'm also just confused by
Speaker 3: how quickly he seems to be doing both things at
Speaker 3: the same time.
Speaker 1: It's impressive, right, Yeah, eating and pumping, eating.
Speaker 2: And pumping so good.
Speaker 3: Anyway, today's episode is all about habits, and I wanted
Speaker 3: to do this episode because I actually have a habit
Speaker 3: that i'd like to break.
Speaker 2: I'm illa, let you guess again, can you guess what
Speaker 2: it is?
Speaker 1: Well? First of all, I'm so glad that you have
Speaker 1: a habit that you're trying to break, because I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to a million habits because I'm doing
Speaker 1: the show on how to Live Longer and be healthier,
Speaker 1: and I'm so bad at trying to start like a
Speaker 1: million things at the same time. I keep track of them.
Speaker 2: It's not easy.
Speaker 1: But I mean I feel like for you, you are a
Speaker 1: healthy eater. You run marathons half marathons. So maybe it
Speaker 1: has something to do with like diet doctor peppers or dependent.
Speaker 3: You know me so well, and I have talked about
Speaker 3: this on the show before, but I do have a
Speaker 3: bit of a candy problem, and you know, I find
Speaker 3: myself thinking about candy, I inevitably find myself eating candy.
Speaker 3: So I need to break my candy habit, and I'm
Speaker 3: thinking maybe I could replace it with a better habit.
Speaker 1: So probably not a cigarette, because I think we've established
Speaker 1: that's a bad idea.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I guess I need to put that one
Speaker 3: aside now. I was actually thinking more along the lines
Speaker 3: of eating more fruit. What do you think about that one?
Speaker 1: I like that, And as you're thinking about, like infrasing
Speaker 1: this new habit, it might actually help you to know
Speaker 1: that you're definitely not alone. So people have been wrestling
Speaker 1: with trying to implement better habits for hundreds even thousands
Speaker 1: of years, and the meaning of the word habit has
Speaker 1: evolved over time. So if you look back, Aristotle actually
Speaker 1: equated habit with moral character, and he believed that good
Speaker 1: character traits developed through a process of repetition or habituation,
Speaker 1: and this is best done at a young age, in
Speaker 1: his opinion, so you enter adulthood properly and prepared for
Speaker 1: the moral life. He framed this kind of as a
Speaker 1: learning by doing, so if you want to be a
Speaker 1: brave person, you can develop that trait by doing brave things.
Speaker 1: But he didn't see habituation as a mindless or even
Speaker 1: mechanical activity. You really had to internalize these qualities and
Speaker 1: think about them and incorporate them into your character. And
Speaker 1: the idea was that those who developed good habits became
Speaker 1: good and virtuous people, and that in turn guided all
Speaker 1: their subsequent choices and it rewarded them with a happy life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean it sounds so much more noble than when
Speaker 3: you think about like a lot of goals that people
Speaker 3: will set or that will set, you know, like I
Speaker 3: want to run on a treadmill three times a week
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 2: Like I just like the direction of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you can still see how we associate habits
Speaker 1: with moral character, even though the modern definition of the
Speaker 1: term has actually expanded to a whole bunch of things, right, Like,
Speaker 1: so take exercise, for example. Someone might tell you that
Speaker 1: you're being good for going to the gym, But just
Speaker 1: because you're doing a healthy activity, it doesn't mean you're
Speaker 1: a good person. And by the same token, like skipping
Speaker 1: the gym doesn't make you a bad person. You're just
Speaker 1: not getting those physical benefits of exercise. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, as long as we're talking about morality here,
Speaker 3: isn't a habit? Also, what nuns wear? Do we need
Speaker 3: to shift topics?
Speaker 1: Here, yes, and weirdly, I did look into that, and
Speaker 1: the earliest known use of the word habit in English
Speaker 1: dates to the year twelve twenty five, and originally it
Speaker 1: didn't just refer to nuns. It meant any specific way
Speaker 1: of dressing associated with an occupation or an activity. That
Speaker 1: use of the word has mostly fallen out of use,
Speaker 1: except in the case of nuns, and weirdly, horseback riders
Speaker 1: who still refer to a riding habit to describe their outfits,
Speaker 1: which actually means a horseback riding. None could wear a
Speaker 1: habit over her habit.
Speaker 3: I actually did not know that about horseback riders. That's interesting,
Speaker 3: all right. Well, I want to jump ahead to eighteen
Speaker 3: fifty nine, which is the year a Scottish author with
Speaker 3: an incredible name, Samuel Smile, published the world's first self
Speaker 3: help book, which just feels so appropriate. And it was called,
Speaker 3: wait for it, self help.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty self explanatory and I hope the book
Speaker 1: was a little more creative than that title.
Speaker 2: I don't know, not really.
Speaker 3: It was a litany of these mid Victorian values like
Speaker 3: self reliance and hard work, and you know, Smiles believed
Speaker 3: in individualism, free trade and sort of pulling yourself up
Speaker 3: by the bootstraps. And that's probably because he'd watched his
Speaker 3: mother support eleven children on her own after their father
Speaker 3: died in a cholera epidemic. And Smiles studied medicine, and
Speaker 3: then he worked in business and in journalism, and finally
Speaker 3: he started giving these lectures about self improvement. And was
Speaker 3: he successful. Very so Self Help was a massive success.
Speaker 3: It sold over quarter of a million copies by the
Speaker 3: time that Smiles died, and it was translated into a
Speaker 3: dozen languages. And much like Aristotle, Smiles saw habits as
Speaker 3: an active reflection of character, so he wrote, quote, Man,
Speaker 3: it has been said, is a bundle of habits, and
Speaker 3: a habit is second nature. Principles, in fact are but
Speaker 3: the names which we assigned to habits for principles are words,
Speaker 3: but the habits are the things themselves.
Speaker 1: I like, how I realize you're saying man is in humankind.
Speaker 1: But but at first it sounded like he's like, man, man,
Speaker 1: it's a bundle of habits.
Speaker 2: That's right, Man, It's just I think maybe it was
Speaker 2: supposed to mean both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what was Smiles saying here?
Speaker 3: I guess and effect what he's saying is you know,
Speaker 3: it's one thing to say I believe in hard work,
Speaker 3: but the real value is developing a habit of actually
Speaker 3: working hard. Smiles tells the story of a young man
Speaker 3: named George Leclair who was born in a well off family.
Speaker 3: He's lazy and he's unmotivated, and as a result, he
Speaker 3: develops this habit of sleeping late instead of getting up
Speaker 3: and being productive. So eventually he realizes how much time
Speaker 3: he's wasting, so he vows to break this bad habit,
Speaker 3: and he tries, and he tries, but he can't get
Speaker 3: up on time. So he offers his servant, Joseph, a reward.
Speaker 3: He says, if he manages to drag him out of
Speaker 3: bed by six, Joseph would earn a crown, and by
Speaker 3: this he means a coin, not like a royal headgear.
Speaker 1: So does Joseph make that money?
Speaker 3: Well, it certainly isn't easy for him. Joseph starts coming
Speaker 3: in to wake up his boss at six, and George
Speaker 3: yells and screams and threatens to fire him, so Joseph
Speaker 3: SLINKs away and lets him sleep late again. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is clearly an abusive workplace, but Joseph wants the
Speaker 3: extra money. So one day he gets fed up, he
Speaker 3: throws a basin of water at George. It finally gets
Speaker 3: him out of bed on time, and from then on
Speaker 3: he starts getting up early and starts working right after breakfast,
Speaker 3: eventually becoming an author of several important books about the
Speaker 3: natural sciences. So, according to Smiles, for forty years afterward,
Speaker 3: the once lazy George got up every single day and
Speaker 3: wrote from nine am to two pm, and again from
Speaker 3: five pm to nine pm.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And so all it took was a fed up servant
Speaker 1: with a bucket of water and a tiny reward. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we have to take a quick break, but when
Speaker 1: we come back we'll find out the scientific reason why
Speaker 1: habits are so tenacious and why going on autopilot is
Speaker 1: actually a good thing except when it is not. Don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere. Welcome back to part time genius and our
Speaker 1: deep dive into the science of habits. Okay, Well, so
Speaker 1: before the break, you were telling us about George Leclair
Speaker 1: and the absurd lens he went to in order to
Speaker 1: stop sleeping late. And aside from being a weird funny tale,
Speaker 1: the story illustrates how sticky habits can be right like
Speaker 1: this guy wants to wake up early, but he still
Speaker 1: throws a tantrums. Poor servant tries to get him up
Speaker 1: and change his behavior, and that brings us to the
Speaker 1: great William James, who is the father of modern psychology.
Speaker 1: James realized that the force of habit was everywhere, even
Speaker 1: in nature, so in his landmark book The Principles of Psychology,
Speaker 1: James describes the laws of nature as quote immutable habits
Speaker 1: which the elementary sorts of matter follow in their actions
Speaker 1: and reactions upon each other. And he also comes up
Speaker 1: with a description of human habits that we still use today. So,
Speaker 1: according to James, habits are sequences that we've repeated so
Speaker 1: often that they actually perpetuate themselves. So in other words,
Speaker 1: we no longer devote conscious thought or attention to them. Now. Obviously,
Speaker 1: as in the case of George Leclair, we run into
Speaker 1: problems when these automated habits like sleeping late, no longer
Speaker 1: aligned with our goals. In his case, he wanted to
Speaker 1: wake up early to write. But in general, James saw
Speaker 1: the habit mechanism as a good thing. He believed that
Speaker 1: shifting parts of daily life into habit mode kind of
Speaker 1: frees us to think deeply about other actions and to
Speaker 1: quote develop our higher powers of mind.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's kind of like how you hear about
Speaker 3: CEOs who wear the same outfit every day. It's I
Speaker 3: guess it's just like one less thing to think about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember hearing about Obama doing that to sort
Speaker 1: of store up his will power. But to look more
Speaker 1: closely at this phenomena, why don't we take a look
Speaker 1: inside your brain?
Speaker 2: Wait, my brain specifically.
Speaker 1: M So, let's welcome the audience in now. Let's say
Speaker 1: you're home, it's late afternoon, and you walk past your
Speaker 1: center for excellence, the candic cabinet, which we can assume
Speaker 1: is never empty. Next thing you know, you've got a
Speaker 1: piece of candy in your mouth, even though you aren't hungry,
Speaker 1: and you made a resolution to eat fewer sweets. The
Speaker 1: thing is, you shifted into autopilot without realizing it. And
Speaker 1: the reason for this has to do with a group
Speaker 1: of neuron clusters deep in your brain. They're called the
Speaker 1: basal ganglia, and they're kind of like a control panel.
Speaker 1: They connect with other parts of the brain to send
Speaker 1: signals back and forth. And it's a complex and somewhat
Speaker 1: mysterious reason that manages things like voluntary movement, decision making,
Speaker 1: reward processing, and a whole lot more. But in your case,
Speaker 1: seeing the candy cabinet was a trigger that activated a
Speaker 1: specific brain circuit associated with the habit of eating candy.
Speaker 1: It didn't engage the networks involved with goal focused action,
Speaker 1: So your behavior and your resolution just kind of sailed
Speaker 1: past each other.
Speaker 3: So by goal focused action, you mean like when I
Speaker 3: consciously think to myself, like I want to do X,
Speaker 3: and then I take whatever steps are necessary to then
Speaker 3: do it right.
Speaker 1: But compare your autopilot experience to someone who doesn't eat
Speaker 1: candy that often. Let's say they've had a tough day
Speaker 1: at work and they decide they want a sweet treat.
Speaker 1: The brain is consciously working through the steps, like they
Speaker 1: identify this feeling, they decide to indulge. They remember where
Speaker 1: they hid that box of chocolate from the kids, They
Speaker 1: pull it out, pick the piece that looks the tastiest.
Speaker 1: And the thing is this process also involves the basil kanglia,
Speaker 1: but it's a completely different network than the networks associate
Speaker 1: with habitual behavior. In other words, it's lighting up a
Speaker 1: whole different part of your circuit board.
Speaker 3: So what happens if this person starts reaching for the
Speaker 3: chocolates more often, Like, does the habit section of the
Speaker 3: circuit board start lighting up eventually?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It does.
Speaker 1: So there are these researchers, Henry Yinn and Barbara Knowlton,
Speaker 1: and they did a huge analysis of basil ganglia activity
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and six, and one of the
Speaker 1: things they found was that with repetition, the network's involved
Speaker 1: with quote action control change. Right, so there's a handoff
Speaker 1: from what they called the goal driven associative network to
Speaker 1: the habit network. So you could be doing the exact
Speaker 1: same action eating a piece of candy, but it's being
Speaker 1: driven by a different part of your brain, which brings
Speaker 1: us to a really important conclusion, Right, habits aren't defined
Speaker 1: by what we're doing. They're defined by how we're doing them.
Speaker 1: So if it's happening automatically without much conscious thought, whatever
Speaker 1: it is is actually a habit.
Speaker 3: And I guess that's pretty cool, but maybe also kind
Speaker 3: of depressing because I mean it sounds like you're saying
Speaker 3: order to break a habit or gain a habit, we
Speaker 3: actually have to rewire our brains.
Speaker 1: I mean, the good news is our brains have plasticity, right,
Speaker 1: They are completely capable of change, learning and making new connections.
Speaker 1: And even at my old age, and I know you're
Speaker 1: a little younger than me, it just takes a little bit.
Speaker 3: Of effort, right, like two months, I think, you know,
Speaker 3: the more I think about this, the more I think
Speaker 3: it might be better if we had fewer habits, Like
Speaker 3: wouldn't we make better choices if we did everything consciously
Speaker 3: and actually try to avoid letting the habit network take
Speaker 3: over in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I actually wondered about this as well. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, we actually need both systems, both this
Speaker 1: automatic one and this goal directed one, because they're not
Speaker 1: completely disconnected. They work together in way scientists are still
Speaker 1: trying to unravel. But over the years, research has shown
Speaker 1: that William James was right, as are the CEOs who
Speaker 1: wear the same outfit every day. Automatic habitual behavior helps
Speaker 1: us act really quickly and it doesn't use up a
Speaker 1: lot of cognitive resource, and that really does do give
Speaker 1: our brains more bandwidth for navigating new and complex situations
Speaker 1: or even things like emergencies. Imagine how exhausting it would
Speaker 1: be if every morning you had to think about walking
Speaker 1: into the bathroom picking up your toothbrush, uncapping the toothpaste,
Speaker 1: applying the paste, putting the cap back on the toothpaste. Right,
Speaker 1: you have to brush, you have to rinse, you have
Speaker 1: to put the toothbrush away. You need a nap before
Speaker 1: you're like, you even made it to the breakfast table.
Speaker 3: That just made me tired. Here and you describe it.
Speaker 3: I realized how much work we're doing. But actually, you
Speaker 3: know what it makes me think of is driving. Like
Speaker 3: there are certain routes that I take all the time,
Speaker 3: and it's not that I'm not paying attention to the road,
Speaker 3: but I'm not really watching for street signs or checking
Speaker 3: the GPS. It just you just know where to turn
Speaker 3: because you've done it so many times. And you know,
Speaker 3: while I'm driving, I sometimes start thinking about an idea
Speaker 3: for the show.
Speaker 2: Or a meeting that I need to prepare for.
Speaker 3: But if I'm driving someplace new and I actually have
Speaker 3: to think about it, you know it wouldn't be easy
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was in LA for work and I made
Speaker 1: the mistake of running a car. And honestly, if I could
Speaker 1: not do that much thinking when I.
Speaker 2: Was driving a round that foot for sure.
Speaker 1: Let's head back in your brain for a minute, which
Speaker 1: you know is familiar territory for all our listeners. Listeners now, plant.
Speaker 1: So you are at home and you need to go
Speaker 1: to the grocery store. You grab the grocery bags and
Speaker 1: get in your car, and that triggers your basil ganglia
Speaker 1: to activate the drive to the grocery store habit network. Right,
Speaker 1: So you start your car, pull out the driveway, head
Speaker 1: down the street, and so on until you get to
Speaker 1: the store. And this habit exists because over time, you've
Speaker 1: been rewarded for doing it. When you get in your
Speaker 1: car and follow a specific set of directions, you reach
Speaker 1: your destination and your brain goes you know, ding ding ding,
Speaker 1: I won right. So naturally, the next time you have
Speaker 1: the same context and trigger, it has an incentive to
Speaker 1: follow the same steps to get to that same reward.
Speaker 1: But let's say something's changed this time. Right, So, yesterday
Speaker 1: your neighbor told you that the road to the store
Speaker 1: is closed for repairs. There is this other route, but
Speaker 1: it means going ten minutes out of your way. So
Speaker 1: what do you think happens when you get into your
Speaker 1: car today.
Speaker 3: I mean, I want to think that i'd remember the
Speaker 3: road closure and take the alternate route. But I know
Speaker 3: this because it's actually happened to me so many times.
Speaker 3: I have a feeling I just go the normal way,
Speaker 3: then get to the roadblock, and then be annoyed with myself.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and actually there have been studies done about this.
Speaker 1: It is super common and weird because we assume we're
Speaker 1: these rational, goal oriented, reward motivated creatures. But even though
Speaker 1: you've been told you need to take a different route
Speaker 1: to reach your goal and earn this award of being
Speaker 1: at the grocery store as quickly as possible, your habit
Speaker 1: network kicks in and it overrides that knowledge and it
Speaker 1: sends you the wrong way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's like sometimes you've ever been in like an uber,
Speaker 3: a lyft or something like that, and you know that
Speaker 3: the driver is going the slower way because they're not
Speaker 3: following GPS or something like that, but it's the way
Speaker 3: you know, they know they're supposed to go every time.
Speaker 3: But anyway, I actually read this fascinating study that looked
Speaker 3: at this phenomenon in the context of movie theater popcorn.
Speaker 3: So these researchers named Windy Wood and David Neil, they
Speaker 3: actually made a ton of popcorn and they just left
Speaker 3: it sitting out in their lab for about a week.
Speaker 1: Which must have made the lab smell incredible.
Speaker 3: I'm sure that it did. And I know what a
Speaker 3: huge fan of popcorn you are. That's that sort of
Speaker 3: your candy. But they didn't specify in this case. But
Speaker 3: we all know popcorn is best right after its mate.
Speaker 3: That stuff that set in the lab got really, really stale.
Speaker 3: So Wendy and David hosted a movie night at a
Speaker 3: local cinema. They gave out free popcorn. Half the audience
Speaker 3: got a staleback, half got a freshly popped back, and
Speaker 3: so when the trailers ended, they had people turning their
Speaker 3: popcorn bags and they measured how much had been eaten.
Speaker 3: They also asked everyone to fill out a survey indicating
Speaker 3: how often they popcorn at the movies, and the results
Speaker 3: were pretty incredible. So an average, people who were not
Speaker 3: regular popcorn eaters ate about forty percent of the stale popcorn.
Speaker 3: They started eating it, then they realized it wasn't very
Speaker 3: good and they stopped. But people who were accustomed to
Speaker 3: eating popcorn at the movies ate over sixty percent of
Speaker 3: the stale bags. And the crazy part is Wendy and
Speaker 3: Dave also asked people what they thought about the popcorn.
Speaker 3: Everyone agreed that the stale stuff tasted bad, but the
Speaker 3: habit it.
Speaker 2: Still on out That is wild.
Speaker 1: And it's also amazing that, like, the people who weren't
Speaker 1: regular popcorn eaters still ate forty percent of the stale popcorse. Seriously,
Speaker 1: that's crazy, but you know it's proof of the power
Speaker 1: of context and also triggers. Right, Like, some people only
Speaker 1: eat popcorn at the movie, so being at the theater
Speaker 1: is this powerful cue that it's popcorn time, even if
Speaker 1: the popcorn isn't worth eating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. But you know, there's actually one other
Speaker 3: detail that I found interesting. So Wendy and Dave repeated
Speaker 3: their experiment, and the second time they did it, they
Speaker 3: told people they could only eat with their non dominant hand.
Speaker 3: So this time, even people with the strong self reported
Speaker 3: popcorn habits only ate about thirty percent of the stale
Speaker 3: popcorn in their bag.
Speaker 1: And is that because it's hard to grab as much
Speaker 1: popcorn with your non dominant hand.
Speaker 3: No, it's actually not really the takeaway, although some news
Speaker 3: reports did get a hold of this study and claim
Speaker 3: that eating with your other hand makes you eat less
Speaker 3: but according to the researchers, using a non dominant hand
Speaker 3: simply introduced an element of friction to the habit, and so,
Speaker 3: in other words, people had to think about what they
Speaker 3: were doing as they were eating, so it wasn't quite
Speaker 3: as automatic as it was before. And when they thought
Speaker 3: about it, they realized popcorn is gross. I don't want
Speaker 3: to eat it, So their conscious brains overrode that habit mechanism,
Speaker 3: which is wild. Wendy and David pointed out that the
Speaker 3: opposite could be true as well, So slowing down, paying
Speaker 3: closer attention to what they were eating could also help
Speaker 3: us enjoy it more.
Speaker 1: But it's not going to make stale popcorn taste good.
Speaker 2: No, that's definitely true.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, after we take another quick break, we'll
Speaker 3: hear from one of the world's leading experts on behavior
Speaker 3: change to figure out how I can use these concepts
Speaker 3: to tinker with my brain networks and modify my candy habit.
Speaker 2: So stay tuned. Okay, Well, so far.
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about how habits form, why they're helpful,
Speaker 1: and just how durable they become over time. But now
Speaker 1: it's time to get into the real nitty gritty how
Speaker 1: we can change our habits, and I actually found the
Speaker 1: perfect person to explain it.
Speaker 4: I'm Katie Milkman, and I'm a professor at the Wharton
Speaker 4: School at the University of Pennsylvania. I'm also the author
Speaker 4: of the book How to Change, and I co direct
Speaker 4: a research center called the Behavior Change for Good Initiative,
Speaker 4: where we study the science of what it takes to
Speaker 4: make change.
Speaker 1: It's funny too, because we spoke to Katie last month,
Speaker 1: right after the New Year, and she told me it's
Speaker 1: a busy time for her, like she gets lots of
Speaker 1: media requests because everyone's trying to figure out the secret
Speaker 1: to keeping their New Year's resolutions. And that led to
Speaker 1: my first question, Is there any magic to picking a
Speaker 1: date like January first as a time to make or
Speaker 1: break a habit? And it turns out there actually is.
Speaker 1: Katie refers to this as the fresh start effect. New
Speaker 1: Year's Day is a classic example, but there are others,
Speaker 1: like your birthday, or your first day at a new job,
Speaker 1: or maybe why you want to go to the gym
Speaker 1: on a Monday at the start out of a new week.
Speaker 4: All of these moments are chapter breaks in the way
Speaker 4: we tell the story of our lives. And one thing
Speaker 4: that's really interesting about humans and the way we think
Speaker 4: about time is that we don't think about it linearly.
Speaker 4: We think about it like we're characters in a book
Speaker 4: and we're living through chapters, and at these chapter breaks,
Speaker 4: we feel like there's a discontinuity in who we are.
Speaker 4: So if you talk to somebody in the new year,
Speaker 4: right after the start of January and they're talking about
Speaker 4: something that happened to them last year, they have a
Speaker 4: sense of disconnect. That was the old met last year
Speaker 4: and this is the new me.
Speaker 1: And that disconnect helps change our habits. Yeah, it can.
Speaker 1: It has to do with a general sense of motivation,
Speaker 1: but also increased awareness of what we're doing. These chapter
Speaker 1: breaks are a time to take stock and pay closer
Speaker 1: attention to our behaviors, so we can break out of
Speaker 1: that automation and really make a conscious decision about what
Speaker 1: to change.
Speaker 3: You know, I wish somebody had told me this back
Speaker 3: on I know, like December thirtieth or thirty first, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I know you say that because I've spent
Speaker 1: so much time in your brain this episode. So I
Speaker 1: actually have a plan. I'm declaring next Monday, the official
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, Part Time Genius Habit Change, Fresh Start Day.
Speaker 1: We are welcoming our audiences. If there's a habit you
Speaker 1: want to make or when you want to break, just
Speaker 1: mark your calendars. On March second, you have a blank
Speaker 1: slate for change.
Speaker 3: And if you listen to this later, what we meant
Speaker 3: to say was April second. So I actually really love this,
Speaker 3: And on Monday, I'm going to start my new habit
Speaker 3: of limiting sweets and eating fruit every single day. Man,
Speaker 3: I'm never going to fail, and it's going to take
Speaker 3: some will power, but I'm going to be really disciplined
Speaker 3: and I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: I like that spirit, but I think you're wrong.
Speaker 2: Well, what do you mean wrong?
Speaker 1: Let's let Katie explain.
Speaker 4: Nike has some great advertising and they're just do it campaign,
Speaker 4: but it is one of my least favorite slogans because
Speaker 4: it's so misaligned with what research shows. It's not that
Speaker 4: we can just do it, it's that we actually need
Speaker 4: to set ourselves up for success and not try to
Speaker 4: push through the pain or you know what doesn't till
Speaker 4: he makes you stronger. Those messages are really misaligned with
Speaker 4: what evidence shows works, which is not to think I'm
Speaker 4: going to just buckle down and use my willpower to
Speaker 4: achieve this, But rather, how can you make it incredibly easy,
Speaker 4: incredibly fun and rewarding and instantly gratifying and social and
Speaker 4: unforgettable to pursue your goals.
Speaker 2: You're saying, I don't need to suffer.
Speaker 1: No, And in fact, the more you suffer, the harder
Speaker 1: it is for new habits to take root. So remember
Speaker 1: how we talked about how reward followed by repetition is
Speaker 1: what locks habit patterns into your brain. If every time
Speaker 1: you reach for an apple you think I don't want this,
Speaker 1: your brain never registers it as a reward, and that
Speaker 1: makes you less likely to repeat the behavior, and that
Speaker 1: makes the habit less likely to.
Speaker 3: Form some weird mental jiu jitsu mango. So you can
Speaker 3: turn something you don't like doing into a habit if
Speaker 3: you turn it into something that you like doing well.
Speaker 3: In my case, maybe instead of buying the usual apples,
Speaker 3: oranges or bananas, I guess I could buy some fancier
Speaker 3: fruits that maybe I would enjoy even more. And maybe
Speaker 3: instead of just eating at my desk while I'm answering emails,
Speaker 3: I could take a few minutes for like a real break,
Speaker 3: walk around and enjoy the fruit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that fancy fruit break. You're taking. Fancy
Speaker 1: fruit break, Katie also told me. Katie also told me
Speaker 1: about a concept she calls temptation bundling, where you link
Speaker 1: a desired habit with a different reward. Like when she
Speaker 1: was crazy busy with postgrad work, she developed a gym
Speaker 1: habit by making a rule she could only listen to
Speaker 1: her favorite audiobooks when she was working out.
Speaker 4: I'd throw on my exercise clothes in the dead of
Speaker 4: Boston winter and basically rush over to the gym to
Speaker 4: find out what happened to my favorite characters. The other
Speaker 4: thing that was amazing is not only did it motivate
Speaker 4: me to go, but I didn't really notice the pain
Speaker 4: of the workout while I was there. But it could
Speaker 4: be anything any chore, right. It could be you only
Speaker 4: let yourself listen to your favorite podcast while you're scrubbing
Speaker 4: the bathroom floor, or you know, cleaning your desk.
Speaker 3: You know, I hope there's somebody out there listening to
Speaker 3: Part Time Genius exclusively while scrubbing the bathroom floor. It's
Speaker 3: just a nice idea, all right. My next question is
Speaker 3: how long does all of this take? Like I read
Speaker 3: somewhere that it takes twenty one days to form a habit,
Speaker 3: which obviously is an overnight but it doesn't seem too hard.
Speaker 2: That's not that bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we've all heard this twenty one days thing,
Speaker 1: and it's actually a myth. It comes from a nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty self help book called psycho Cybernetics, and it was
Speaker 1: written by a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz. It's not
Speaker 1: clear where you got the number twenty one from, but
Speaker 1: there is no evidence for this. There's actually no magic
Speaker 1: number for habit formation because there is such a wide
Speaker 1: range of behaviors that habits can be. But repetition is
Speaker 1: the key. So something like going to the gym, you're
Speaker 1: probably only going to do it once a day. But
Speaker 1: if you're trying to develop a habit like turning off
Speaker 1: the light every time you leave a room, you can
Speaker 1: repeat that multiple times a day, so it might take
Speaker 1: less time.
Speaker 2: To become a habit.
Speaker 1: But if you're worrying about slip ups, you really shouldn't
Speaker 1: worry about that. Katie says setbacks don't necessarily stop us
Speaker 1: from reaching our goal. In fact, she told me about
Speaker 1: a study where people were told to go to the
Speaker 1: gym seven days a week, but they had two get
Speaker 1: out of jail free cards and they could use those
Speaker 1: on any days when they didn't feel up to it,
Speaker 1: and those people had an easier time forming a gym
Speaker 1: going habit than people who were told to go to
Speaker 1: the gym five days a week.
Speaker 3: No matter what, that's pretty interesting, all right, So you
Speaker 3: focus on repetition, not a magic number on the calendar,
Speaker 3: don't freak out if you have a setback, and build
Speaker 3: some flexibility into the plan. Like this all seems doable
Speaker 3: in terms of adding healthy snacking habits to my life.
Speaker 3: But is there anything else I should be thinking about
Speaker 3: in order to break that candy habit? It's pretty intense, Mango.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned it earlier, but when you were talking
Speaker 1: about popcorn and that whole study, like friction could be
Speaker 1: one of the answers.
Speaker 3: Okay, of course, Like if eating candy requires more effort,
Speaker 3: I'll have to think about it more and that gives
Speaker 3: me a better shot at overriding the automatic habit. Actually,
Speaker 3: it occurs to me that I have a literal candy
Speaker 3: cabinet in my house, so walking past it is such
Speaker 3: a trigger, Mango, like, it is so nice to open
Speaker 3: that cabinet so I could put my candy stash in
Speaker 3: a different cupboard where it's out of sight, or even
Speaker 3: give I don't know, I don't want to say this,
Speaker 3: mega b baby, give some of it away.
Speaker 1: Don't say that. Don't say that, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to say it.
Speaker 2: Nevermind. Take that out, Dylan.
Speaker 3: I'd probably eat less if I had to go to
Speaker 3: the store every time I wanted a candy bar. And
Speaker 3: I guess that's obvious, but it's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those are great ideas. But if you do all
Speaker 1: that and it stills I'm working for you. There is
Speaker 1: one more thing you can try.
Speaker 2: Here's Katie.
Speaker 4: Another strategy that's pretty well studied and that's a little
Speaker 4: more dramatic, is to use what's called a formal commitment
Speaker 4: device or a hard commitment device, and that is where
Speaker 4: you impose a more meaningful cost on yourself for failing
Speaker 4: to achieve a goal or continuing with a habit. What
Speaker 4: do I mean by cost, I literally mean a fine.
Speaker 4: So imagine putting money on the line that you will
Speaker 4: have to forfeit if you stick to that bad habit
Speaker 4: and choosing a referee who will hold you accountable.
Speaker 1: Okay, so like a swear jar here exactly. And because
Speaker 1: I I'm such a good friend, I volunteer to help
Speaker 1: hold you accountable. If you want, you can venmo me
Speaker 1: like a dollar every time you accidentally eat candy instead
Speaker 1: of fruit, and I'm just here for you.
Speaker 2: I really hope it doesn't come to that.
Speaker 1: There's actually another level of this that Katie told me
Speaker 1: about where your accountability partner donates the money to a
Speaker 1: cause that you.
Speaker 3: Hate, like the Society to Eradicate Sweets or you know
Speaker 3: one of those awful organizations.
Speaker 2: I mean, that is diabolical, Mango.
Speaker 1: But it is a way to overcome really tenacious habit blocks.
Speaker 1: Because if you're giving money to a friend or you're
Speaker 1: marking it for a charity support, that financial cost is
Speaker 1: kind of the same, but the emotional cost is less.
Speaker 1: You can tell yourself, well, at least I'm helping this
Speaker 1: good cause, right, And it feels very different if slipping
Speaker 1: up means you're supporting a cause you absolutely do not
Speaker 1: believe it.
Speaker 3: I feel like that is like the nuclear option. But
Speaker 3: let's check in a few months and see if we
Speaker 3: need to go there. But I got to say, Mango,
Speaker 3: I really appreciate how much effort you put into helping
Speaker 3: me figure this all out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, the obviously i'm your friend, but also
Speaker 1: the research is clear that social support helps with habit modification.
Speaker 1: So if anyone listening wants to help a friend who's
Speaker 1: trying to change their habits, Katie says, you can do
Speaker 1: that in several ways. You can volunteer to try something
Speaker 1: new with them, you can help hold them accountable, and
Speaker 1: you can use your social network to introduce them to
Speaker 1: people who have experience with whatever it is they're trying
Speaker 1: to do. But you said it's also important just to
Speaker 1: be a source of positivity for people.
Speaker 4: One of the things that we know as a barrier
Speaker 4: in some cases to goal achievement can be maybe I
Speaker 4: don't believe in myself that it's really feasible for someone
Speaker 4: like me, And so the messages that we get from
Speaker 4: our friends matter. So you can think about the implicit
Speaker 4: messages you're sending with your actions and the people you
Speaker 4: introduce someone to, but you can also think about the
Speaker 4: explicit supportive messages that build confidence.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you think I can do this, Mango, because
Speaker 3: starting one day I'm swapping my candy habit for a
Speaker 3: healthy fruit of healthy fancy fruit habit.
Speaker 1: I should say, well, I don't think you can do it.
Speaker 1: I know you can do it, and if not, I'll
Speaker 1: gladly take your money and do something terrible with it.
Speaker 2: That's excellent, all right.
Speaker 3: Well for that, my friend, you deserve today's trophy. Congratulations.
Speaker 1: I will take it. And for everyone else who wants
Speaker 1: to change a habit, remember this coming Monday, March second
Speaker 1: is our official fresh start day, which is weird that
Speaker 1: we didn't do it on March fourth because we were
Speaker 1: supposed to March fourth towards something you want, but March
Speaker 1: second makes a lot more sense to us here. Give
Speaker 1: us a call at three O two four oh five
Speaker 1: five nine two five to tell us what habit you'd
Speaker 1: like to change, or you can send us an email
Speaker 1: at high Geniuses at gmail dot com. That's hi Geniuses
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. You can also find us on
Speaker 1: blue Sky and Instagram at part time Genius and we'll
Speaker 1: have an update for you later this year to see
Speaker 1: how Will's doing on that candy habit. Big thanks to
Speaker 1: Katie Milkman for speaking with us. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out the links to her work in the show notes.
Speaker 1: I want to give a special shout out to her newsletter,
Speaker 1: which is called Milkman Delivery. I just love that. Thanks
Speaker 1: also to Kate Horwitz who helped us out with research,
Speaker 1: and to Anna Rubinova, who edited this episode. We will
Speaker 1: be back next week, but in the meantime, from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
Speaker 1: and myself, thank you so much for listening. Part Time
Speaker 1: Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is
Speaker 1: hosted by my good pal Will Pearson, who I've known
Speaker 1: for almost three decades now. That is insane to me.
Speaker 1: I'm the Utaco host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is
Speaker 1: Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer. I'm going
Speaker 1: to fix that in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier,
Speaker 1: who I've also known for like a decade at this point,
Speaker 1: maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is
Speaker 1: always dressed up, always cheering us on, and always writing
Speaker 1: hit record and then mix the show after he does
Speaker 1: a great job. I also want to shout out the
Speaker 1: executive producers from iHeart my good pals Katrina and Norvel
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry. We have social media support from Calypso
Speaker 1: Rallis if you like our videos, that is all Calypso's handiwork.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or tune in wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. That's it from us here at Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening