Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show. You may not
Speaker 1: realize we have years and years of incredible episodes in
Speaker 1: our archives. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've
Speaker 1: decided to hand pick one of our favorites that may
Speaker 1: be new to you, but if not, it's definitely worth
Speaker 1: another listen. This week is a two part series, so
Speaker 1: we hope you'll enjoy part one with James Clear. The
Speaker 1: same way that money compounds are multiplies through compound interest,
Speaker 1: the effects of your habits multiplies you repeat them over time.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great 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. Thanks for joining us, everybody.
Speaker 1: Today's guest is James Clear, who has been on the
Speaker 1: show before, which was an amazing episode and everybody loved it.
Speaker 1: The second interview is really fun because Eric and I
Speaker 1: were able to record it live in person with James,
Speaker 1: so you'll hear a little bit of that room reverb
Speaker 1: and everything. But there's just something I love with all
Speaker 1: of these interviews that we've done live like this. There's
Speaker 1: something about I don't know if it's possibly the on
Speaker 1: verbal communication and the way that Eric is able to
Speaker 1: interact with people just seems to really bring out the best.
Speaker 1: And this new interview with James Clear is no exception.
Speaker 1: He has a new book called Atomic Habits and Easy
Speaker 1: and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones.
Speaker 1: James's work has appeared in The New York Times, Time
Speaker 1: and Entrepreneur, and on CBS This Morning, and he has
Speaker 1: taught in colleges around the world. His website, James Clear
Speaker 1: dot com, receives millions of visitors each month and hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands subscribed to his email newsletter. He's the creator
Speaker 1: of the Habits Academy, the premier training platform for organizations
Speaker 1: and individuals that are interested in building better habits in
Speaker 1: life and work. Hi James, welcome to the show. Hey,
Speaker 1: great stuck to you. We have had very few guests
Speaker 1: who have appeared twice, so welcome to Select Club. Very nice,
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm glad I crossed the threshold. Appreciate the opportunity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: our first interview was really well loved by listeners, so
Speaker 1: I'm excited to do it again. You have a new
Speaker 1: book called a scomic Habits that is coming out. I
Speaker 1: think it's out today, So congratulations on that. Yeah, thank you,
Speaker 1: and we'll jump into that in just a minute. But
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do with the parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: a battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandson stops and thinks about it
Speaker 1: for a second. He looks up at his grandfather. He says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins, and the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Yeah, I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: great story. So right now, in the context of where
Speaker 1: I'm at right now, I think a lot about like
Speaker 1: what habits are we feeding? You know, this is one
Speaker 1: of the things I say earlier in the book that
Speaker 1: habits can compound for you or against you. And this
Speaker 1: is essentially what that parable is saying, right that, like
Speaker 1: whatever one you feed is the one that has magnified,
Speaker 1: the one that gain strength over time. And habits are
Speaker 1: a lot like that, you know, like on any given day,
Speaker 1: it's really easy to overlook the importance of them. They
Speaker 1: don't really seem like a whole lot. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: like what is the difference between eating a burger and
Speaker 1: fries for lunch or eating a salad. There's not really
Speaker 1: a whole lot of difference there. You know, at the
Speaker 1: end of the night, you look basically the same in
Speaker 1: the mirror. The scale weighs more or less the same um.
Speaker 1: But if you compound those choices over two or five
Speaker 1: or ten years, you end up with a very different outcome.
Speaker 1: It's only like a decade later that the importance of
Speaker 1: your daily habits becomes like fully apparent and you see
Speaker 1: how critical those daily choices are. So in a sense,
Speaker 1: I think this idea of the one you feed for
Speaker 1: me right now, I think a lot about like what
Speaker 1: habits a my feeding? Um? You know, like, what what
Speaker 1: daily actions am I taking that are either one percent
Speaker 1: better or one percent worse? And uh, over the long
Speaker 1: run they add up to very different outcomes. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: say in the book that we often dismissed small changes
Speaker 1: because they don't seem to matter very much in the moment.
Speaker 1: That strikes me is so true. You also say small
Speaker 1: changes equal big results. They can, um, you know. So
Speaker 1: this idea that habits are like a double edged sword,
Speaker 1: I think is something that it recurs multiple times throughout
Speaker 1: the book because pretty much any of the things that
Speaker 1: can work for you with habits, like having an environment
Speaker 1: that is well designed for a particular task, or being
Speaker 1: in a tribe or in a social group that nudges
Speaker 1: you in a certain direction, they also can work against
Speaker 1: you, you you know, like peer pressure can be positive or negative.
Speaker 1: In this particular example. Um, But but if you can
Speaker 1: manage to orient those forces in the right direction, then
Speaker 1: you can end up with some really powerful habits in
Speaker 1: the long run. And you know, I like to say
Speaker 1: that habits of the compound interest of self improvement. And
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is the same way that
Speaker 1: money compounds are multiplies through compound interest, the effects of
Speaker 1: your habits multiplies. You repeat them over time, and it's
Speaker 1: it's not really like that linear curve where you just
Speaker 1: put in a little bit of work and you get
Speaker 1: a little bit results and just kind of goes up
Speaker 1: at a forty five your angle. It feels more like
Speaker 1: the compound interest curve where in the beginning you don't
Speaker 1: really see anything. You know, like I just gave that
Speaker 1: example of eating salad for lunch versus eating a burger
Speaker 1: and fries. But similarly, you could say, like, what's the
Speaker 1: difference between studying Chinese for an hour tonight or not
Speaker 1: sitting at all? Not a whole lot, Like you haven't
Speaker 1: learned the language. Either way. It feels like you put
Speaker 1: work in or you don't proke work in, you're at
Speaker 1: the same point in the curve. But if you continue
Speaker 1: that the same way that like saving for retirement, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden like couple of decades later, your compound
Speaker 1: and all the greatest returns are delayed. It's the same
Speaker 1: with habits. Often the most significant outcomes are on the
Speaker 1: latter half of the curve. Yeah, and that idea of
Speaker 1: habits being double edged swords will cover a couple of
Speaker 1: different times in the book. You have the four laws
Speaker 1: of behavior change, which will cover but they all have
Speaker 1: an inverse which covers the bad habits. You know, here's
Speaker 1: what you do if you want to build a good habit.
Speaker 1: Here's what you want to do if you want to
Speaker 1: build or you want to get rid of a bad habit.
Speaker 1: Bad habit seemed to build themselves pretty easily. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that's aim sort of thing. And I think that
Speaker 1: I love this line where you say your outcomes are
Speaker 1: a lagging measure of your habits, right, And I do
Speaker 1: think that that is one of the things that's so
Speaker 1: hard with building new habits or you know, starting a
Speaker 1: new exercise routine or whatever. Like you said, you don't
Speaker 1: see the results right away. You you do the work
Speaker 1: for a while, and then eventually, if you keep it up,
Speaker 1: you start to see the results. Let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that idea that you said that habits
Speaker 1: often appear to make no difference until you cross sort
Speaker 1: of this critical threshold. You use some examples in the book.
Speaker 1: You just used them with money. The other one that
Speaker 1: I thought was such a good example is bamboo. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So bamboo, Uh, for like the first five years, it
Speaker 1: kind of grows these extensive roots systems underground and doesn't
Speaker 1: look like anything, and you know, there's nothing to show
Speaker 1: for it. And then all of a sudden, I will
Speaker 1: shoot you know, sixty or eighty feet into the air
Speaker 1: in just a few weeks, and right it's it's nut.
Speaker 1: So that's how it actually grows. UM. Cancer is another
Speaker 1: example that I've given the book. You know, it's undetectable
Speaker 1: for most of its life in the body, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it takes over the body in months.
Speaker 1: And this um this idea of this like compounding aspect.
Speaker 1: It's prevalent in many areas of life. But the idea
Speaker 1: is that you need to build the foundation for you
Speaker 1: to hit this transition and to see the results. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, another example I've given the book. I like
Speaker 1: to use the metaphor of heating up an ice cube,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like, imagine you're in a cold room.
Speaker 1: You can see your breath. You've got this ice cube
Speaker 1: on the table, it's like twenty five degrees. You heat
Speaker 1: it up twenty six, twenty nine, and still like nothing
Speaker 1: has happened. There's just this ice cube sitting there thirty one.
Speaker 1: And then you go from thirty one to thirty two
Speaker 1: degrees and it's this one degree shift, no different than
Speaker 1: all the other little shifts that came before. But suddenly
Speaker 1: you hit this phase transition and the ice cube melts.
Speaker 1: And habits aren't exactly like that, but the process of
Speaker 1: building a habit is often feels like that. It's similar,
Speaker 1: you know, We're like you're banking work, you're putting in
Speaker 1: your reps and you don't really feel like you have
Speaker 1: much to show for it. And a lot of the
Speaker 1: time that can be very fresh training when you're in
Speaker 1: the process of trying to change something because you're like, man,
Speaker 1: I've been running for three months, Like why hasn't my
Speaker 1: body changed? But it's important to realize that complaining about
Speaker 1: working for three months or six months or a little
Speaker 1: while on a goal or on a habit and not
Speaker 1: having the results you want. It's kind of like complaining
Speaker 1: about heating and ice cube from one degrees. You know, like,
Speaker 1: the work isn't wasted, is just being stored, and you
Speaker 1: have to be willing to stick with it long enough
Speaker 1: to break through that plateau and let it hit that
Speaker 1: phase transition and release the results. And that again, it's
Speaker 1: difficult to feel in the moment, but but in the
Speaker 1: long run, it can lead you in a really good place. Right.
Speaker 1: And this leads to another idea that comes up in
Speaker 1: the book a lot, which is that we spend too
Speaker 1: much time focused on goals, and you recommend focusing on
Speaker 1: systems instead. So first let's talk about why a focus
Speaker 1: on goals can be counterproductive. Well, so, first of all,
Speaker 1: I mean this is coming from someone who's I set
Speaker 1: goals for so many areas in my life for many years.
Speaker 1: I mean it was very goal oriented, right. I would
Speaker 1: set goals for like the aids I wanted to get
Speaker 1: in school, or how much weight I wanted to lift
Speaker 1: in the gym, or what I wanted my business to
Speaker 1: do over the next quarter, all kinds of stuff, and uh,
Speaker 1: sometimes I would achieve those goals, but a lot of
Speaker 1: the time, I wouldn't, And so at some point I
Speaker 1: got to this like conclusion where it's like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: setting all these goals, but only some of them are
Speaker 1: working out. Clearly, goal setting is not the thing that's
Speaker 1: determining whether I'm making progress or not. So I should
Speaker 1: say before I get super anti goals or talk about
Speaker 1: the downsides of goals. I'm not saying goals are useless.
Speaker 1: I think goals still have a purpose, and the purposes
Speaker 1: that they provide clarity, They provide a sense of direction.
Speaker 1: If you have a goal, you know where to focus
Speaker 1: your attention and energy, and that's good. But after you
Speaker 1: set a goal, it's pretty much good to immediately put
Speaker 1: it on the shelf. And I think that this is
Speaker 1: hard for us to do because we live in a
Speaker 1: society that really prioritizes goals or prioritizes results. Like take
Speaker 1: the news for example, Um, it's pretty much only a
Speaker 1: news story once it's out outcome. You know, like you're
Speaker 1: never going to hear a news story that's, uh, man
Speaker 1: eats chicken and salad for lunch, right, It's only going
Speaker 1: to be a story like six months later when it's
Speaker 1: like man loses fifty pounds um. So we're very outcome
Speaker 1: focused and this is just magnified even more by social
Speaker 1: media because we see everybody's results all day long, and
Speaker 1: I think because of that, because we're inundated with results,
Speaker 1: we tend to overvalue them. We tend to think, oh,
Speaker 1: it's all about the goal, it's all about achieving this
Speaker 1: big results, about the outcome, and so we get very
Speaker 1: outcome and goal focused, but in fact, every outcome is
Speaker 1: preceded by some kind of process and this is this
Speaker 1: gets into some of the downsides of being overly focused
Speaker 1: on goals, which is we think that what we need
Speaker 1: to do is change our results. We think that what
Speaker 1: we need to do is to achieve a goal, but
Speaker 1: really the goal is not the thing that needs to change. So,
Speaker 1: for example, say you have a messy room or your
Speaker 1: garage is like you know, completely filled with clutter, and
Speaker 1: you set a goal to clean it. If you get
Speaker 1: really motivated, then you might you know, spend all afternoon
Speaker 1: cleaning it and whatever. You end up with a clean
Speaker 1: room or clean garage after that. But if you don't
Speaker 1: fix the messy, sloppy habits that lead to a dirty
Speaker 1: room in the first place, then you turn around a
Speaker 1: month later and you've got a messy room again. And
Speaker 1: so the outcome is just a natural consequence of the habits.
Speaker 1: It's like we try to treat a symptom without treating
Speaker 1: the cause. We just want to have this outcome, but
Speaker 1: in fact, the real thing that needs to change or
Speaker 1: the habits behind it, And that is what I would
Speaker 1: call your system. The system is your collection of habits
Speaker 1: that naturally lead to whatever the results are in your
Speaker 1: life right now. Yeah, I think the classic example of that,
Speaker 1: right that most people can relate with is the diet.
Speaker 1: I go on a diet. Okay, my goal is to
Speaker 1: lose thirty pounds, ten pounds, five pounds, I change my life.
Speaker 1: I do it. As soon as I hit my goal,
Speaker 1: I go all right, did it right? And next thing
Speaker 1: I know, I'm thirty pounds heavier. Right. It's that yo
Speaker 1: yo effect. The other one that I love that you
Speaker 1: say about goals and and um, I relate with this
Speaker 1: one a lot. You say, the goals restrict your happiness.
Speaker 1: They kind of create this like artificial finish line for Okay,
Speaker 1: once I hit my gold, then I'll be happy. Once
Speaker 1: I achieved this milestone, then I can be successful. And
Speaker 1: again this is something that I've slipped into so many
Speaker 1: times over the years, you know, with my business, for example,
Speaker 1: for a long time I told myself, if I can
Speaker 1: just get featured in the New York Times, then I'd
Speaker 1: be set, which of course is a complete lie, you know,
Speaker 1: Like now now it's happened a couple of times. I've
Speaker 1: been in there, and it's great. It's a nice spike
Speaker 1: for a week, and then things go back to the life.
Speaker 1: And so there is no single event that is going
Speaker 1: to make or break you as an entrepreneur, and really
Speaker 1: probably no single meal that will make or break you
Speaker 1: as a dieter, as someone who's trying to eat nutritiously,
Speaker 1: no single workout that will make or break your health. Um,
Speaker 1: it's really about the long term process and the habits
Speaker 1: that you maintain that determine how far you walk along
Speaker 1: that path. And here's the rest of part one with
Speaker 1: James Clear. There's something you say in the back of
Speaker 1: the book. You you're writing some sort of like common
Speaker 1: sense observations or whatever that that show how some of
Speaker 1: these things would be true, And one of them was
Speaker 1: happiness is simply the absence of desire. We had a
Speaker 1: guest not too long ago. She came came out in
Speaker 1: the last few weeks, but you know, her basic idea was,
Speaker 1: you know, you get what you want and you think
Speaker 1: that's what made you happy. What made you happy was
Speaker 1: that you stopped wanting something else. You know, and goals
Speaker 1: are that way. I mean I relate with that so much,
Speaker 1: with like, you know, when just when this thing gets here,
Speaker 1: when that thing gets here. I mean, I think I've lived.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us live a huge portion
Speaker 1: of our life in that way. And my problem was
Speaker 1: always so i'd get the thing I thought I wanted,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be any happier, And instead of questioning the
Speaker 1: whole train of thinking, I think, well that thing just
Speaker 1: wasn't good in it, right, and maybe I must need
Speaker 1: to want something else. That must be the problem. If
Speaker 1: I just had a girlfriend, then I get the girlfriend,
Speaker 1: I'm not happy, and now she's the problem, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, so it's such a pernicious way of thinking
Speaker 1: that is so deeply embedded in in everything that that
Speaker 1: we do. If you don't have a desire to change
Speaker 1: your current state, if you're happy, then you by definition
Speaker 1: are happy with your current state. You are content with
Speaker 1: where you're at. But anytime a desire arises and you
Speaker 1: desire to change your state, you now are not content
Speaker 1: with where you're at. And so happiness is the absence
Speaker 1: of desire. It's the absence of the desire to change
Speaker 1: your current state. And it's hard to practice, you know,
Speaker 1: it's and that actually perhaps that word provides a little
Speaker 1: insight into it. It is a practice. It's not a
Speaker 1: it's not a finish line. You can't permanently be in
Speaker 1: a state of no desire, but you can practice returning
Speaker 1: to a state of contentment or returning to a state
Speaker 1: of not wanting. Yeah, I mean we're wired to sit
Speaker 1: in a state of complete contentment because we're wired to
Speaker 1: seek food to I mean, like, so what keeps us alive?
Speaker 1: It makes sense. You wouldn't be a human if you didn't,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, So it's it's there. It's like a
Speaker 1: lot of things. I think it's a question of like
Speaker 1: what is the ratio of that in your life compared
Speaker 1: you know what, what ratio is helpful or useful? You know,
Speaker 1: you know, talking about goals in relation to happiness as well.
Speaker 1: One of the other things is goals kind of like
Speaker 1: box you into this either or outcome or like either
Speaker 1: you achieve your goal and you're happy assuming the goal
Speaker 1: does make you happy, or anything else happens and you're
Speaker 1: not right. And that's another reason why I think focusing
Speaker 1: on a system is really great, because there are many
Speaker 1: ways that a system can run. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: just be one finite, narrow outcome, and anytime the system
Speaker 1: is running, you can feel satisfied with it. So just
Speaker 1: take the process of like writing a book. If writing
Speaker 1: a book is your goal, you can only be happy
Speaker 1: in your head if the book is written. But if
Speaker 1: you're focusing on the syste stem of being the type
Speaker 1: of person who writes each day or something, they're like
Speaker 1: a million ways that could happen. You could journal, you
Speaker 1: could write a poem, you could write one sentence, you
Speaker 1: could write a chapter, you could just write emails. Um.
Speaker 1: There are so many things that you could do to
Speaker 1: reinforce that identity of being a writer and um. And
Speaker 1: I think that that provides like much more leeway in
Speaker 1: being gracious with yourself and in uh also continue to
Speaker 1: make progress even if it doesn't look exactly like the
Speaker 1: goal you had in your mind. The beginning used a
Speaker 1: ord their identity, and you talk about that there are
Speaker 1: three layers of behavior change, right, one is we change
Speaker 1: your outcomes, the second is we change our processes, and
Speaker 1: then the last is we change our identity. So talk
Speaker 1: about the role of identity in building good habits or
Speaker 1: or changing behavior. Well, in a sense, I think true
Speaker 1: behavior change is actually identity change, because, um, you can imagine,
Speaker 1: like it's one thing to say I want this, but
Speaker 1: it's something very different to say I am this. You know, like,
Speaker 1: once you adopt an identity, at opt a particular belief,
Speaker 1: you're not even really pursuing behavior change anymore. You're just
Speaker 1: acting in alignment with the type of person you already
Speaker 1: believe that you are. So one of the examples that
Speaker 1: I give in the book is like, imagine that you
Speaker 1: have two people who are smokers and are trying to quit.
Speaker 1: And the first person you offer a cigarette and they
Speaker 1: you offer them a cigarette and they say, no thanks,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to quit. The second person you offer them
Speaker 1: a cigarette and they say, oh, no thanks, I'm not
Speaker 1: a smoker, and same action. They're both turning down the cigarette.
Speaker 1: But the first person still identifies as someone who is
Speaker 1: a smoker, and they're trying to do something they're not.
Speaker 1: The second person is like, I'm a non smoker, and
Speaker 1: that signals a shift in identity, and that is a
Speaker 1: powerful thing because once you see yourself as that kind
Speaker 1: of person, you have additional reason to reinforce that behavior.
Speaker 1: And this comes back to why I think small habits
Speaker 1: are important because the natural question anybody has at this point,
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, if you buy into this idea that
Speaker 1: identity and behavior are linked, it's like, well, how can
Speaker 1: I change my identity? Then that seems like a difficult
Speaker 1: thing to do. And I think the answer is small
Speaker 1: habits and tiny actions are the best method we have
Speaker 1: for shaping our identity. And the reason I say that
Speaker 1: is because, in a sense, your habits are how you
Speaker 1: embody a particular identity. You know, every time you make
Speaker 1: your bed in the morning, you embody the identity of
Speaker 1: someone who is clean and organized. Every time you go
Speaker 1: to the gym, you embody the identity of someone who
Speaker 1: is a fit person. Every time you write one sentence,
Speaker 1: you embody the identity of someone who is a writer.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of like every action you take is
Speaker 1: a vote for the type of person that you want
Speaker 1: to become the type of person that you believe that
Speaker 1: you are, and as you cast these votes, as you
Speaker 1: repeat these little habits, you kind of build up evidence
Speaker 1: of being that type of person. And I really think
Speaker 1: the evidence there is like a crucial part because it
Speaker 1: gives you something to root the identity, and it gives
Speaker 1: you proof of being that kind of person. Because a
Speaker 1: lot of the time people will say things like fake
Speaker 1: it til you make it, but fake it til you
Speaker 1: make it a little different and what I'm talking about here,
Speaker 1: because it's asking you to believe something without having evidence
Speaker 1: for it. And there's a worth word for beliefs that
Speaker 1: don't have evidence. We're called delusion. You know, at some point,
Speaker 1: like the brain doesn't like this distance. Yeah, but if
Speaker 1: you can turn around and say, hey, I've you know,
Speaker 1: I've written one sentence, uh thirteen out of the last
Speaker 1: fourteen days, all of a sudden, you have evidence of
Speaker 1: being a writer. And so your habits and actions give
Speaker 1: you proof of who you are, and gradually, over time
Speaker 1: they can reshape your identity a little bit or expand
Speaker 1: or upgraded in some aspects. Yeah, I think that idea
Speaker 1: about delusion is is so important because you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of I think what leads to a good life
Speaker 1: is having thoughts that are constructive and productive and and
Speaker 1: all that. But we don't believe stuff that we don't believe.
Speaker 1: It's the whole. Like, you know, you look in the
Speaker 1: mirror and say I'm beautiful. Well, if you don't feel
Speaker 1: beauty like I mean, right, your brain rejects it. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times, when I'm working with people, what
Speaker 1: I work on is um you use the phrase in here,
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, I'm the kind of person who and
Speaker 1: I hear this all the time from people I work with.
Speaker 1: I'm the kind of person who can't finish what they start.
Speaker 1: I'm the kind of person that works out for a
Speaker 1: month and then quits. I'm the kind of person And
Speaker 1: a lot of times I think that the best place
Speaker 1: to start is to just can we just suspend judgment
Speaker 1: for a while, right? Can we just not fix ourselves
Speaker 1: into that identity? And then you're right, as we have
Speaker 1: contrary evidence, that belief changes. It's interesting. For years and
Speaker 1: years and years, I mean a lot of years, I
Speaker 1: wasn't on again, off again meditator. I do it. I
Speaker 1: get all inspired and I would um do it for
Speaker 1: a while then I would quit. And so I just
Speaker 1: had this sort of belief like I was the kind
Speaker 1: of person who just could never stick with it. And
Speaker 1: then through you know a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: we talked about in in your book here and and that,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of things I work with clients
Speaker 1: on all that, I got to a point where I
Speaker 1: became a daily meditator, you know, for a lot of years,
Speaker 1: you know, several years in a row, like every day.
Speaker 1: And then recently there's been a lot going on and
Speaker 1: I fell out of the habit a little bit. But
Speaker 1: the whole time that I was out of the habit,
Speaker 1: it just felt like a matter of time till I
Speaker 1: picked it up again, because I thought of myself as
Speaker 1: I'm someone who meditates. That's what I do. So it
Speaker 1: was just there was this dissonance inside. It wasn't the
Speaker 1: dissonance of I'm a failure, I screwed up again. It
Speaker 1: was just the dissonance of like, I'm a meditator and
Speaker 1: I'm not meditating, and so I found my way back
Speaker 1: to it. It It was just very interesting for me to
Speaker 1: have that experience as somebody who had had the opposite
Speaker 1: belief about myself for so long. Yeah, that's interesting how
Speaker 1: identity can also like pull you back to center, you know,
Speaker 1: like if you if it's working for you, and uh,
Speaker 1: this comes back to that notion that we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: which is that habits are a double edged sword, and
Speaker 1: so identity can work for you or against you. Right.
Speaker 1: It can be a very empowering thing, like I'm a meditator.
Speaker 1: Word can be a negative thing, like I'm bad at directions,
Speaker 1: or I'm terrible at math, or I can't I don't
Speaker 1: remember people's names, or I'm the type of person who
Speaker 1: you know works out for a month and doesn't do
Speaker 1: it anymore, and that all of those are just examples
Speaker 1: of your identity reinforcing negative habits rather than positible I
Speaker 1: think what starts to happen is what I see people
Speaker 1: do is if they think they're the kind of person
Speaker 1: to start something and then doesn't stick with it the
Speaker 1: minute they don't stick with it a day, which happens
Speaker 1: to everyone all the time, right, I mean, we're not perfect.
Speaker 1: The minute it happens, they start going I knew it,
Speaker 1: I knew it, I knew I was the kind of person.
Speaker 1: I screwed up again, you know, and that sort of
Speaker 1: when that mental chatter takes over, it is not conducive
Speaker 1: to doing anything positive. We we sometimes think, if I'm
Speaker 1: just hard enough on myself, I'll do the right thing.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't really seem to be the way this works.
Speaker 1: I think your your idea of like putting your identity
Speaker 1: on the back burner for a little while while you
Speaker 1: accumulate some new evidence is a really good one. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, don't criticize yourself for your faults, don't praise
Speaker 1: yourself for your success. Is just put your judgment on
Speaker 1: the side for a little while. Let's just leave it
Speaker 1: over there for a month, right, and just be willing
Speaker 1: to try and to experiment with something new, and you
Speaker 1: might surprise yourself. Um. And I think that that's where
Speaker 1: habits can come into play, if you let them surprise
Speaker 1: you in accumulate evidence of being this new person. It's
Speaker 1: the Carol Diet growth versus fixed mindset thing, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: the growth mindset. You know, lot of people think it's
Speaker 1: silly or like, well, of course, the growth mindset. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I'm never going to be an NBA player, Like, well, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not, Like I mean, you might have been able
Speaker 1: to be right, you're called guy, I was not gonna
Speaker 1: was not gonna in the in the cards for me.
Speaker 1: But that's not what a growth mindset says. It just
Speaker 1: says I can get better, doesn't put a limit on
Speaker 1: how far I'll get better, just I can get better.
Speaker 1: And the fixed mindset says, no, this is the person
Speaker 1: I am. And so I think often again just opening
Speaker 1: that door to like I can get better, I think
Speaker 1: that's actually a crucial distinction, you know, like the deliberate
Speaker 1: practice or growth mindset or any of these um grits,
Speaker 1: These strategies that are about, like, you know, you can
Speaker 1: become much more than what you think you can. Those
Speaker 1: strategies are not saying you can be anything. It's not
Speaker 1: saying a five ft four person is going to play
Speaker 1: in the n B a UM. But it is saying
Speaker 1: that anyone can get better if they're willing to practice
Speaker 1: and have this kind of growth rdset and so on.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is true. Humans are learning machines,
Speaker 1: and you know, like you might not be a concert
Speaker 1: violinist if you start practicing the violin, but anybody who
Speaker 1: practices and has an open mindset will get better at
Speaker 1: Planet Violin. Yeah, I'm not naturally musically talented in the
Speaker 1: way that I know lots of people who are. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been around a lot of people. I'm like, they're
Speaker 1: just gifted. It was never that way. But I'm a
Speaker 1: pretty decent guitar player, you know, because I just kept
Speaker 1: doing it. You know, I wanted to do it. I
Speaker 1: kept doing it, and so I was able to get
Speaker 1: way better than I ever thought I could have gotten,
Speaker 1: you know, um, just by doing it. And so UM,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the four stages of habits, and
Speaker 1: then we'll go into the four rules. Sure, so I'll
Speaker 1: explain them a little bit from a conceptual level and
Speaker 1: then give you maybe one or two examples. See and
Speaker 1: see what looks like. So I break habits into four stages,
Speaker 1: and those four stages are Q craving, response, and reward.
Speaker 1: And I do that for a very specific reason. So
Speaker 1: pretty much every habit and possibly every human behavior, you
Speaker 1: can say, cycles through these four stages. So first, there's
Speaker 1: some kind of que, some kind of let's say, raw
Speaker 1: data that you take in um. Often external, doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be, but it's often visual. So for example, uh,
Speaker 1: the QUE could be you walk into a room and
Speaker 1: the room is dark, so you see that the room
Speaker 1: is dark. Then you have some kind of craving. And
Speaker 1: the craving is about how you interpret the queue, So
Speaker 1: it's about your prediction, and different people can have different
Speaker 1: cravings even if it's the same queue. Right. You can
Speaker 1: imagine two people walk into the kitchen and they see
Speaker 1: a pack of cigarettes on the counter, and one person
Speaker 1: is a smoker, and they interpret that que as oh,
Speaker 1: I have a craving to smoke this, you know, and
Speaker 1: the other person has never smoked. I was like, now
Speaker 1: just looks like a pack of cigaretts doesn't mean anything, right,
Speaker 1: So same que totally different interpretation. And the craving is
Speaker 1: crucial because how you interpret the cues in your life
Speaker 1: determines how you respond to them. And so if your
Speaker 1: interpretation is different, the response is different. So that leads
Speaker 1: you to the third stage, the response. So in my example,
Speaker 1: I was giving you walk in que the room is
Speaker 1: dark craving. I want to be able to see or
Speaker 1: want to reduce the uncertainty of being in a dark room.
Speaker 1: Response I flip on the light switch. And then the
Speaker 1: final step is the reward, which in this case is
Speaker 1: you're able to see the room is lit. And of course,
Speaker 1: in that example of the habit of flipping out a
Speaker 1: light switch, that happens in what half a second, you know,
Speaker 1: a fraction of a second. I mean we're going through
Speaker 1: this process endlessly and all the time, and it's happening
Speaker 1: very rapidly. Your your brain is going through these four stages.
Speaker 1: And if you do it enough and then you can
Speaker 1: go through all four stages pretty much on autopilot. You know,
Speaker 1: like when you walk into a dark room, you don't
Speaker 1: think I would like to be able to see, you know,
Speaker 1: like you don't have this conscious craving, but it's just
Speaker 1: naturally and implicitly there. And uh, and really what I'm
Speaker 1: describing with those four stages is the process of learning, right,
Speaker 1: because say you take another habit, like tying your shoes, Well,
Speaker 1: the Q might be you have this shoe on your
Speaker 1: foot that's untied. Craving is I want to have the
Speaker 1: shoe secure, I want to have the shoe tied. Response,
Speaker 1: I try to tie my shoes reward, Well, maybe the
Speaker 1: first couple of times you do it, you're not good
Speaker 1: at tying your shoes, so then you know it doesn't
Speaker 1: work like the nod as all messed up. You can't
Speaker 1: figure it out. But then you know. As a kid,
Speaker 1: you practice tying your shoes hundred times, five hundred times,
Speaker 1: thousand times. Pretty soon you can tie your shoes on autopiles,
Speaker 1: just a habit. You can go through the queue, the craving,
Speaker 1: the response, and the reward. You're not even thinking about it.
Speaker 1: You can have a conversation with somebody else, you can
Speaker 1: think about what's on your to do list for the morning,
Speaker 1: and so on. I'm still wearing slip on. Yes, there,
Speaker 1: you make it easy on yourself. So this is a
Speaker 1: This is ultimately the purpose that habits serve, right. They
Speaker 1: allow us to solve the problems that we face in life,
Speaker 1: the recurring problems. Some of them are small, like needing
Speaker 1: to tie your shoe. Some of them are bigger, like
Speaker 1: what do I do when I come home from work
Speaker 1: each day and I feel exhausted? What are my habits
Speaker 1: for dealing with that? And uh? But the point is,
Speaker 1: whenever you face a problem repeatedly, your brain starts to
Speaker 1: automate the solution, and it does that by going through
Speaker 1: these four stages and learning how to respond to the
Speaker 1: cues and problems that you face throughout life. And so
Speaker 1: these cues could be internal or external. So the one
Speaker 1: we talked, you walk into the room though that it's dark,
Speaker 1: that's your queue or using queues um as a way
Speaker 1: to remind us to do a habit. But they're also
Speaker 1: the internal state which you describe, which is I get
Speaker 1: home from work, I'm stressed. The stress is the queue, right,
Speaker 1: So in that case, it's probably a combination of internal
Speaker 1: and external. Like let's say each you know, you come
Speaker 1: from work and you step in the front door, so
Speaker 1: you have a context of walking in the door from work,
Speaker 1: So that's kind of physical, um, you know, I come
Speaker 1: in the door at five thirty, and then you also
Speaker 1: have this internal feeling of like I'm stressed and exhausted
Speaker 1: from a long day. And when you put all that together,
Speaker 1: that kind of is the thing that initiates the habits.
Speaker 1: Something that makes habits a little difficult to pin down
Speaker 1: or difficult to change is that over time, it's often
Speaker 1: the case that habits are not triggered by a single
Speaker 1: little cue, but actually by like the overall context of
Speaker 1: the environment. You know, so like you you go upstairs
Speaker 1: after work and you change into comfortable clothes, and you
Speaker 1: make dinner, and then you finished dinner, and the con
Speaker 1: text of being in your living room at night leads
Speaker 1: to the habit of watching Netflix for three hours. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's not really any one thing in the living room,
Speaker 1: but it's the overall situation. And uh, this is one
Speaker 1: reason why it can often be easier to build new
Speaker 1: habits in a new environment. Right, because let's say that
Speaker 1: you want to build a habit of reading in this
Speaker 1: example I just gave. Well, if you're trying to do
Speaker 1: that after dinner each night and you say, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read on the couch instead, Well, that whole context
Speaker 1: is you have this association with it that's nudging you
Speaker 1: toward watching Netflix for three hours. And so it's often
Speaker 1: easier to change it up a little bit. Like you could, Um,
Speaker 1: you buy a new chair and put it in the
Speaker 1: corner of the room, and that's the reading chair, and
Speaker 1: the only thing that you do in that chair as
Speaker 1: you read. And so you try to associate this new
Speaker 1: habit with a new area or context so that you
Speaker 1: aren't fighting like all the old stimuli that are nudging
Speaker 1: you toward your previous habits. Well, let's go into the
Speaker 1: four rules of behavior change, because this is really where
Speaker 1: we start to get practical suggestion for how to change things. Right,
Speaker 1: So we just talked through those four stages que, craving, response,
Speaker 1: and reward, and for each stage, I've come up with
Speaker 1: a law, which I'll call the four laws behavior change.
Speaker 1: So if you want to build a good habit, for
Speaker 1: your cues, you want to make the cues of your
Speaker 1: good habits obvious. So the first laws make it obvious.
Speaker 1: For craving, you want to make it attractive. For the response,
Speaker 1: you want to make it easy. And for the reward,
Speaker 1: you want to make it satisfying. And so those four
Speaker 1: laws make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy,
Speaker 1: make it satisfying, give you sort of like a toolbox
Speaker 1: that you can use for building a good habit. And
Speaker 1: then if you want to break a bad habit, you
Speaker 1: just invert each of the four laws. So for your
Speaker 1: bad habits, you do want the cues. Instead of making
Speaker 1: it obvious, you want to make it invisible, make it unattractive,
Speaker 1: make it difficult, make it unsatisfying. And with those with
Speaker 1: the inversion of the four laws, you have this set
Speaker 1: of tools for increasing the likelihood that you'll be able
Speaker 1: to break a bad habit. And um, the way that
Speaker 1: I like to think about them is they're kind of
Speaker 1: like four levers, and when the levers are in the
Speaker 1: right positions, it's really easy to build good habits. It
Speaker 1: kind of this effortless and when they're in the wrong positions,
Speaker 1: you're kind of fighting this uphill battle. And so they
Speaker 1: my hope is that those four laws of behavior change
Speaker 1: give you a very practical guide for how to actually
Speaker 1: adjust your habits in daily life, like what can we
Speaker 1: really do about this? And they make the insights and
Speaker 1: the science about how habits work, and they turned that
Speaker 1: into an actionable framework. Join us next week for part
Speaker 1: two of the interview with James Clear. If what you
Speaker 1: just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a
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