Speaker 1: Hello everyone. This is the week between Christmas and New
Speaker 1: Year's and we are rereleasing some of our classic episodes
Speaker 1: about how to make lasting changes in behavior. Yesterday was
Speaker 1: James Clear Part one. This is James Clear Part two,
Speaker 1: from a conversation that we had live in person here
Speaker 1: in Columbus, Ohio. It's been well over a year and
Speaker 1: so enough time to to go ahead and rerelease these.
Speaker 1: They're they're great conversations with James. He's very wise about
Speaker 1: how we can make changes, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: content is based on his book called Atomic Habits. If
Speaker 1: you're looking for one on one support in making changes
Speaker 1: in your life and implementing new behaviors and habits, whatever
Speaker 1: those might be, whether they be foundational habits like exercise
Speaker 1: and eating well and meditating, or things like creative pursuits
Speaker 1: right in a novel, starting a business, launching a blog,
Speaker 1: communicating better with the people around you, having a more
Speaker 1: successful year at work. The list goes on of the
Speaker 1: things I've worked with my clients on. But if any
Speaker 1: of those describe you, or if there's something else you
Speaker 1: want to change and you're having trouble changing, go to
Speaker 1: Eric Zimmer dot coach slash application. You can sign up
Speaker 1: there for us to talk for thirty minutes. My promises,
Speaker 1: I'll give you something of value and I will not
Speaker 1: try and hard sell you on the program. And now
Speaker 1: onto the episode. If I leave the phone in another room,
Speaker 1: then I never go get it in the morning, which
Speaker 1: is always so funny to me because I never wanted
Speaker 1: it enough to put in forty five seconds of work.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers
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. 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 shapes 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 use 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 forget it because it wasn't obvious. So I bought
Speaker 1: one of those a little bowl and some of the flossers,
Speaker 1: and I put them in the bowl and put it
Speaker 1: right next to my toothbrush, And now I brush my teeth,
Speaker 1: put the toothbrush down, pick a flosser up, do it
Speaker 1: right then, And that was pretty much all I had
Speaker 1: to do to build the habit of flossing. It kind
Speaker 1: of surprised me that like that was the only change
Speaker 1: the need to happen, but it just once it was obvious,
Speaker 1: it fell into place. And many habits are like that,
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, the cues of many bad habits are also
Speaker 1: like that, and so if you can cut them out,
Speaker 1: if you can reduce exposure to those negative cues, you
Speaker 1: often find that the bad habit fades away naturally. The
Speaker 1: other classic example of that is if you want to
Speaker 1: play it are more, don't have it in in a case,
Speaker 1: which is one of those things that is one true.
Speaker 1: But when I think about it, I'm like, man, what
Speaker 1: what what creatures? We are? As humans? It takes eight
Speaker 1: seconds to take a guitar out of a case. And
Speaker 1: yet truly that difference of eight seconds makes a ton
Speaker 1: of difference in I mean, A, it's that I see
Speaker 1: it because it's out, but B there is just even
Speaker 1: and this will get this gets more to make it
Speaker 1: easy stage. But but just even that little bit of
Speaker 1: friction of having to open the case get it out,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's ridiculous, but that'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 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 when 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. Yeah. What you just described there as
Speaker 1: a borderline of of two things and implementation intention and
Speaker 1: habit stacking, right, Yeah, so habit stacking, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's this really useful method for building a new habit.
Speaker 1: And um I first heard about it from B. J.
Speaker 1: Faul because it's professor at Stanford and the big Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah he does, yes, I think he does call it anchoring. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: his idea is like, you want to anchor this new
Speaker 1: habit to a previous one that you have, right, do
Speaker 1: you want? In my language, you want to stack the
Speaker 1: new habit on top of the old one. So for example,
Speaker 1: you could, let's say you want to build the habit
Speaker 1: of meditation. You could say, when I make my morning
Speaker 1: cup of coffee, I will meditate for sixty seconds, or
Speaker 1: after I make my morning cup of coffee, I will
Speaker 1: meditate for sixty seconds. And that's basically the formula for this.
Speaker 1: As you say after blank, I will blank. So in
Speaker 1: the case of the guitar one you could say after
Speaker 1: I come home from work, or after I come home
Speaker 1: from a guitar practice, I will place my guitar, take
Speaker 1: my guitar out of the case and place it on
Speaker 1: the stand. Uh. And the more that you can come
Speaker 1: up with good habits stacks like that, the more you
Speaker 1: can prime your environment for taking the effective action. They're
Speaker 1: so useful also because a lot of times, what again,
Speaker 1: when I'm working with people about putting this stuff into
Speaker 1: actual practice, is the time of the day isn't always consistent.
Speaker 1: So ideally say I meditate it seven am every morning,
Speaker 1: but the problem is different things happen. But you do
Speaker 1: walk your dog every morning. It might be seven o'clock,
Speaker 1: might be seven, five, might be six thirty, might be eight.
Speaker 1: You know. So the advantage of that habit stacking or
Speaker 1: anchoring is that you can the time doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be exact. You don't get thrown off if you miss
Speaker 1: your time because you're you're you're tying it to something
Speaker 1: that is going to happen, but it might be a
Speaker 1: little bit variable. You get let home late from work
Speaker 1: instead of I meditate it six, I meditate when I
Speaker 1: walk in the door from work. Is a you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? It's a more practical great point. It
Speaker 1: flexes with you, right, And that's why it's important to
Speaker 1: choose triggers for your habit stack that are things you
Speaker 1: actually already do every day and are I guess more
Speaker 1: specific would be better, Like if it's a vague thing like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, after I get home from work, I will
Speaker 1: organize one item of clothing in my closet or something
Speaker 1: like that. Well that's fine, but like it actually would
Speaker 1: be better if it was more specific, like after I
Speaker 1: take off my shoes from work, I will organize one
Speaker 1: item of clothing in my closet. And because of this,
Speaker 1: the specificity of it, it makes it very clear when
Speaker 1: to act. YEA, all right, let's keep moving. I've got
Speaker 1: about ten more things we could talk about there. But
Speaker 1: I do think that idea of specificity is so critical,
Speaker 1: knowing when where as much exactness as you can have
Speaker 1: is such a big is such a big deal. Let's
Speaker 1: get onto number two. Make it attractive, so you know,
Speaker 1: different habits are attractive to us at different times, so
Speaker 1: timing is part of it. Um. But the more that
Speaker 1: you view a habit as attractive, the more likely you
Speaker 1: are to feel motivated to do it. And I think
Speaker 1: one important area to focus on here is social environment.
Speaker 1: So we've talked a little bit about physical environment and
Speaker 1: how that can prompt your habits, but social environment often
Speaker 1: determines what habits we find attractive. So, you know, everyone
Speaker 1: is part of multiple tribes. Some of the tribes that
Speaker 1: we're part of are really big, like what it means
Speaker 1: to be American, or what it means to be friends,
Speaker 1: or what it means to be Buddhist or Christian or
Speaker 1: whatever um. And some of the tribes are small, like
Speaker 1: what it means to be a member of your local
Speaker 1: CrossFit gym, or a neighbor on your street, or to
Speaker 1: volunteer at your local school. But all of these tribes,
Speaker 1: large and small, have a set of shared expectations, a
Speaker 1: set of shared behaviors that are part of them. So
Speaker 1: just imagine some habits that like most people do, like
Speaker 1: when you step onto the elevator, you turn around to
Speaker 1: face the front, or if you have a job interview,
Speaker 1: you wear a suit in 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 tribe, 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 than right by ourselves. And um, it
Speaker 1: takes a very bold and courageous thing to be on
Speaker 1: your own. And so it's easier to go from one
Speaker 1: tribe to another. It may still not be easy overall,
Speaker 1: but it's easier if you have a new group of
Speaker 1: friends to go to. And that's why I think it's
Speaker 1: important to have like shared context with that new group
Speaker 1: or to try to find these like mutually beneficial areas
Speaker 1: of overlap so that you can be friends quickly around
Speaker 1: one thing while you're trying to pick up the new habit.
Speaker 1: So let me just give one more example, Um Steve
Speaker 1: cam It's a friend of mine who runs a company
Speaker 1: called nerd Fitness, and nerd Fitness is all about getting
Speaker 1: in shape, but it's specifically organized for people who identify
Speaker 1: as nerds who are into up Star Wars or video
Speaker 1: games or the Marvel Universe, spider Man, Batman, whatever. And
Speaker 1: my point here is that if you're joining that group,
Speaker 1: getting in shape is still an intimidating thing. It doesn't
Speaker 1: change the habit of getting fit, but you can maybe
Speaker 1: bond with people over like your mutual love of Star
Speaker 1: Wars and you're like, oh, now I'm friends with Mark
Speaker 1: and Lisa, and because we're friends, you know they work
Speaker 1: out three days a week, so maybe you know, if
Speaker 1: they can do it, I can do it too. And
Speaker 1: if you have that mutual area of overlap, to develop
Speaker 1: a sense of belonging and friendship around, it becomes easier
Speaker 1: to adopt the habits of that new tribe. So it
Speaker 1: still requires effort, but I think that can help make
Speaker 1: those new habits more attractive. You've heard me talk about
Speaker 1: the one You Transformation program before. It's where you and
Speaker 1: I work one on one to make the changes in
Speaker 1: your life that you want to make, the changes you've
Speaker 1: been trying to make and have been unable to up
Speaker 1: till now. You know you're a good fit for this
Speaker 1: program if you say things to yourself like I know
Speaker 1: I could do so much more, but I just can't
Speaker 1: figure out what's wrong, or I'm just not disciplined, or
Speaker 1: I just can't stick with anything, or everyone else knows
Speaker 1: the secret sauce for getting things done but I can't.
Speaker 1: Why are they able to do it? And I'm not
Speaker 1: so any of those sound like you. You're probably a
Speaker 1: great fit for this program. And I want to read
Speaker 1: a testimonial from a client of mine because they can
Speaker 1: probably say it better than I can. And as I
Speaker 1: start this, yes, I am aware that me reading about
Speaker 1: myself is kind of weird, so you just have to
Speaker 1: bear with that, like I did. This is from my
Speaker 1: client Jane, so imagine it in her voice. Making a
Speaker 1: commitment to work with Eric is the best gift I've
Speaker 1: ever given myself. He is the perfect mix of accountability, coach, listener, cheerleader,
Speaker 1: and teacher. He helped me question and reframe old self
Speaker 1: limiting behaviors and beliefs, and after decades of an endless
Speaker 1: loop of broken promises to myself, I'm finally living in
Speaker 1: integrity and on my way to a life I only
Speaker 1: dreamed was possible. The positive personal changes have improved my
Speaker 1: family relationships, friendships, and work relationships as well. Working with
Speaker 1: him has quite simply improved my life in all aspects.
Speaker 1: Making the initial phone call for a consultation with Eric
Speaker 1: was very difficult for me to do, but I am
Speaker 1: so very grateful that I did. So that's from Jane,
Speaker 1: who again can say it a little bit better than
Speaker 1: I can. If that sounds like it would be good
Speaker 1: in your life, go to Eric Zimmer dot coach slash
Speaker 1: application and we can talk Eric Zimmer dot coach slash application.
Speaker 1: And if you're nervous about doing it like Jane was,
Speaker 1: she said it was one of the best things she
Speaker 1: ever did. I hope to talk to you soon. I
Speaker 1: think one of the things about technology that is so
Speaker 1: useful is that the Internet in particular is that you
Speaker 1: can find people to support you on the changes you're
Speaker 1: trying to make, even if those people aren't really it's
Speaker 1: not you can't get them into your life physically easily,
Speaker 1: whether that be their physical location, whether that be you've
Speaker 1: got a job, in a family and so you don't
Speaker 1: have much time to be out. You could still get
Speaker 1: some of that support and that tribe and that belonging.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's I don't think it's as good
Speaker 1: as in real life, but it is an option, and
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of people, I think, just say, well,
Speaker 1: I can't change all other stuff, so I just don't
Speaker 1: even look for that group, whereas a step in the
Speaker 1: right direction is can I find that support, encouragement, guidance online. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's just getting better. I actually just talked to
Speaker 1: someone that had a she had a fascinating idea for
Speaker 1: this business where it's work. They're working with self improvement ideas,
Speaker 1: so you know, weight loss group or things like that,
Speaker 1: but through virtual reality. And so you know, now right
Speaker 1: now you join like a Facebook group, you know, and
Speaker 1: you 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 a
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 a screen or in a 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 shared 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: similar you know, how how is it that we could
Speaker 1: use this thing that's virtual and make it more supportive.
Speaker 1: We have a Facebook group that works good, it's nice,
Speaker 1: but it's it is different, you know, and you know
Speaker 1: it's it's very difficult to organize, you know, um meet
Speaker 1: ups in a hundred different you know, we're not that big,
Speaker 1: right you know? So I think often about that. How
Speaker 1: what what are ways to create some of that benefit
Speaker 1: for 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 I have it is,
Speaker 1: the more convenient it is, the more likely you are
Speaker 1: to 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 another room until lunch each day. So I
Speaker 1: 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 right 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 him,
Speaker 1: but he had a rule where he wasn't allowed to
Speaker 1: stay 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 would
Speaker 1: go to the gym every day, even if it was
Speaker 1: just for five minutes. And then after like six weeks,
Speaker 1: he 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 the same thing is true
Speaker 1: for 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. Yet, my meditation habits a classic
Speaker 1: example of this, because I would meditate for a while
Speaker 1: and I quit, and then I pick up another book
Speaker 1: and they'd say she meditate thirty minutes a day. So
Speaker 1: I'd sit down to meditate for thirty minutes a day,
Speaker 1: which was you know, I've joked before, like when I
Speaker 1: sit down to meditate, like the circus comes to town.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a long time to spend with the
Speaker 1: circus when you're not used to it. When I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to meditate for two minutes
Speaker 1: every day. Then I built that and then I could
Speaker 1: go to three and five, And I mean it totally
Speaker 1: changed everything because it was something I was able to do.
Speaker 1: Um and And I think and this it leads us
Speaker 1: a little bit into four, you know, which is to
Speaker 1: make it satisfying. I was able to have the satisfaction
Speaker 1: of feeling like I met I'm meditating every day, right,
Speaker 1: instead of the I did good for two days, and
Speaker 1: I did crappy for five, then I did okay for
Speaker 1: one that daily day after day began two is you know,
Speaker 1: all the way back to the identity to I started
Speaker 1: to feel like I'm a meditator, I'm doing it, feels good,
Speaker 1: I'm satisfied. I want to do it again. And Bill,
Speaker 1: I think that is one of such a fundamental ideas
Speaker 1: that make it easy. And even if it's small, it
Speaker 1: can still reinforce that identity like you just mentioned. And
Speaker 1: if it reinforces the identity, if it helps you believe that, hey,
Speaker 1: I am a meditator, then even though it's small and
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, well, okay, you know what, how
Speaker 1: about we start with meditating for three minutes a day.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not gonna get peaceful meditating three minutes
Speaker 1: a day. No, you may not, But you can become
Speaker 1: a meditator. But you can become a meditator, right, but
Speaker 1: you can, you can make progress and um, you know yeah,
Speaker 1: just that that's starting. Smallness is so critical, all right.
Speaker 1: Number four. So the fourth law is to make it satisfying.
Speaker 1: And the idea here is it's really about the ending
Speaker 1: of the habit. You want to you want whenever I
Speaker 1: habit finishes, you want to feel successful in some way.
Speaker 1: You want to feel satisfied in some way. And the
Speaker 1: reason is because if you enjoy a habit, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like there's this pleasurable emotional signal in the brain
Speaker 1: where it's like, hey, this felt good, you should do
Speaker 1: this again next time. And so in a sense, we
Speaker 1: could say positive emotions culti vade habits and negative emotions
Speaker 1: destroy them. When you have this satisfying emotion associated with it,
Speaker 1: you want to do it again next time and um.
Speaker 1: There are a variety of examples of this, some of
Speaker 1: them some of the best ones are from businesses. So
Speaker 1: toothpaste is a common example that's given. There's no reason
Speaker 1: that toothpaste needs to taste minty. It doesn't. The mint
Speaker 1: flavor doesn't actually increase the effectiveness of the toothpaste itself.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make it clean your teeth better, but it
Speaker 1: does lead to a clean mouth feel and makes it
Speaker 1: more satisfying to brush your teeth. And because it's more
Speaker 1: satisfying and enjoyable, you have a reason to turn around
Speaker 1: again and do it the next time. UM. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite examples recent examples from car manufacturers. So a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, BMW added this feature to one
Speaker 1: of their cars where if you really slammed on the
Speaker 1: accelerator and pressed on the gas, it would pump additional
Speaker 1: engine growl through the speakers in the car, so it
Speaker 1: made it more satisfying to press on the gas. UM
Speaker 1: Forward had a similar set up where they had like
Speaker 1: this valve that normally the car would be soundproofed and
Speaker 1: if you're really slammed on the gas, the valvet open
Speaker 1: and let the engine noise in. But the the idea
Speaker 1: here is that there's some additional immediate satisfaction with driving
Speaker 1: driving the car, and that gets you to enjoy it
Speaker 1: and want to repeat it and so on and uh.
Speaker 1: The same is true for any habit, but it's really
Speaker 1: about the speed. It's really about feeling successful right away.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the challenges with building good
Speaker 1: habits or breaking bad ones, is that behaviors often produce
Speaker 1: multiple outcomes across time, and those outcomes are somewhat misaligned.
Speaker 1: So for a bad habit, the immediate outcomes often favorable,
Speaker 1: you know, like if you eat a donut right now,
Speaker 1: it's sugary and tasty and feels good sweet. But the
Speaker 1: ultimate outcome if you continue that habit for a month
Speaker 1: or a year or whatever, is unfavorable. Um for good habits,
Speaker 1: it's usually the reverse, right Like the immediate outcome of
Speaker 1: going to the gym right now is you sweat. It's effortful,
Speaker 1: requires energy and sacrifice, but the ultimate outcome that you're
Speaker 1: in shape a month or a year from now is
Speaker 1: favorite bole. And so a lot of the battle of
Speaker 1: building good habits and breaking bad ones is about figuring
Speaker 1: out how to take those long term consequences of your
Speaker 1: bad habits and pull them into the present moment so
Speaker 1: you feel like a little bit of the pain right
Speaker 1: now and you have a reason to avoid it, and
Speaker 1: taking the long term rewards of your good habits and
Speaker 1: pulling those into the present moment so that you feel
Speaker 1: successful and feel satisfied right now, and I have a
Speaker 1: reason to show up again. And the ultimate example of
Speaker 1: this is a reinforcement of your desired identity. If you
Speaker 1: feel like, for example, is so to continue its 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 going to
Speaker 1: want to repeat it again in the future. Similarly, if
Speaker 1: you can kind of reframe this using that growth mindset,
Speaker 1: kind of thing that we talked about earlier and see
Speaker 1: it as Hey, every time I show up at the gym,
Speaker 1: I am being the type of person who doesn't miss workout,
Speaker 1: So I'm reinforcing that identity. Well, now, as soon as
Speaker 1: you walk in the door and do one rep, you
Speaker 1: can 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
Speaker 1: gratification and like working hard for a long term goal.
Speaker 1: Often 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 in the moment. It's like, exercise makes me
Speaker 1: feel good. It reinforces my identity of someone who doesn't
Speaker 1: miss workouts. I get to hang out with my friends,
Speaker 1: I get it feels good to move my body a
Speaker 1: little bit whatever. But they're focused on the immediate outcome
Speaker 1: that is pleasurable rather than the delayed gratification that they're
Speaker 1: waiting for. Yep, and back to b. J. Fogg, he
Speaker 1: talks a lot about celebrating victories, right, I think that's
Speaker 1: the that's the reason, right, if you celebrate even the
Speaker 1: little change that feels good. You know, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be big, but you just need some positive emotional
Speaker 1: signal in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. The other the one
Speaker 1: that worked for me for exercise was when I went
Speaker 1: from exercising because I would look better in the future
Speaker 1: or because I wouldn't have a heart attack in the future,
Speaker 1: all that when I really became very focused on every
Speaker 1: single time in my life I've ever exercised, I felt
Speaker 1: better when I was done. There's never been a time
Speaker 1: where I was like, I wish you didn't do that.
Speaker 1: So that's what I focus on, is like, it'd be
Speaker 1: great if I could focus on like, boy, it feels
Speaker 1: good to be on the treadmill. And actually sometimes I can,
Speaker 1: as I've gotten better, but I do know that you know,
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes from now, I'll feel
Speaker 1: good right then. And the same thing with eating like
Speaker 1: I've started to really focus on like after I eat,
Speaker 1: like crap, how does it feel right then in that moment,
Speaker 1: you know, like I feel full or I feel you know,
Speaker 1: you know, like trying to shrink that that window of
Speaker 1: of gratification, you know, between the result and it's It
Speaker 1: is such a tricky thing. We're not well wired for
Speaker 1: that something that's you know, planning for something that's way
Speaker 1: out in the future. We're yeah, we're definitely wired evolutionarily
Speaker 1: speaking for immediate gratification because we had to beef to survive,
Speaker 1: you know, like you had to account for is there
Speaker 1: a lion threatening right me right now? Or is there
Speaker 1: a storm that I need to take shelter from or
Speaker 1: to have I eaten today? Like it's very near term,
Speaker 1: immediate focused. But the downside of that in modern society
Speaker 1: is that there's all kinds of unintended consequences that that
Speaker 1: now come, some of which we just talked about. But
Speaker 1: as a final example of this, it can be very
Speaker 1: useful to have immediate satisfaction for habits that what I
Speaker 1: would call are like habits of avoidance, So things like
Speaker 1: I don't want to drink alcohol for thirty days, or
Speaker 1: I don't want to go out to eat at restaurants
Speaker 1: is often um or I don't want to spend money
Speaker 1: on Amazon today. In a sense, those people set challenges
Speaker 1: like that for themselves a lot. But those habits like
Speaker 1: that are really hard because they're not inherently satisfying. You know, like,
Speaker 1: what is the what is the satisfaction of not going
Speaker 1: out to eat at the restaurant? Right You're just like
Speaker 1: resisting temptation to go out. So I had a reader
Speaker 1: who wanted to do that. He and his wife wanted
Speaker 1: to eat out less and cook more meals at home.
Speaker 1: And so what they did was they opened up a
Speaker 1: savings account and they labeled it trip to Europe, and
Speaker 1: then whenever they wouldn't go out to eat at a restaurant,
Speaker 1: they would transfer fifty dollars over the account. And being
Speaker 1: able to see that fifty dollars go over and the
Speaker 1: savings account grow in the moment was just a little
Speaker 1: bit of immediate satisfaction that suddenly made it rewarding to
Speaker 1: stay at home and cook the meal. Um. And so
Speaker 1: little hacks like that that give you some a little
Speaker 1: bit of immediate pleasure in the moment can be really useful.
Speaker 1: For sticking to some of those behaviors that otherwise wouldn't
Speaker 1: feel very satisfying. Yep. And keeping track of our habits
Speaker 1: is one of those things that is really useful. And
Speaker 1: you make that point that part one of the main
Speaker 1: things that makes it useful, is it it makes it
Speaker 1: more satisfying. Yeah, it feels good to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I write down all my workouts, right and log the
Speaker 1: the exercises and the reps and the sets and all that,
Speaker 1: and closing my journal at the end of a workout
Speaker 1: feels good to have banked another one and you know,
Speaker 1: and written written it down. And uh, the simplest version
Speaker 1: of that is just whenever you do a habit, you
Speaker 1: put next on the calendar for that day. But it's
Speaker 1: nice to have like a visual measurement of the progress
Speaker 1: you've made. It feels good to see yourself making progress
Speaker 1: and crossing off those habits exactly. Well, James, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time. I think we've we've rapidly
Speaker 1: run out of time, but thanks for coming on again.
Speaker 1: Congrats on the new book, and thanks for sharing all
Speaker 1: this with our listeners. Oh, thank you so much. I
Speaker 1: appreciate the opportunity and um if people want to check
Speaker 1: out the book, it's it's called Atomic Habits, and you
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: to the One you Feed podcast. Head over to one
Speaker 1: you Feed dot net slash support. The One you Feed
Speaker 1: podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting
Speaker 1: the show.