Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. I'm really excited to have
Speaker 1: James Claire on the show today. James is an entrepreneur, writer,
Speaker 1: and weightlifter. He writes about behavioral psychology, habit formation, and
Speaker 1: performance improvement. In other words, he writes about how small
Speaker 1: habits can change our lives and society for the better.
Speaker 1: In his writing, he blends inspirational stories, academic science, and
Speaker 1: hard earned wisdom, a combo that I really truly appreciate,
Speaker 1: which is why I reached out to James, and I'm
Speaker 1: really excited he's on the show today. Echo, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. It's great to be here. Cool.
Speaker 1: I thought we could talk a little bit before we
Speaker 1: dive into all the work you're doing about your actual
Speaker 1: own personal development as a human being. What were you
Speaker 1: like as a kid, Were there any like themes in
Speaker 1: your early childhood, like in terms of your interests, in
Speaker 1: terms of, you know, the things you were attracted to
Speaker 1: in your environment that could help explain how you became
Speaker 1: who you are right now. Yeah, I think so. I mean,
Speaker 1: looking back, you can kind of connect the dots a
Speaker 1: little bit. I don't know that I had any of
Speaker 1: these ideas when I was going through the process, but
Speaker 1: I was definitely really curious as a little kid. My
Speaker 1: parents tell story all the time about how I, you know,
Speaker 1: I would sit like in a little backpack. My dad
Speaker 1: would carry me around when I was you know, one, two, whatever,
Speaker 1: and I would just be staring people down the whole
Speaker 1: time because I was just trying to like soak everything in.
Speaker 1: And I really enjoyed reading and stuff. But I think
Speaker 1: you could divide my childhood and adolescence into two different
Speaker 1: categories where I spent most of my time. So the
Speaker 1: first is like what I would call just learning and exploration.
Speaker 1: So I liked school, you know, I was good at school.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the process of learning and reading and everything.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of like my nerdy side, you know.
Speaker 1: In fifth grade, some friends and I created this robotics
Speaker 1: club where we like built legos and made a little
Speaker 1: conveyor belt and would write computer programs and you know,
Speaker 1: to make the conveyor belt run and stuff. So it
Speaker 1: sounds like you would have fit in really well at
Speaker 1: my undergrad Carnegie Mellon. You would have been one of
Speaker 1: our friends. Okay, so you'll see maybe maybe. But I
Speaker 1: was always surrounded by people who were smarter than I was,
Speaker 1: so I was like soaking up the stuff that they
Speaker 1: were doing, but I was never the like mastermind behind it.
Speaker 1: And then the other part, so that's like the nerdy
Speaker 1: part is one side, and then the other half was athletics.
Speaker 1: So my dad played minor league baseball for the Saint
Speaker 1: Louis Cardinals, so growing up I wanted to be, you know,
Speaker 1: professional baseball player and all this stuff. So I ended
Speaker 1: up playing for seventeen years. I played all the way
Speaker 1: through college, and that kind of half of it was
Speaker 1: sort of the same thing. I was always surrounded by
Speaker 1: athletes who were better than me, and so I was
Speaker 1: learning a lot and picking up a lot for them.
Speaker 1: But I was never really you know, the mastermind on
Speaker 1: the field or the you know, the top athlete. I
Speaker 1: was never the fastest and strongest guy. But combining those
Speaker 1: two things, I ended up learning a lot about myself.
Speaker 1: And I had a really serious injury in high school.
Speaker 1: I got hit in the face of a baseball bat
Speaker 1: and I ended up being air cared to the hospital
Speaker 1: and fractured both my eye sockets and couldn't breathe on
Speaker 1: my own, and I had multiple seizures the next twenty
Speaker 1: four hours, and it was really long ordeal. I couldn't
Speaker 1: drive for the next eight months, so it was like
Speaker 1: a really long road back, and five years later I
Speaker 1: ended up being an academic All American my senior year
Speaker 1: at college. And so the road from being injured and
Speaker 1: not being able to play and not being able to
Speaker 1: drive a car and not being able to play baseball
Speaker 1: for a whole year all the way back to making
Speaker 1: a team and becoming an academic All American, I learned
Speaker 1: a lot about small, consistent progress building, you know, making
Speaker 1: like a one percent improvement or a small improvement each day,
Speaker 1: embracing these like daily habits that kind of gradually accumulated
Speaker 1: to me getting back on the field and then becoming
Speaker 1: you know, an active player and then becoming a starting pitcher.
Speaker 1: And I didn't really have a choice other than to
Speaker 1: do things in small chunks because that's all I could
Speaker 1: handle in that process. Back So, athletics was the other
Speaker 1: part of my adolescence in childhood that definitely taught me
Speaker 1: a lot. And now I get to talk about something
Speaker 1: that kind of combines both of them. You know, behavioral psychology.
Speaker 1: It can be super nerdy and interesting and all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff to learn, very mentally stimulating, and you can
Speaker 1: apply it to all sorts of things in life, not
Speaker 1: just like productivity habits and work habits, but also health
Speaker 1: habits and weightlifting, which is what I do now, sports psychology,
Speaker 1: mental and physical performance. And so that's kind of how
Speaker 1: those two worlds combined and got us to where we
Speaker 1: are now. I've kind of mentioned in applied psychology, right, like,
Speaker 1: how do we take psychology make a practical for everyday uses,
Speaker 1: for everyday experiences. How do we kind of bridge the
Speaker 1: gap between theory and people who are doing really exciting
Speaker 1: and important research and practice and you know, and people
Speaker 1: who are like you know, using those ideas to go
Speaker 1: build something or do something or And I try to
Speaker 1: be that bridge as best I can between those two worlds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you do a good job of it. Thank you?
Speaker 1: Are you self employed at this point, like you don't
Speaker 1: have a boss. So I've been self employed for five years,
Speaker 1: So the first thank you. For the first two years,
Speaker 1: I tried a bunch of ideas that you know, didn't
Speaker 1: work and I didn't know what I didn't know. I
Speaker 1: kind of view that period now looking back on it
Speaker 1: as the period where I incubated my skill set, so
Speaker 1: to speak. You know, I didn't know what WordPress was,
Speaker 1: how to build a website, or what an email list was,
Speaker 1: or how to program or code, and so I had
Speaker 1: to teach myself like all those things as I went
Speaker 1: through and you know, how to do web design, how
Speaker 1: marketing and direct response copywriting works. Why would someone sign
Speaker 1: up for a product or an email list? Why would
Speaker 1: someone buy something? And that actually is what got my
Speaker 1: start in the psychology, as I started selling consumer psychology
Speaker 1: to figure out, like, why would someone buy anything if
Speaker 1: I'm going to create this business? And that led me
Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole of behavior change and behavioral psych
Speaker 1: and then I got really interested in that particular area.
Speaker 1: So have you ever had a boss in your life?
Speaker 1: I've never had a legit job. If we want to
Speaker 1: put it that way. I mean in high school, I
Speaker 1: had summer jobs, of course, and so I had bosses there.
Speaker 1: And then when I was in graduate school, I worked
Speaker 1: at a medical practice in between my first and second
Speaker 1: year for that whole summer internship periods, so whatever those
Speaker 1: three or four months, and so I had a boss then.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm familiar with like clocking in and
Speaker 1: clocking out and getting a paycheck and stuff. But as
Speaker 1: far as like after I graduated and had my degrees,
Speaker 1: I've never had like an actual job since I got
Speaker 1: out of grad school. What are those degrees, because that's
Speaker 1: not something you talk about a lot. Yeah, my undergraduate
Speaker 1: degrees and buyomechanics. So it was mostly chemistry and physics.
Speaker 1: So I was like a science guy in undergrad and
Speaker 1: then come on, you're smart then. And then in grad
Speaker 1: school I got my MBA, so I was focused on
Speaker 1: like strategic health care management at the time, which is
Speaker 1: why I worked at that medical practice. And I took
Speaker 1: a couple classes in the School of Public Health as well,
Speaker 1: because that's what I thought I wanted to get into.
Speaker 1: And I still really, you know, really find medicine and
Speaker 1: health fascinating. But then I, you know, I started writing
Speaker 1: about behavior change with regards to health, and then that's
Speaker 1: you know, evolved into what James Claar dot com is
Speaker 1: now and to kind of close the loop on this
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship discussion. So I for the first two years, I
Speaker 1: tried a bunch of other ideas, experimented with things. One
Speaker 1: of the best piece of advice I got was try
Speaker 1: things until something comes easily. So I probably tried five
Speaker 1: to ten ideas over that two year period, and then
Speaker 1: you know, two or three of them started working better
Speaker 1: than the others, and I was like, oh, okay, so
Speaker 1: I'll stick with these and you know, learn from trial
Speaker 1: by fire and learn from experience. But through that whole period,
Speaker 1: as I was studying behavioral psychology and consumer psych I
Speaker 1: was writing about habits and what I was learning, like
Speaker 1: on the back end in private, I was writing about,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, these behaviors psychology ideas could apply to
Speaker 1: my weightlifting habits, or my nutrition habits, or productivity and
Speaker 1: writing habits. And that document got to be like sixty
Speaker 1: pages long, and I was just a huge whimp and
Speaker 1: didn't publish anything because I was like, oh, it's not
Speaker 1: ready yet. People won't like it. It's totally, you know,
Speaker 1: different than these other business ideas I'm trying. And eventually
Speaker 1: November twelfth, twenty twelve, was the first day that I
Speaker 1: put something up on jamescare dot com and I tried
Speaker 1: to take my emotion out of it and said, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to judge how good or how bad
Speaker 1: it is. I'm not going to worry about like what
Speaker 1: my reputation is and how people feel about it. I'll
Speaker 1: just try to publish something every Monday Thursday. And so
Speaker 1: I stuck with that for the last three years, and
Speaker 1: then you know, within a year that had taken off
Speaker 1: and became my full time I shut down the other
Speaker 1: business ideas which were profitable and making money, two of
Speaker 1: them more, but they weren't making a ton of money.
Speaker 1: And James clare dot com took off. So I've been
Speaker 1: doing that full time for three years now. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this common theme in you're writing about kind of
Speaker 1: taking your emotions out of it and keeping staying focused
Speaker 1: on the process and not the goal and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So and this stuff tails with your own life, so
Speaker 1: you certainly try to walk the talk, and it's very
Speaker 1: clear that's something you try to do. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's really important. Actually, you know, it's hard enough to
Speaker 1: have an opinion, to have a good, sound, well researched opinion.
Speaker 1: But if we're being honest, anyone can have an opinion,
Speaker 1: you know, Like you can write something fairly easily. The
Speaker 1: friction to getting your idea out is relatively low, but
Speaker 1: to be a practitioner right is much different. And to
Speaker 1: I think, I hope that it makes my writing compelling
Speaker 1: and accessible and believable and trustworthy because I realize how
Speaker 1: hard it is to put some of this stuff to practice,
Speaker 1: you know, Like there are areas where I succeed, like
Speaker 1: I do a pretty good job with writing consistently, and
Speaker 1: I do a pretty good job with lifting and working
Speaker 1: out consistently, but there are other areas where I struggle
Speaker 1: a lot. Like one of them that I'm working on
Speaker 1: this year is nutritional habits. And it's not that I
Speaker 1: eat terribly, but I rarely cook as many meals as
Speaker 1: I should. So it's it's really a cooking habit that
Speaker 1: I'm trying to build, and that's been a struggle for
Speaker 1: me in the past. Sleep habits, So I have this
Speaker 1: rule where I don't cheat myself on sleep. But last year,
Speaker 1: and I've been really good about the last six months,
Speaker 1: but the six months before that, I had this really
Speaker 1: hard period where I wouldn't cheat myself on sleep, but
Speaker 1: I was staying up way too late, working on stuff
Speaker 1: till midnight or one am. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: if I'm not going to cheat myself on sleep and
Speaker 1: get eight or nine hours, well that means I'm sleeping
Speaker 1: until nine or nine thirty. And you know, we have
Speaker 1: this weird This is a whole separate conversation about sleep,
Speaker 1: but we have this kind of like guilt associated with
Speaker 1: our culture where even if you're productive but you sleep in,
Speaker 1: then you're like lazy. But I didn't like that because
Speaker 1: I do perform better in the morning and I feel
Speaker 1: better about the rest of the day if I'm up
Speaker 1: at you know, six thirty or seven then and I'm
Speaker 1: getting into my work by seven thirty or eight. And
Speaker 1: so anyway, those are just two examples of things that
Speaker 1: I feel like I am pretty good on and two
Speaker 1: things that I struggle with. And I feel like that
Speaker 1: makes the writing better because I realize how hard it
Speaker 1: is and I have to experiment with different ideas to
Speaker 1: try to put these things into practice and make them work.
Speaker 1: And you know, anyone can share an opinion or a solution,
Speaker 1: but to actually put that into practice day after day
Speaker 1: in your own life is much harder, for sure. And
Speaker 1: when you say getting into work, do you mean like
Speaker 1: going to the office in your house? Right? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have a tense so I work out of the home
Speaker 1: office just to quirefy, okay, very cool, very cool. You see,
Speaker 1: you live a life that a lot of people want
Speaker 1: to live, right, and so you are an inspiration to
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And you, I mean you try
Speaker 1: to talk about how you got to be the way
Speaker 1: that you are and things that you can do, something
Speaker 1: that you've influenced Me and my best friend Elliott, who's
Speaker 1: a philosophy professor at Barnard, we intentionally did an integrity
Speaker 1: report this year. Oh cool, and like you're change our
Speaker 1: lives too, So thanks, Yeah, yeah, that's great. I really
Speaker 1: liked the process of doing that. Integrity is one of
Speaker 1: those interesting things where like if you were to ask anybody,
Speaker 1: like if I were to ask you, do you do
Speaker 1: business with integrity? Or do you know, do you conduct
Speaker 1: your work with integrity? Well everyone's going to say yes, no,
Speaker 1: one's going to say no. And I actually don't think
Speaker 1: people are like lying. I think they actually believe it
Speaker 1: for the most part. But what happens is that there
Speaker 1: are all these situations we find ourselves in where your
Speaker 1: boss asks you to do something, or you you know,
Speaker 1: really want something happy, you want this business to get built,
Speaker 1: or you want to you know, to write a book,
Speaker 1: or you want to succeed in some fashion, and you
Speaker 1: come up with this just this once excuse for this
Speaker 1: particular circumstance, because the situation is different this time. And
Speaker 1: you do that five, ten, fifteen times throughout the year,
Speaker 1: and then you turn around at the end of the
Speaker 1: year and you're like, oh, you know, maybe I found
Speaker 1: myself in a different place than where I would have
Speaker 1: said if you were to just say, what are your values?
Speaker 1: What do you live by? So for me, the Integrity
Speaker 1: Report is just a way to sort of make myself
Speaker 1: stand up, be publicly accountable, and more importantly, make those
Speaker 1: issues come to the forefront more frequently, just so that
Speaker 1: I'm at least thinking about them, so that I don't
Speaker 1: let those justice once exceptions pile up, you know, year
Speaker 1: after year, and suddenly I'm running my business in a
Speaker 1: way that you know, it's just a little bit removed
Speaker 1: from maybe what I would have done if you were
Speaker 1: had to have me write my values out on paper
Speaker 1: and write exactly what I you know, what I envisioned. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In addition to constant reflecting on your life and your
Speaker 1: goals and where you are, you also quantify a lot
Speaker 1: of your stuff. I noticed, you know, in one report
Speaker 1: I read, you quantified how many times you went to
Speaker 1: the gym last year, for instance. That's a big finding
Speaker 1: in the science of motivation, right, that constantly quantifying these
Speaker 1: things is very helpful. Yeah. You know those your speed
Speaker 1: is signs if you're driving down the road and there's
Speaker 1: like a little radar and l shit, you know, speed
Speaker 1: limit is thirty five, you're going forty two or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'll put it up there. So that
Speaker 1: sign is really just a feedback loop, right, It's it
Speaker 1: quantifies what's happening, gives you an accurate measurement on this
Speaker 1: is where you stand and you see it, and so
Speaker 1: you that feedback acts as the trigger, the stimulus for
Speaker 1: your next action, which is to slow down. And you know,
Speaker 1: research has shown that those your speed signs tend to
Speaker 1: decrease speed by about ten percent on average, and they
Speaker 1: tend to stick with you for miles down the road.
Speaker 1: But what I thought was particularly interesting is that they
Speaker 1: continue to work. So even if you have already seen
Speaker 1: a sign like that and you come across another one
Speaker 1: six months later while you're driving, it will work again.
Speaker 1: It will decrease your speed by about ten percent on average.
Speaker 1: And I think the measurement is a really key part
Speaker 1: of that. You know, there are multiple things around here.
Speaker 1: It's automatic, for one, so it doesn't require you to
Speaker 1: do anything. It just gives you that feedback really quickly,
Speaker 1: you know, on its own. But to come back to
Speaker 1: this measurement idea that you brought up, I think it's
Speaker 1: important to quantify and measure the things that are important
Speaker 1: to you so that those numbers can act as a
Speaker 1: trigger or a stimulus for your next response. I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily think that tracking the number of workouts I do
Speaker 1: in a month, or tracking how much way to lifting
Speaker 1: each workout, or tracking the number of articles I write
Speaker 1: each month or in a year. I don't necessarily think
Speaker 1: that that one little practice is going to change, you know,
Speaker 1: my life entirely. But maybe it'll provide a five or
Speaker 1: ten percent bump in my motivation or in my consistency
Speaker 1: or in the work that I do. And if I
Speaker 1: can accumulate some of those bump scenarios that are important
Speaker 1: to me, then I think it's important that you know
Speaker 1: that I spend the time to quantify and measure. And
Speaker 1: the other thing is it actually isn't that hard to
Speaker 1: measure that stuff. It doesn't really take that long. It's
Speaker 1: just foreign to us in a lot of ways, and
Speaker 1: so we're not used to it. But once you get
Speaker 1: into it, like tracking my workouts now, I mean it
Speaker 1: takes me thirty seconds. While I'm at the it's like nothing,
Speaker 1: you know. So to me, it's almost like why wouldn't
Speaker 1: I do it at this point? But in the beginning,
Speaker 1: there's this, you know, this friction or this tension around
Speaker 1: starting something new that can make it feel weird or
Speaker 1: a little bit of a hassle. Just you maybe follow
Speaker 1: this question I want to ask you. Do you do
Speaker 1: weightlifting competitions? Now? Uh? Yeah, so I haven't done any
Speaker 1: in the last year, but I was on an Olympic
Speaker 1: weightlifting team in Ohio before I moved to North Carolina. Hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: we talk about a lot. Yeah, I have it on
Speaker 1: my list to like move into talking about workout and
Speaker 1: weightlifting habits. You know, I wasn't that great, but we
Speaker 1: have some really good lifters. Holly manguald Our best female
Speaker 1: lifter lifted at the Olympics in London in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Our coach Marknello was the TMOSA coach there in London.
Speaker 1: Drew and Bob two or two of our top ten
Speaker 1: male lifters. They were both top ten in the country.
Speaker 1: So I anyway, my only point is by doing that process,
Speaker 1: I learned a lot about what it looks like to
Speaker 1: show up consistently and you know, work out what it
Speaker 1: means to be a part of the team with like
Speaker 1: athletes of that caliber. So yeah, it was. It was
Speaker 1: a great experience for me. And I haven't done any
Speaker 1: competitions within the last year or so, but it is
Speaker 1: on my schedule to do something once I you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: to do something here in the near future. Very cool.
Speaker 1: So let's get into the nitty gritty of habit formation
Speaker 1: and changing habits. So you've written a lot on this topic.
Speaker 1: First of all, how long does it take really take
Speaker 1: to build a new habit? Yeah, the answer is I mean,
Speaker 1: you hear these like kind of urban myths and legends
Speaker 1: it takes twenty one days, or it takes thirty days,
Speaker 1: or you know whatever. Do those seem to be the
Speaker 1: two most popular numbers. But the answer is the answer
Speaker 1: everybody hates. It depends but what scientists found. There's a
Speaker 1: research study done at University College London on this and
Speaker 1: so you can basically look at it as a spectrum
Speaker 1: and it depends on the difficulty of the habit, how
Speaker 1: you know, large or complex it is. It also depends on,
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of situational and environmental factors, like
Speaker 1: what you have around you, what kind of influences do
Speaker 1: you have, what kind of people do you live with,
Speaker 1: what kind of environment do you live in. But on
Speaker 1: the short end, really easy habits that you know, like
Speaker 1: drinking a glass of water at lunch might take you
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty one days somewhere you know, three four
Speaker 1: weeks something like that. More difficult habits like going on
Speaker 1: a run three miles after work each day or something
Speaker 1: that might take you six eight months. But the span
Speaker 1: was anywhere from eighteen days to two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: some days. And the point of this I think, you know,
Speaker 1: on average, it was sixty six days to build a
Speaker 1: new habit. So that's kind of the you know what
Speaker 1: the head line was, the research study on average takes
Speaker 1: sixty six days. But I think on a more practical level,
Speaker 1: what we can say about that is it's going to
Speaker 1: take months for these new behaviors to be built, you know,
Speaker 1: And so rather than viewing this as an event, I
Speaker 1: think too often we view building habits and new behaviors
Speaker 1: as like a finish line to cross. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I built the habit of working out, I'm done now.
Speaker 1: Or I built the habit of you know, writing once
Speaker 1: a week for three months, I'm done now. I have
Speaker 1: that habit. But it doesn't really work that way, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's more of something that you continue to
Speaker 1: show up to. Right if you if you built the
Speaker 1: habit of working out and did it for six months
Speaker 1: and then just stopped and never worked out again, well
Speaker 1: it doesn't you know, it doesn't really help that much.
Speaker 1: So I think viewing it more as a process rather
Speaker 1: than an event or as a you know, as this
Speaker 1: ongoing system that you're going to commit to, rather than
Speaker 1: this finish line that you're just going to try to
Speaker 1: cross after twenty one days or thirty days is probably
Speaker 1: the best way to approach it. That makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. And a lot of people complain about how
Speaker 1: their motivation wanes, and you know, you really talk about
Speaker 1: how what separates those who reach these goals those that don't.
Speaker 1: Actually a bunch of things that separate those that don't.
Speaker 1: One is identity, right, can talk a little about the
Speaker 1: identity aspect to this. Yeah, so I call this identity
Speaker 1: based habits is the phrase that I use for it.
Speaker 1: And the basic idea is, you know, I think you
Speaker 1: can kind of say that can imagine behavior change or
Speaker 1: new habits is kind of like an onion, and on
Speaker 1: the outermost layer of the onion is the results that
Speaker 1: we get, the performance. So these are the things that
Speaker 1: we're always looking at. Right, let's double revenue, let's increase
Speaker 1: our productivity, let's lose forty pounds, let's you know, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. It's the result on the outside, and those
Speaker 1: are the things that we set our goals around. Then
Speaker 1: on the next layer in that's like our actions. And
Speaker 1: you know, if it's take the weight loss example, since
Speaker 1: it's a common one. If the goal is lose thirty
Speaker 1: pounds in four months. Then the action piece might be
Speaker 1: workout four days a week or something like that. Well,
Speaker 1: usually the conversation kind of stops there. We think about
Speaker 1: the goals we want, we think about the steps we
Speaker 1: need to take to get them, and then we say,
Speaker 1: all right, we just we just need to do it.
Speaker 1: And if we don't do it, then it's because we
Speaker 1: didn't have enough motivation or willpower, or the circumstances weren't right,
Speaker 1: or whatever we chalk it up to. But I would
Speaker 1: say that there's also a deeper layer, you know, one
Speaker 1: layer in from the actions that we take, and that
Speaker 1: layer is the identity or the beliefs or the mindset
Speaker 1: that we have and that identity. To give you an example,
Speaker 1: so let's take the weight loss one. So if the
Speaker 1: goal is to lose thirty pounds in four months, and
Speaker 1: the action is to work out four times a week, well,
Speaker 1: the question I like to ask is who is the
Speaker 1: type of person that could get that result or who
Speaker 1: is the type of person that would do that thing? Well,
Speaker 1: the answer is, the type of person who could lose
Speaker 1: thirty pounds in four months is the type of person
Speaker 1: who doesn't miss workouts like that would be their identity.
Speaker 1: And so rather than focusing on the outcome or the result,
Speaker 1: or rather than worrying about the action, let's focus on
Speaker 1: building the identity of the type of person who could
Speaker 1: achieve the result that you want, whether that's writing a
Speaker 1: book or learning a new language, or losing weight or whatever.
Speaker 1: And if you have that identity, then you can trust
Speaker 1: that the actions and the results will just come as
Speaker 1: a natural consequence of becoming that type of person. No,
Speaker 1: I love that, And the reason why I love it
Speaker 1: it's a nice compliment to the research I've done on
Speaker 1: the importance of falling involved with the future image of
Speaker 1: yourself called Epaul Turns, the famous creativity researcher, wrote a
Speaker 1: beautiful article called the Importance of Falling Involved with Something,
Speaker 1: and he argues in that paper that identity is the
Speaker 1: most important thing we could do to help realize these
Speaker 1: future images of ourselves. Is what carries people through. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're aware of his famous so long
Speaker 1: entitudinal study where he followed from the fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: like in elementary school, and they're still following this cohort
Speaker 1: fifty years later, and he found that that falling in
Speaker 1: love with the future image of yourself part was like
Speaker 1: the number one best predictor of adult creativity, better than IQ,
Speaker 1: better than like every measure of academic prowess he could
Speaker 1: throw in front of them. So it's a really cool study.
Speaker 1: And what you're showing is it's nice compliment to it
Speaker 1: because just dreaming is not the only part of the equation.
Speaker 1: There's also the doing part. But what it's going to
Speaker 1: get you to do the doing, and it's really having
Speaker 1: part of your dainty as well. They're the kind of
Speaker 1: person who's going to work hard even when you don't
Speaker 1: want to. You know what's interesting as I think about it,
Speaker 1: I didn't know about that site. It's very fascinating. So
Speaker 1: then okay, so let's say we leave that thesis right,
Speaker 1: this idea that okay, let's become the type of person
Speaker 1: who can achieve these things, or let's focus on building
Speaker 1: that identity or falling in love with the future you
Speaker 1: as you put it, all right, So then the question
Speaker 1: for me is all right, the next step after that,
Speaker 1: So it's good to say that. So then how do
Speaker 1: we get to the practical side, right, like, how do
Speaker 1: we put it in practice? And what I find is
Speaker 1: that those two layers as two interlayers I mentioned, So
Speaker 1: the actions that we take and the identity that we have,
Speaker 1: they're kind of they feed off each other. It's not
Speaker 1: a one way street. And I had a coach in
Speaker 1: high school, a basketball coach, who said confidence is just
Speaker 1: displayed ability. And I remember hearing that and thinking, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's interesting, right, Like, a lot of time people will
Speaker 1: tell you to go into something like oh, you're going
Speaker 1: to give this public speaking thing, like just be confident
Speaker 1: believe yourself, right, Or you're gonna be shooting a free
Speaker 1: throw in a basketball game, just be confident, believe it's
Speaker 1: going to go in. Well, like, that's true. On one hand,
Speaker 1: confidence is great, But the way that you actually build it,
Speaker 1: the way that you actually believe it that it's going
Speaker 1: to happen, is by proving it to yourself, right, is
Speaker 1: by displaying your ability. And then you're like, yeah, of
Speaker 1: course I'm confident myself because I know I've actually done
Speaker 1: it before. And so for me, it's like, all right,
Speaker 1: how do we build that little that feedback loop where
Speaker 1: you can actually prove that you're doing something that the
Speaker 1: future you it's getting you to the future you So
Speaker 1: you're doing something you haven't done before, but you're proving
Speaker 1: it to yourself, so you're confident that you can do
Speaker 1: it and you have the identity. I think the answer,
Speaker 1: at least the best one I've come up with yet,
Speaker 1: is for you to do it in incredibly small incremental steps,
Speaker 1: which is why I believe in these like one percent changes,
Speaker 1: small habits and so on. It's just a big enough improvement,
Speaker 1: just a big enough step or a small enough step.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, toward the future, you that
Speaker 1: it is moving the needle forward, but it's also small
Speaker 1: enough that you can achieve it, and it will give
Speaker 1: you a little bit of a confidence boost, a little
Speaker 1: bit of an identity shift, where you say, yes, I
Speaker 1: believe that this is something I can actually be and achieve,
Speaker 1: and then you just repeat the process a thousand times
Speaker 1: until you actually get to the future you. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is quite groundbreaking stuff, and it could be applied
Speaker 1: to a very wide swath of activities. I don't see
Speaker 1: you writing too much about dating, for instance, but do
Speaker 1: you ever have these these dating coaches? Do they ever
Speaker 1: contact you, like, you know, wanting to apply some of
Speaker 1: your ideas to like approach anxiety and stuff like that. Interesting,
Speaker 1: No I have well, I have I have had a
Speaker 1: couple relationship experts or what's the term now that they
Speaker 1: use anyway, but I've had a few maybe that have
Speaker 1: reached out. But that's interesting. I haven't even thought about
Speaker 1: applying it in that way. One area that I was
Speaker 1: surprised that I have a lot of readers who are
Speaker 1: into finance and trading and you know and whatnot. I
Speaker 1: think that a philosophy of one percent gains of compound
Speaker 1: growth certainly applies to them. But also this idea of
Speaker 1: like showing up consistently and just like build what's the
Speaker 1: identity that you want as a trader, rather than being
Speaker 1: reactionary to whatever happens in the market and letting that
Speaker 1: shift your actions and choices. How are you focusing on
Speaker 1: building the identity and the consistency around you know, what
Speaker 1: you want to become. So, I mean, it really can
Speaker 1: apply it to any sort of goal you have. But
Speaker 1: you know, again, you are you say some counter two
Speaker 1: of things. You say that focusing on goals can actually
Speaker 1: limit your long term growth, for instance, and you say
Speaker 1: focus more on systems that are Folleah, Well, you know
Speaker 1: what's interesting about that I think so, So I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say goals are useless, because I don't think
Speaker 1: that's true. I think what goals are good for is
Speaker 1: setting direction for yourself and you know, developing a sense
Speaker 1: of clarity and a sense of purpose around where you're moving.
Speaker 1: I think you see this a lot. I think as
Speaker 1: we get older, maybe we get a little bit better
Speaker 1: at it, but I think you see it a lot,
Speaker 1: in particular with students or people as they graduate and
Speaker 1: start their career. They don't have necessarily really pinpoint clarity
Speaker 1: on what they want, and I don't think that's like
Speaker 1: a knock on them. I think that sometimes that's just
Speaker 1: a consequence of where we're at in our lives, Like
Speaker 1: you need this exploration period throughout your twenties sometimes to
Speaker 1: figure out, like, hey, what am I meant to do
Speaker 1: and what really speaks to me. But my point is
Speaker 1: it's really hard to make a lot of progress if
Speaker 1: you don't have a clear direction that you're moving in.
Speaker 1: So goals can be good for that. They can be
Speaker 1: good for setting a direction. However, if you know what
Speaker 1: direction you're moving in, having a goal doesn't really do
Speaker 1: a whole lot for you, and it's the system and
Speaker 1: the consistency and the work that you do day in
Speaker 1: and day out that makes the difference. You know, Like,
Speaker 1: take so Alabama football just won the national championship again.
Speaker 1: When they started their year, they probably all knew exactly
Speaker 1: what their goal was, right, Like, Okay, the goal is
Speaker 1: to win the national title. There's no debate about what
Speaker 1: direction we're moving in. But you could effectively say they
Speaker 1: could just put their goal on a shelf and not
Speaker 1: even think about it for the next nine months year
Speaker 1: and all they and if all they worried about was
Speaker 1: the system that they committed to it practice each day,
Speaker 1: would they still make progress? Would they still potentially win?
Speaker 1: And I would say that, yeah, maybe they. You can
Speaker 1: kind of divide systems and goals like this, like, if
Speaker 1: you're a coach, your goal might be to win the championship.
Speaker 1: Your system is what your team does in practice each day.
Speaker 1: If you're a writer, your goal might be to write
Speaker 1: a best selling book. Your system is the writing process
Speaker 1: that you follow each week. You know, you could say,
Speaker 1: if you're an entrepreneur, your goal might be to build
Speaker 1: this successful business, and your process is the sales and
Speaker 1: marketing process that you do each week. So we all
Speaker 1: have directions that we want to go in, but the
Speaker 1: way to get there, the way to walk that path,
Speaker 1: is through a system. And so that's why I feel
Speaker 1: like systems are more important than goals. Yeah, it makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. So what's a big myth of
Speaker 1: passion and motivation that you see constantly being perpetuated. I
Speaker 1: don't know. There are probably a few. I would say.
Speaker 1: The one thing is just that like we often do
Speaker 1: this guilt trip or this shaming around not having enough
Speaker 1: motivation or not having enough willpower, and we act like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the reason you don't get to your goals. But
Speaker 1: in truth, motivation is very fickle. It's probably not best
Speaker 1: By definition, a habit is something you do consistently, and
Speaker 1: motivation is something that ebbs and flows. So you don't
Speaker 1: want something you're going to do consistently to rely on
Speaker 1: something that ebbs and flows. So you know, there's a
Speaker 1: popular So there are a bunch of studies on implementation intentions.
Speaker 1: But one of the ones I like to talk about
Speaker 1: is about exercise. And so they had three groups. First group,
Speaker 1: they said, we want you to track how often new
Speaker 1: exercise over the next two weeks. So just the control group.
Speaker 1: Second group, they said, we want you to track off
Speaker 1: new exercise and we're going to show you this motivational
Speaker 1: pamphlet and video on the benefits of exercise, why it
Speaker 1: promotes heart health, blah blah blah. So this was the
Speaker 1: motivated group, since we're talking about motivation. Then group three
Speaker 1: they gave the same presentation to so they were equally motivated,
Speaker 1: and they said, we want you to track your exercise
Speaker 1: over the next two weeks, but we're going to have
Speaker 1: you do one other thing, and that thing is write down,
Speaker 1: I will exercise for twenty minutes on this day, at
Speaker 1: this time in this place. So they had to state
Speaker 1: a very specific implementation intention about whether or not they
Speaker 1: would work out well. The results came back the cohort
Speaker 1: about thirty one thirty three percent somewhere around there worked
Speaker 1: out out okay, So about one third of them worked
Speaker 1: out over the next two weeks. The motivated group, the
Speaker 1: motivation essentially faded almost as soon as they left, you know,
Speaker 1: like within a day, and thirty one percent of them
Speaker 1: worked out over the next two weeks, so equal to
Speaker 1: the control groups, the motivation had no impact whatsoever on
Speaker 1: their long term behavior. And then the third group, ninety
Speaker 1: percent of them worked out over the next two weeks.
Speaker 1: So it's like triple double or triple what the other
Speaker 1: motivation group was. And so implementation intentions or commitment devices,
Speaker 1: all these different strategies we have, those can lead to
Speaker 1: better long term behaviors. And I think that the myth
Speaker 1: around motivation is that motivation is what we lack to
Speaker 1: build the habits that we want. And my argument would
Speaker 1: be often it's about environment design and structuring the world
Speaker 1: around you to promote those good behaviors and prevent the
Speaker 1: bad ones, and that makes more of a difference than motivation.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of time we look at people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, they have six pack ads, they must
Speaker 1: be so motivated. I wish I had the willpower you do.
Speaker 1: And even though those people don't know it, they often
Speaker 1: live in an environment that promotes those behaviors. They're surrounded
Speaker 1: by people who also promote those behaviors and do the
Speaker 1: same things. So they're surrounded by a supportive environment with
Speaker 1: similar ideas, and we can chalk it up to motivation
Speaker 1: and willpower, but often there are other forces at play
Speaker 1: that make those good habits easier and those bad habits harder,
Speaker 1: and just to give you some examples, you know, like
Speaker 1: let's talk about breaking some bad habits, you know, if
Speaker 1: you I wrote about some of these in the article
Speaker 1: earlier this week that I was working on. If you
Speaker 1: have a gambling habit, you can put yourself on the
Speaker 1: band list. You can volunteer to put yourself on the
Speaker 1: band list at the casino, or on it for an
Speaker 1: online gambling site. So now, all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 1: not about having the willpower to not do it, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just don't have the motivation, I don't have the
Speaker 1: willpower to resist the urge. Well, structure the environment so
Speaker 1: that it makes it easier on you rather than harder.
Speaker 1: You can set up automatic savings plans to save more
Speaker 1: money for your emergency fund each month, right, So like
Speaker 1: now it's not, oh I wish I had the willpower
Speaker 1: you did to not go on a shopping spree and
Speaker 1: save money for my emergency fund. It's like, no, design
Speaker 1: the environment to make those behaviors easier for you. Anyway
Speaker 1: that you can structure the world around you to make
Speaker 1: the good habits easier and the bad behaviors harder, I
Speaker 1: think is much more powerful than relying on motivation or willpower.
Speaker 1: I really like you made that point, and also the
Speaker 1: importance of the culture. My dear friend Amelia Latti studies
Speaker 1: this concept called CISU, which yeah, really big in Finland,
Speaker 1: and I think you wrote an article about her work
Speaker 1: on CISU and she was really excited that you wrote that.
Speaker 1: But I think that speaks to the systemic sort of
Speaker 1: cultural influence on something. I mean, in that culture in Finland,
Speaker 1: you know, having that extreme determination is a really good thing, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it's something we encourage. But our American
Speaker 1: culture is kind of interesting. We say that we really
Speaker 1: value that, but then we really value talent when it
Speaker 1: comes down to it in terms of like standardized tests
Speaker 1: and focus and all that stuff. Anyway, just a couple
Speaker 1: more minutes, you know, we'll wrap this up. I really
Speaker 1: like this thing you wrote once. You said, personally, my
Speaker 1: goal is not to reduce life to the fewest amount
Speaker 1: of things, to fill it with the optimal amount of things.
Speaker 1: And I think at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 1: when you talk about how the central question you're interested
Speaker 1: in is how can we live better? I think that
Speaker 1: kind of really gets to the center of how we
Speaker 1: can live better in a lot of different ways, especially
Speaker 1: in my own field of positi psychology, that would agree
Speaker 1: with that. How have you been trying to do that
Speaker 1: lately in your life? Yeah, it's a good question, you know.
Speaker 1: I think this year one of the things I'm focusing
Speaker 1: on is kind of this ruthless elimination of the in essential,
Speaker 1: and one of the analogies I like for this idea
Speaker 1: of you know, I'm not trying to get to the
Speaker 1: least amount of things. I'm trying to get to the
Speaker 1: optimal amount of things. Or I'm not trying to get
Speaker 1: to the least amount of responsibilities. I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: to the optimal amount of responsibilities. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily trying to avoid work or to live a spartan
Speaker 1: lifestyle that makes me feel like I'm sacrificing and not
Speaker 1: getting to enjoy the world around me. But I am
Speaker 1: trying to be cognizant of the fact that there are
Speaker 1: many things that creep into our lives that we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily need, or that don't provide nearly as much value
Speaker 1: as maybe we assume on the surface, or don't really
Speaker 1: make us better people for those who live around us
Speaker 1: or for ourselves. And so the analogy that I like
Speaker 1: to use with this is one of a rose bush.
Speaker 1: You know, I think we often assume that as humans
Speaker 1: we are like trees. We grow wider, and we can
Speaker 1: grow taller and throw more responsibilities on because we'll just
Speaker 1: add some more branches, and you know, we just continue
Speaker 1: to go up and up and bigger and bigger. And
Speaker 1: that's a natural consequence, especially if you're an active, busy, interested,
Speaker 1: intelligent person, those things are going to come into your life, right,
Speaker 1: You're going to have more opportunities. It's just how it is.
Speaker 1: The longer you live, the more people you'll meet, and
Speaker 1: the more you know, opportunities will come across. So if
Speaker 1: you don't trim those away, then you are going to
Speaker 1: try to force yourself into this tree situation where you
Speaker 1: need to get bigger and bigger. The problem is, human
Speaker 1: beings are not really like trees. We have this finite
Speaker 1: amount of energy and amount of space in our lives,
Speaker 1: and so I think that, you know, for a plant analogy,
Speaker 1: we're more like a rose bush. In order for a
Speaker 1: rose bush to fully blossom, you have to trim away
Speaker 1: some of the buds, and many of those buds are
Speaker 1: actually good they could become a flower, they could blossom
Speaker 1: in some way, but if you don't trim them away,
Speaker 1: then the few remaining ones can't flourish. And so that's
Speaker 1: kind of where I'm trying to get to at this point,
Speaker 1: is saying which areas of my life, which buds do
Speaker 1: I want to flourish to the fullest degree. And in
Speaker 1: order to do that, there are going to be some things,
Speaker 1: and in many cases they're good choices. They're not waste
Speaker 1: of time that I'm going to have to say no
Speaker 1: to in order for me to get to that optical
Speaker 1: amount of stuff. And yeah, and so that's kind of
Speaker 1: where I'm at right now. I love it. And that
Speaker 1: leads to my final question for this interview. So what
Speaker 1: other things matter in your personal life other than habit formation?
Speaker 1: How much is happiness and well being and other things?
Speaker 1: I don't want to be ask you a leading question,
Speaker 1: but tell me what else matters in your personal life? Sure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think one of the questions is sometimes this conversation.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is what you had in
Speaker 1: mind when you ask the question, but sometimes the question
Speaker 1: around habit formation is like, well, if I spend all
Speaker 1: my time building these habits, So I ever get to
Speaker 1: enjoy anything? Do I just become a robot? Do I
Speaker 1: just become automated and just worry about like, oh, system
Speaker 1: after system, And my argument would be no, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be that way at all. The question that
Speaker 1: we need to ask is where does the value come from? So,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes there are things in our lives that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of value just in being a beginner,
Speaker 1: you know, like having a beginner's level of knowledge on
Speaker 1: politics and the upcoming election. Maybe you're not into politics,
Speaker 1: but just being able to have a conversation on it
Speaker 1: and at least know the lay of the land, and
Speaker 1: you know, you spend thirty minutes of your time figuring
Speaker 1: it out or you know, three hours of your time,
Speaker 1: some beginner level of investment that can be really useful.
Speaker 1: There are other things where the value comes from mastering
Speaker 1: that behavior, you know, like take exercise. Since this is
Speaker 1: an example we've used throughout this interview. Does the value
Speaker 1: of exercise come and doing thirty minutes or three hours
Speaker 1: of you know, work on it and over the course
Speaker 1: of a year. Probably not. There's probably not a lot
Speaker 1: of value to be gained there. But by showing up
Speaker 1: consistently time after time, then you can really start to
Speaker 1: reap a lot of benefits through that, you know, mastery.
Speaker 1: I guess writing is another one where I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of benefit is to be gained from mastery.
Speaker 1: And it depends on the person. Depends on your skill set,
Speaker 1: for one, what your strengths are and whether those align
Speaker 1: with the thing that you're trying to master. And it
Speaker 1: just depends on your you know, your interests and the
Speaker 1: conversations that you want to have. But for different people,
Speaker 1: sometimes the value will be at the beginning of the curve,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the value is going to be in mastering
Speaker 1: that thing. And so if the values at the beginning,
Speaker 1: don't worry about building a habit around it, don't just
Speaker 1: you know, get the knowledge that you need and then
Speaker 1: move on. And as far as the place for happiness
Speaker 1: and serendipity and surprise in my life, I try to
Speaker 1: create situations where I can get a lot of that.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm fortunate because I can set my schedule
Speaker 1: in you know, and have a successful business running and
Speaker 1: so on. I try to do three to five international
Speaker 1: trips a year, mostly just for photography and kind of
Speaker 1: creative exploration and so, you know, one that teaches me
Speaker 1: a little bit about creative habits and stuff and how
Speaker 1: you can't really plan sometimes those you know, those creative moments.
Speaker 1: But two, it just you know, just allows me to
Speaker 1: increase my surface area for luck and for interesting things
Speaker 1: to happen. So I certainly don't think that I try
Speaker 1: to plan out all of my days, although I do
Speaker 1: have some of those what I would call like anchor
Speaker 1: tasks that my day revolves around, and then the rest
Speaker 1: of it is, you know, kind of filled in by
Speaker 1: hopefully some good and exciting stuff. I love that answer.
Speaker 1: I guess my question was more personal, though, about the
Speaker 1: things that matter to you in life other than like
Speaker 1: goals and habit And I know the answer though, Like
Speaker 1: I've read your integrity report and so you mentioned things
Speaker 1: like you want to increase your social connectedness, your service
Speaker 1: and things like that, and those are things that aren't
Speaker 1: necessarily related to goal. I mean, there are goals, but
Speaker 1: you're not doing them because you want to reach a goal.
Speaker 1: You're doing them because you want to savor the moment,
Speaker 1: right M. Yeah, they're like this year, in particular, I'm
Speaker 1: focusing on doing a monthly dinner series and then hosting
Speaker 1: maybe one or two retreats throughout the year that are
Speaker 1: just there because you know, I feel like it will
Speaker 1: add to my social wellbeing and add to my ability
Speaker 1: to you know, connect with other like minded people and
Speaker 1: so on and not. You know, I'm not selling anything.
Speaker 1: I'm not looking to get some business result on. I'm
Speaker 1: in a I just you know, spend some time surrounded
Speaker 1: by other interesting people. So yeah, there are things like that. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the weightlifting of photography are kind of two of my
Speaker 1: personal hobbies I guess I would put that are like
Speaker 1: closely related but not about goals and habits. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you know, spending time with friends and family. I
Speaker 1: try to make multiple trips home and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So there's there's plenty of things that you know, I
Speaker 1: spend my time on that don't necessarily get measured or quantified.
Speaker 1: You know, like we talked earlier, it sounds like you're
Speaker 1: really living a full life, living a good life. And
Speaker 1: thanks for all the great work you're doing, James, Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1: Its great. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast with
Speaker 1: doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode
Speaker 1: just to s thought provoking and interesting as I did.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode,
Speaker 1: or here are past episodes, you can go to the
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast dot com, dot