Speaker 1: Happy holidays everybody. In case you're just recently joining us,
Speaker 1: or however long you've been a listener of the show,
Speaker 1: you may not realize that we have over seven years
Speaker 1: of incredible episodes in our archive. We've had so many
Speaker 1: wonderful guests that we've decided to hand pick a few
Speaker 1: of our favorites during this holiday season as we have
Speaker 1: some time off, and these may be new to you,
Speaker 1: but if not, they are certainly worth another listen. We
Speaker 1: hope you'll enjoy part two of this two part series
Speaker 1: with James Clear. 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
Speaker 1: think ring true, And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or pour us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: here's part two of the interview with James Clear. He
Speaker 1: has a new book called Atomic Habits and Easy and
Speaker 1: 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. So let's talk about making it obvious.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you talk about in the book,
Speaker 1: and there's so much research behind it, is you say
Speaker 1: environment is the invisible hand that shapes human environment. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the making obvious or invisible, right, the
Speaker 1: inversion of that law is really about how we structure
Speaker 1: our environment. Right, So let me just give you some
Speaker 1: tangible examples. Um, many of our habits are a response
Speaker 1: to the physical cues that are in our environment. And
Speaker 1: uh so let's take the habit of watching television. You know,
Speaker 1: like if you walk into pretty much any living room,
Speaker 1: where do all the couches and chairs face all face
Speaker 1: the TV? So it's like, what is this room design
Speaker 1: to get you to do? Right, it's the most obvious
Speaker 1: thing in that environment, the very prevalent que So there
Speaker 1: are a variety of things you could do to change that.
Speaker 1: So in this case, we're talking about an inversion of
Speaker 1: the first law, make it invisible to watch TV. So
Speaker 1: you could take the remote control and you could put
Speaker 1: it in a drawer instead of leaving it out on
Speaker 1: the coffee table. You could take the television itself and
Speaker 1: put it inside a wall unit or behind like a
Speaker 1: cabinet indoors. You could also increase the friction associated with
Speaker 1: the task, so like if you wanted to, you could
Speaker 1: take the batteries out of the remote control. And then
Speaker 1: that adds like an extra five or ten seconds, and
Speaker 1: maybe it's enough time for you to be like, I
Speaker 1: do I really want to watch this right now? Am
Speaker 1: I just turning it on mindlessly? Um? You could unplug
Speaker 1: the TV after each use and then only plug it
Speaker 1: back in if you can say the name of the
Speaker 1: show you want to watch, so you're not allowed to
Speaker 1: just like mindlessly turn Netflix on and find something. Um.
Speaker 1: And if you really wanted to be extreme about it
Speaker 1: and you wanted to reduce the queues, you could take
Speaker 1: the TV off the wall, put it in the closet,
Speaker 1: and then only take it out when you really want
Speaker 1: to watch something bad enough to set it up again.
Speaker 1: But the point here is that there's kind of like
Speaker 1: a range of options. And the more that you can
Speaker 1: increase the steps between you and the bad behaviors and
Speaker 1: reduced the steps between you and the good behaviors. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the more that you can make the cues of
Speaker 1: your good habits obvious, the more likely you are to
Speaker 1: to fall into those. So to give you another example, UM,
Speaker 1: when I wanted to build a flossing habit, I realized
Speaker 1: that I brushed my teeth twice a day, but I
Speaker 1: just didn't floss consistently. And one of the reasons was
Speaker 1: because I had floss hidden away in a drawer in
Speaker 1: the bathroom. I just like, wouldn't think about it. I
Speaker 1: would I would forget it because it wasn't obvious. So
Speaker 1: I bought one of those a little bowl and uh,
Speaker 1: some of the flossers, and I put them in the
Speaker 1: bowl and put it right next to my toothbrush. And
Speaker 1: now I brush my teeth, put the toothbrush down, pick
Speaker 1: a flosser up, do it right then. And that was
Speaker 1: pretty much all I had to do to build the
Speaker 1: habit of flossing. It kind of surprised me that like
Speaker 1: that was the only change the need to happen, But
Speaker 1: it just once it was obvious, it fell into place.
Speaker 1: And many habits are like that. And unfortunately, the cues
Speaker 1: of many bad habits are also like that, and so
Speaker 1: if you can cut them out, if you and reduce
Speaker 1: exposure to those negative cues, you often find that the
Speaker 1: bad habit fades away naturally. The other classic example of
Speaker 1: that is if you want to play guitar more don't
Speaker 1: have in a case, which is one of those things
Speaker 1: that is one true. But when I think about it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, what what what creatures? We are? As humans?
Speaker 1: It takes eight seconds to take a guitar out of
Speaker 1: a case. And yet truly that difference of eight seconds
Speaker 1: makes a ton of difference in I mean, A, it's
Speaker 1: that I see it because it's out, but B there
Speaker 1: is just even and this will get this gets more
Speaker 1: to make it easy stage. But but just even that
Speaker 1: little bit of friction of having to open the case
Speaker 1: get it out. I mean, it's it's ridiculous, but that's
Speaker 1: you know, it works. So a friend of mine plays
Speaker 1: the violin, and he was not practicing nearly as much
Speaker 1: as he wanted to or needed to. So he took
Speaker 1: his violin. He placed it right in the middle of
Speaker 1: his living room floor on a stand, and he was like,
Speaker 1: now I pass it, like, you know, a dozen times
Speaker 1: a day. So I end up playing like an hour
Speaker 1: a day just because it's there. And this also your
Speaker 1: example the guitar, the guitar case. It shows how like
Speaker 1: habits can bleed into each other and how it can
Speaker 1: be useful too. So like let's say that you go
Speaker 1: to guitar lessons, you have an instructor, or you play
Speaker 1: with a band or whatever. When you come home, you
Speaker 1: already have a habit of what you do with your
Speaker 1: guitar when you come home. Usually you keep in the
Speaker 1: case and you put in the closet or put it
Speaker 1: in the you know, in the corner or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: But instead it can be really useful to build a
Speaker 1: new habit of when I get home, I take my
Speaker 1: guitar out of the case, and I put it on
Speaker 1: the stand in the middle of the living room, around
Speaker 1: the side of the whatever, right in an obvious location,
Speaker 1: because just that action of what you do with it
Speaker 1: when you come home makes it easier for you to
Speaker 1: pick it up again throughout the day and play it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what you just describe, there's a borderline of two things
Speaker 1: and implementation intensition and habit stacking. Right, yeah, so habit stacking,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's this really useful method for building
Speaker 1: a new habit. And um I first heard about it
Speaker 1: from B. J. Faulk because it's professor at Stanford and
Speaker 1: the big Yeah. Yeah he does, yes, I think he
Speaker 1: does call it anchoring. Um. Anyway, his idea is like,
Speaker 1: you want to anchor this new habit to a previous
Speaker 1: one that you have, right, do you wanna in my language,
Speaker 1: you want to stack the new habit on top of
Speaker 1: the old one. So for example, you could let's say
Speaker 1: you want to build the habit of meditation. You could say,
Speaker 1: when I make my morning cup of coffee, I will
Speaker 1: meditate for sixty seconds, or after I make my morning
Speaker 1: cup of coffee, will meditate for sixty seconds. And that's
Speaker 1: basically the formula for this. As you say, after blank,
Speaker 1: I will blank. So in the case of the guitar one,
Speaker 1: you could say, after I come home from work or
Speaker 1: after I come home from a guitar practice, I will
Speaker 1: place my guitar, take my guitar out of the case
Speaker 1: and place it on the stand. Uh. And the more
Speaker 1: that you can come up with good habits stacks like that,
Speaker 1: the more you can prime your environment for taking the
Speaker 1: effect of action. They're so useful also because a lot
Speaker 1: of times, what again, when I'm working with people about
Speaker 1: putting this stuff into actual practice, is the time of
Speaker 1: the day isn't always consistent. So ideally, say I meditate
Speaker 1: at seven am every morning, But the problem is different
Speaker 1: things happen. But you do walk your dog every morning.
Speaker 1: Might be seven o'clock, might be seven oh five, might
Speaker 1: be six thirty, might be eight. You know. So the
Speaker 1: advantage of that habit stacking or anchoring is that you
Speaker 1: can the time doesn't have to be exact. You don't
Speaker 1: get thrown off if you miss your time because you're
Speaker 1: you're tying it to something that is going to happen,
Speaker 1: but it might be a little bit variable. You get
Speaker 1: let home late from work instead of I meditate at six,
Speaker 1: I meditate when I walk in the door from work.
Speaker 1: Is a you know what I mean, it's a more practical,
Speaker 1: great point. It flexes with your right and that's why
Speaker 1: it's important to choose triggers for your habits stack that
Speaker 1: are things you actually already do every day and are
Speaker 1: I guess more specific would be better, Like if it's
Speaker 1: a vague thing like, um, you know, after I get
Speaker 1: home from work, I will organize one item of clothing
Speaker 1: in my closet or something like that, Well that's fine,
Speaker 1: but like it actually would be better if it was
Speaker 1: more specific, like after I take off my shoes from work,
Speaker 1: I will organize one item of clothing in my closet.
Speaker 1: And because of the specificity of it, it makes it
Speaker 1: very clear when to act. YEA, all right, let's keep moving.
Speaker 1: I've got about ten more things we could talk about there.
Speaker 1: But I do think that idea of specificity is so
Speaker 1: critical knowing when where as much exactness as you can
Speaker 1: have is such a big is such a big deal.
Speaker 1: Let's 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 means to be Buddhist or Christian or whatever, um.
Speaker 1: And some of the tribes are small, like what it
Speaker 1: means to be a member of your local CrossFit gym,
Speaker 1: or a neighbor on your street, or to volunteer at
Speaker 1: your local school. But all of these tribes, large and small,
Speaker 1: have a set of shared expectations, a set of shared
Speaker 1: behaviors that are part of them. So just imagine some
Speaker 1: habits that like most people do, like when you step
Speaker 1: onto the elevator, you turn around to face the front,
Speaker 1: or if you have a job interview, you wear a
Speaker 1: suit in a tie or a dress or something nice. Now,
Speaker 1: there's no reason that you have to do those things, right,
Speaker 1: Like you could face the back of the elevator. You
Speaker 1: could wear a bathing suit to a job interview, like
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't have to do it, but you
Speaker 1: because it violates the shared expectations of the group. Right,
Speaker 1: you don't do it because it goes against the grain
Speaker 1: of what the tribe wants. And so the lesson there
Speaker 1: is that when habits go with the expectations of the
Speaker 1: tribes that we are a part of, they're very attractive
Speaker 1: because they help you belong, they help you fit in.
Speaker 1: You get praised and approved of by others for doing them.
Speaker 1: When habits go against the grain of our tribes, they're
Speaker 1: very unattractive. And so whether or not you feel motivated
Speaker 1: to do something is often contingent upon the people that
Speaker 1: you're surrounded by. And uh, the punchline here, the practical
Speaker 1: takeaway is you want to join groups where your desired
Speaker 1: behavior is the normal behavior, because if it's normal in
Speaker 1: that group, it's going to seem attractive to you because
Speaker 1: it will be the type of thing that helps you
Speaker 1: fit in. This is why you see people, you know,
Speaker 1: like people join across fit Jim and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they start eating paleo and they buy certain types of shoes,
Speaker 1: and they, you know, like all they pick up all
Speaker 1: these other habits that they weren't even trying to do
Speaker 1: in the first place. They were just trying to get fit,
Speaker 1: but they do those because that's what it means to
Speaker 1: be part of that tribe. They start to get friends
Speaker 1: there and then they collect all these other habits. So um,
Speaker 1: the caveat that I like to add to that because
Speaker 1: in a sense, when you ask people to change their habits,
Speaker 1: you're kind of asking them to change their tribe to
Speaker 1: a certain degree. And that can be hard. That can
Speaker 1: be intimidating. And if you're if your choice is either
Speaker 1: I get to do the habits that I want to do,
Speaker 1: but I have to be alone, I have to like
Speaker 1: leave the tribe I'm in to go do this new thing,
Speaker 1: or I have to stick with my old habits, which
Speaker 1: aren't really the greatest, but I get to stay as
Speaker 1: part of the group I get to keep my friends
Speaker 1: and family. Then we would often we often choose to
Speaker 1: be wrong with the crowd than right by ourselves. And um,
Speaker 1: it takes a very bold and courageous thing to be
Speaker 1: on your own. And so it's easier to go from
Speaker 1: one 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 specif typically organized for people who
Speaker 1: identify as nerds, who are end up Star Wars or
Speaker 1: video games or the Marvel Universe, Spider Man, Batman, whatever.
Speaker 1: And 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 Wars,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, now I'm friends with Mark and Lisa,
Speaker 1: And because we're friends, you know they work out three
Speaker 1: days a week, so maybe you know, if they can
Speaker 1: do it, I can do it too. And if you
Speaker 1: have that mutual area of overlap to develop a sense
Speaker 1: of belonging and friendship around, it becomes easier to adopt
Speaker 1: the habits of that new tribe. So it still requires effort,
Speaker 1: but I think that can help make those new habits
Speaker 1: more attractive. I think one of the things about technology
Speaker 1: that is so useful is that the Internet in particular
Speaker 1: is that you can find people to support you on
Speaker 1: the changes you're trying to make, even if those people
Speaker 1: aren't really it's not you can't get them into your
Speaker 1: life physically easily, whether that be their physical location, whether
Speaker 1: that be you've got a job in a family and
Speaker 1: so you don't have much time to be out. You
Speaker 1: could still get some of that support and that tribe
Speaker 1: and that belonging. I don't think it's I don't think
Speaker 1: it's as good as in real life, but it is
Speaker 1: an option, and I think that a lot of people
Speaker 1: I think just say, well, I can't change all other stuff,
Speaker 1: so I just don't even look for that group, whereas
Speaker 1: a step in the right direction is can I find
Speaker 1: that support, encouragement, guidance online. Yeah, and it's just getting better.
Speaker 1: I actually just talked to someone. They had a ship,
Speaker 1: had a fascinating idea for this business where it's work.
Speaker 1: They're working with self improvement ideas. So, you know, weight
Speaker 1: loss group or things like that, but through virtual reality.
Speaker 1: And so you know, now right now, you join like
Speaker 1: a Facebook group, you know, and you you get support
Speaker 1: for your weight loss goal or whatever. And that's fine,
Speaker 1: that's better than nothing. It's it's great. But we all
Speaker 1: know instinctively that being part of a Facebook group is
Speaker 1: not the same thing as like being in a room
Speaker 1: with people who share your goals. But if you can
Speaker 1: put on a headset and suddenly you like step into
Speaker 1: this room, it's kind of like you're watching a screen
Speaker 1: or in a video game, and now you're in the
Speaker 1: same room with ten other people who are one person's
Speaker 1: in Montana, somebody else is in Arizona. People are spread
Speaker 1: out all over, but you all have the same goals.
Speaker 1: Um then suddenly it starts to feel very real and uh,
Speaker 1: and so I think we're going to see more of
Speaker 1: that over the next decade or two and certainly well
Speaker 1: into the future, where you can basically replicate what it
Speaker 1: feels like in real life. And now suddenly you can
Speaker 1: be the parent who works a sixty hour week and
Speaker 1: has two kids at home and you only have time
Speaker 1: from eight to nine pm, but during a one hour
Speaker 1: slot you can connect with people from all over who
Speaker 1: share the same holes. Yeah, I think that's great. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's one of the things I spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time wrestling with my own in my own head, is
Speaker 1: all right, we've got this show and there's a you know,
Speaker 1: we've got a got a large number of listeners right
Speaker 1: who have similar values. You know, how how is it
Speaker 1: that we could use this thing that's virtual and make
Speaker 1: it more supportive. We have a Facebook group that works good,
Speaker 1: it's nice, but it's it is different, you know, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's very difficult to organize, you know,
Speaker 1: um meet ups in a hundred different you know, we're
Speaker 1: not that big, right you know, so I think often
Speaker 1: about that, How what what are ways to create some
Speaker 1: of that benefit for the community. Um, so I'm always
Speaker 1: looking for other options, So I'm I'll ping you afterwards
Speaker 1: to learn more about that. Yeah, all right, how about
Speaker 1: number three? Make it easy? So, if you're trying to think, like,
Speaker 1: where should I start with a habit, what's the first
Speaker 1: thing I should do? This is probably where I would
Speaker 1: recommend starting, which is essentially making your habits as easy
Speaker 1: and convenient as possible. The more um, the more for
Speaker 1: and less I have it is, the more convenient it is,
Speaker 1: the more likely you are to fall through. So, just
Speaker 1: as an obvious example of this, consider your phone. You know,
Speaker 1: we all have our smartphones on us all the time,
Speaker 1: and one of the things about smartphones is that they
Speaker 1: are so frictionless, so easy to use, that we slide
Speaker 1: into them all the time, even if we don't really
Speaker 1: want to. So I had an interesting thing that I
Speaker 1: realized recently. So this year I've started doing a new
Speaker 1: habit where I leave my phone in another room until
Speaker 1: lunch each day. So I have a home office, so
Speaker 1: it's not that far away. It's maybe like forty five
Speaker 1: seconds up the stairs and into another room. Well, if
Speaker 1: my phone is next to me, if it's on the desk,
Speaker 1: I'm like everybody else, I'll check it every three minutes,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm just looking at because it's there.
Speaker 1: But if I do that, if I leave the phone
Speaker 1: in another room, then I never go get it in
Speaker 1: the morning, which is always so funny to me because
Speaker 1: it's like, well, I was checking it like a hundred
Speaker 1: times over the three hours, but I never so in
Speaker 1: a sense you would think I wanted to look at it,
Speaker 1: but I never wanted it enough to put in forty
Speaker 1: five seconds of work, right, And so this is the
Speaker 1: the inversion of the of the third law, which is
Speaker 1: make it difficult. But the point here is that if
Speaker 1: you can add a little bit of friction to the
Speaker 1: bad habits, they often fade away, and if you can
Speaker 1: reduce the friction of the good habits, they often rise
Speaker 1: up and become much easier to perform. Now, the simplest
Speaker 1: way to do this for building a good habit is
Speaker 1: to practice what I call the two minute rule and
Speaker 1: the two minute rules. Basically, you take whatever habit that
Speaker 1: you're trying to build and you scale it down to
Speaker 1: just the first two minutes, so you know, do thirty
Speaker 1: minutes of yoga becomes take out your yoga mat or
Speaker 1: read twenty five books a year becomes read one page,
Speaker 1: um or write a book becomes right one sentence. Whatever
Speaker 1: you can do in two minutes or less. And the
Speaker 1: key here is that you're really trying to automate or
Speaker 1: habitualize the first two minutes of the behavior, just the
Speaker 1: beginning of it. And this is way more powerful than
Speaker 1: maybe at first seems uh. And the reason is because
Speaker 1: a habit must be established before it can be improved.
Speaker 1: If you don't master the art of showing up, if
Speaker 1: you don't master the art of just doing the habit
Speaker 1: every day, then there's nothing to optimize. So I had
Speaker 1: a reader who actually did this. He ended up losing
Speaker 1: over a hundred pounds. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: he did was that he went to the gym, but
Speaker 1: he had a rule where he wasn't allowed to stay
Speaker 1: for longer than five minutes. And it sounds silly, right,
Speaker 1: It sounds kind of ridiculous because it's like, why would
Speaker 1: you go to the gym for only five minutes? But
Speaker 1: what you realize is he was mastering the art of
Speaker 1: showing up. He became the type of person who 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
Speaker 1: or whatever, um. But if you optimize for the starting line,
Speaker 1: how can I master the art of going to the
Speaker 1: gym for just five minutes? Then you've got options because
Speaker 1: you're actually there every day, uh and anything. It's true
Speaker 1: for you know, if you write one sentence a day,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, it's gonna be hard for me to
Speaker 1: write a book if I only write one sentence. Well
Speaker 1: that's true. But you literally can't write a book if
Speaker 1: you aren't the type of person who at least doesn't
Speaker 1: write one sentence every day. So I think it's important
Speaker 1: to scale it down to the first two minutes and
Speaker 1: master that. And once you make it as easy as possible,
Speaker 1: when you master the art of showing up, then you
Speaker 1: can optimize and improve from there. Ye. My meditation habits
Speaker 1: a classic example of this, because I would meditate for
Speaker 1: a while and I quit, and then I pick up
Speaker 1: another book and they'd say she meditate thirty minutes a day.
Speaker 1: So 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
Speaker 1: do um and and I think and this it leads
Speaker 1: us a little bit into for you know, which is
Speaker 1: to make it satisfying. I was able to have the
Speaker 1: satisfaction 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, and I did okay for
Speaker 1: one that daily day after day began two is you
Speaker 1: know all the way back to the identity to I
Speaker 1: started to feel like I'm a meditator, I'm doing it,
Speaker 1: feels good, I'm satisfied. I want to do it again.
Speaker 1: And Bill, I think that is one of such a
Speaker 1: fundamental ideas that make it easy. And even if it's small,
Speaker 1: it can still reinforce that identity like you just mentioned.
Speaker 1: And if it reinforces the identity, if it helps you
Speaker 1: believe that, hey, I am a meditator, then even though
Speaker 1: it's small and actually is big, you know, it's meaningful. Um.
Speaker 1: And so I think for that reason that's a really
Speaker 1: good place to start if you're looking to be able
Speaker 1: to have it is scale it down, master the art,
Speaker 1: showing up and reinforce that identity. Yeah. Yeah, I will
Speaker 1: talk with people about that, Like, well, okay, you know what,
Speaker 1: how 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 cultivate habits and negative emotions destroy them.
Speaker 1: When you have this satisfying emotion associated with it, you
Speaker 1: want to do it again next time. And um. There
Speaker 1: are a variety of examples of this, some of them
Speaker 1: some of the best ones are from businesses. So toothpaste
Speaker 1: is a common example that's given. There's no reason that
Speaker 1: toothpaste needs to taste minty. It doesn't. The mint flavor
Speaker 1: doesn't actually increase the effectiveness of the toothpaste itself, doesn't
Speaker 1: make it clean your teeth better, but it does lead
Speaker 1: to a clean mouth feel and makes it more satisfying
Speaker 1: to brush your teeth. And because it's more satisfying and enjoyable,
Speaker 1: you have a reason to turn around again and do it.
Speaker 1: The next time. UM one of my favorite examples recent
Speaker 1: examples from car manufacturers, So a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: BMW added this feature to one of their cars where
Speaker 1: if you really land on the accelerator impressed on the gas,
Speaker 1: it would pump additional engine growl through the speakers in
Speaker 1: the car, so it made it more satisfying to press
Speaker 1: on the gas. UM Forward had a similar setup where
Speaker 1: they had like this valve that normally the car would
Speaker 1: be soundproofed and if you really slammed on the gas,
Speaker 1: the valve would open and let the engine noise in.
Speaker 1: But the the idea here is that there's some additional
Speaker 1: immediate satisfaction with drying driving the car, and that gets
Speaker 1: you to enjoy it, want to repeat it, and so
Speaker 1: on and uh. The same is true for any habit,
Speaker 1: but it's really about the speed. It's really about feeling
Speaker 1: successful right away. And this is one of the challenges
Speaker 1: with building good habits or breaking bad ones, is that
Speaker 1: behaviors often produce multiple outcomes across time, and those outcomes
Speaker 1: are somewhat misaligned. So for a bad habit, the immediate
Speaker 1: outcomes often favorable, you know, like if you eat a
Speaker 1: donut right now, it's sugary and tasty and feels good sweeter,
Speaker 1: But the ultimate outcome if you continue that habit for
Speaker 1: a month or a year or whatever, is unfavored ble um.
Speaker 1: For good habits, it's usually the reverse, right, Like, the
Speaker 1: immediate outcome of going to the gym right now is
Speaker 1: you sweat. It's effortful, requires energy and sacrifice, but the
Speaker 1: ultimate outcome that you're in shape a month or a
Speaker 1: year from now is favorable. And so a lot of
Speaker 1: the battle of building good habits and breaking bad ones
Speaker 1: is about figuring out how to take those long term
Speaker 1: consequences of your bad habits and pull them into the
Speaker 1: present moment so you feel like a little bit of
Speaker 1: the pain right now and you have a reason to
Speaker 1: avoid it, and taking the long term rewards of your
Speaker 1: good habits and pulling those into the present moment so
Speaker 1: that you feel successful and feel satisfied right now and
Speaker 1: I have a reason to show up again. And the
Speaker 1: ultimate example of this is a reinforcement of your desired identity.
Speaker 1: If you feel like, for example, is so to continue
Speaker 1: its exercise one I just said, You know, the immediate
Speaker 1: outcome for exercise is that it's effortful and require sacrifice,
Speaker 1: it's not that enjoyable. But that doesn't have to be true.
Speaker 1: And this is one reason why it's important to choose
Speaker 1: forms of exercise that you really enjoy. You know, like,
Speaker 1: not everybody has to lift like a bodybuilder. If you
Speaker 1: want to go high king or cycling or kayaking or whatever,
Speaker 1: do whatever form is most pleasing to you, because if
Speaker 1: it makes you feel good in the moment, you're gonna
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: it feels good to move my body a little bit, whatever.
Speaker 1: But they're focused on the immediate outcome that is pleasurable
Speaker 1: rather than the delayed gratification that they're waiting for. Ye
Speaker 1: and back to b. J. Fogg. He talks a lot
Speaker 1: about celebrating victories, right, I think that's the that's the reason, right,
Speaker 1: if you celebrate even the little change that feels good.
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't have to be big, but you
Speaker 1: just need some positive emotional signal in the moment. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other the one that worked for me for exercise
Speaker 1: was when I went from exercising because I would look
Speaker 1: better in the future, or because I wouldn't have a
Speaker 1: heart attack in the future. All that when I really
Speaker 1: became very focused on. Every single time in my life
Speaker 1: I've ever exercised, I felt better when I was done.
Speaker 1: There's never been a time where I was like, I
Speaker 1: wish you didn't do that. So that's what I focus on,
Speaker 1: is like, it'd be great if I could focus on, like, boy,
Speaker 1: it feels good to be on the treadmill. And actually
Speaker 1: sometimes I can, as I've gotten better, but I do
Speaker 1: know that, you know, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes
Speaker 1: from now, I'll feel good right then. And the same
Speaker 1: thing with eating, Like I've started to really focus on
Speaker 1: like after I eat, like crap, how does it feel
Speaker 1: right then in that moment, you know, like I feel
Speaker 1: full or I feel you know, you know, like trying
Speaker 1: to shrink that that window of of gratification, you know,
Speaker 1: between the result and it's It is such a tricky thing.
Speaker 1: We're not well wired for that something that's you know,
Speaker 1: planning for something that's way out in the future. We're yeah,
Speaker 1: we're definitely wired evolutionarily speaking for immediate gratification because we
Speaker 1: had to beef to survive, you know, like you had
Speaker 1: to account for is there a lion threatening right me
Speaker 1: right now? Or is there a storm that I need
Speaker 1: to take shelter from or to have I eaten today.
Speaker 1: Like it's very near term, immediate focused. But the downside
Speaker 1: of that in modern society is that there's all kinds
Speaker 1: of unintended consequences that that now, um, some of which
Speaker 1: we just talked about. But as a final example of this,
Speaker 1: it can be very useful to have immediate satisfaction for
Speaker 1: habits that what I would call are like habits of avoidance.
Speaker 1: So things like I don't want to drink alcohol for
Speaker 1: thirty days, or I don't want to go out to
Speaker 1: eat at restaurants as often, um, or I don't want
Speaker 1: to spend money on Amazon today. In a sense, those
Speaker 1: people set challenges like that for themselves a lot. But
Speaker 1: those habits like that are really hard because they're not
Speaker 1: inherently satisfying, you know, like what is the what is
Speaker 1: the satisfaction of not going out to eat at the restaurant? Right?
Speaker 1: You're just like resisting temptation to go out. So I
Speaker 1: had a reader who wanted to do that. He and
Speaker 1: his wife wanted to eat out less and cook more
Speaker 1: meals at home. And so what they did was they
Speaker 1: opened up a savings account and they labeled it trip
Speaker 1: to Europe, and then whenever they wouldn't go out to
Speaker 1: eat at a restaurant, they would transfer fifty dollars over
Speaker 1: the account. And being able to see that fifty dollars
Speaker 1: go over and the savings account grow the moment was
Speaker 1: just a little bit of immediate satisfaction that suddenly made
Speaker 1: it rewarding to stay at home and cook the meal. Um.
Speaker 1: And so little hacks like that that give you some
Speaker 1: a little bit of immediate pleasure in the moment can
Speaker 1: be really useful for sticking to some of those behaviors
Speaker 1: that otherwise wouldn't feel very satisfying. And keeping track of
Speaker 1: our habits is one of those things that is really useful.
Speaker 1: And you make that point that part one of the
Speaker 1: main things that makes it useful is it it makes
Speaker 1: it 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 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 Automic 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 monthly
Speaker 1: donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you
Speaker 1: join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get
Speaker 1: lots of exclusive members only benefits. It's our way of
Speaker 1: saying thank you for your support. Now. We are so
Speaker 1: grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to do what we do without their support, and
Speaker 1: we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more,
Speaker 1: make a donation at any level and become a member
Speaker 1: of the one you Feed community. Go to when you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash Join the One You Feed podcast
Speaker 1: would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.