The Art of Manliness - #470： A Proven System for Building and Breaking Habits

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast. It's a new year

00:00:19.500 and if you're like millions of people around the world, you're likely making goals to create some

00:00:22.880 new habits or break some bad ones. But if you're also like millions of people around the world,

00:00:26.400 your attempts at making and breaking habits will usually fail after just a few weeks of flailing

00:00:30.280 effort, you'll probably think your lack of willpower is to blame. My guest say argues that

00:00:34.060 it isn't truly a lack of willpower that's holding you back from your habit goals. It's the tactics

00:00:37.840 you use for reaching them. His name is James Clear. He's the author of the book Atomic Habits.

00:00:42.020 And today on the show, he walks us through how to make habit formation and habit breaking much easier

00:00:45.820 by crafting optimal systems for behavior change. We begin our show discussing the misconceptions

00:00:49.520 people have about habits and the four-step process of habit formation that tracks the four laws of

00:00:53.820 behavior change. James then suggests specific ways to make good habits more attractive and easier

00:00:57.980 to obtain while making bad habits less attractive and easier to shake. We end our conversation

00:01:01.800 discussing why you should take into account your unique personality when you craft your habits.

00:01:05.780 Lots of useful actual advice on the show. After it's over, check out the show notes at

00:01:09.360 aom.is slash atomic habits. All right, James Clear, welcome to the show.

00:01:23.500 Hey, great to talk to you. Thanks for having me on.

00:01:25.340 So you've made a name for yourself as an expert on habit formation. You've been writing some great

00:01:30.360 stuff on your own website, jamesclear.com, Medium. I've seen them there. So let's start the backstory.

00:01:35.180 How did you get started with researching and writing about habits? Yeah. Well, we all build habits all

00:01:41.200 the time, right? We all have them, whether we're thinking about them or not. And so I went through

00:01:46.040 that period as well. You're building habits your whole life. And then particularly for me as an

00:01:50.820 athlete. So I played baseball all the way through college and a bunch of other sports when I was

00:01:55.780 younger as well. And as any athlete can tell you, there are all kinds of habits you're building at

00:02:00.160 practice or in the gym and so on. And so I didn't have a language for it at the time, but that was

00:02:05.760 kind of the place where I cut my teeth and learned how to get 1% better each day or how to build habits

00:02:11.840 and stick to routines and things like that, even though I wouldn't have said that at the time.

00:02:16.560 And then I went to graduate school and I was in the Center for Entrepreneurship. That's where my

00:02:21.340 graduate assistantship was. And I saw all these companies getting started. My job was to analyze

00:02:26.640 venture capital investment in the region. And so I saw all these other people starting businesses

00:02:30.960 and I kind of got the itch to start my own thing as well. And so I graduated and I did that and all

00:02:37.720 the business ideas I had just totally flopped. I mean, nothing really went anywhere. And I realized

00:02:43.180 eventually after floundering around for a few months that the main reason is because I didn't

00:02:48.220 know how to market things. And so I started studying consumer psychology to figure out some of those

00:02:54.200 business problems. Why would someone sign up to an email list or buy a product or whatever?

00:02:59.860 And as I read more about consumer psychology, I started to bleed into behavioral psychology and

00:03:05.560 some of these areas related to habit formation. And as I read more about that, I have a fairly

00:03:12.340 scientific background. So I was mostly hard sciences and undergrad, like chemistry and physics.

00:03:17.360 And it just started to catch my attention. And as I read more about habit formation, I was like,

00:03:22.360 oh, I could use this stuff with my nutrition habits or in the gym, or this is the kind of thing that we

00:03:27.940 did at baseball practice or whatever. And I started to unlock a little bit of why those previous habits

00:03:33.880 worked well for me. And as I did, I kept some notes on my own about... It was just kind of like

00:03:40.160 James's thoughts on habits. And it was maybe, I don't know, 60 pages long. It was like a Word doc.

00:03:45.400 And so this was in 2012. And I eventually was like, all right, I have all this stuff here. I should

00:03:50.360 just publish something. And so I started writing November 12th, 2012 was the first article I put

00:03:56.800 on jamesclare.com. And then I wrote a new article, often about habits, but also sometimes about

00:04:03.080 decision-making or productivity or strength training. And I put those up every Monday and

00:04:07.660 Thursday for the next three years. And it was really that writing habit that led to the growth

00:04:12.480 of the site and the book deal that eventually became Atomic Habits and all the other things that

00:04:17.660 I now do with my business and work. So you mentioned you're an athlete. And you start

00:04:22.200 off the book telling the story about an experience as a young baseball player where you viscerally saw

00:04:28.220 the power of habits. I mean, you almost... You had a brush with death, basically. Can you talk

00:04:32.660 about that story and what you learned from that on how habits can... Just like little small changes can

00:04:37.820 help improve your life?

00:04:39.220 So my sophomore year of high school, I was hit in the face with a baseball bat.

00:04:43.120 And I didn't see it coming. It was an accident. But it struck me right between the eyes and

00:04:49.040 shattered both eye sockets, broke my nose, broke the bone behind my nose, which is fairly

00:04:53.700 deep inside your skull. I had a long fallout from it. I was answering questions for about 15 minutes

00:05:00.280 after it happened, but I wasn't answering them well. And pretty quickly, the swelling in my brain

00:05:06.520 became so bad that I lost consciousness. I started to struggle with basic functions like swallowing and

00:05:12.580 breathing. I had my first seizure of the day. I'd end up having three more in the next 24 hours.

00:05:18.800 And I had to be taken to the hospital. Then pretty soon, it became apparent that

00:05:22.440 the local hospital did not have the resources needed to handle the situation. So I was

00:05:27.320 air-cared in a helicopter to a larger facility, went into surgery, was placed into a medically induced

00:05:33.980 coma overnight. And then the next morning, I was stable enough where the doctors realized that

00:05:39.960 they could release me from the coma. And the process of healing began, but it was a very long

00:05:45.200 and arduous road. So for the next eight or nine months, I couldn't drive a car because of the

00:05:51.040 seizures. And I had these double vision problems because of some eye-related issues with the injury.

00:05:56.960 I was practicing basic motor patterns, like walking in a straight line at the first physical therapy

00:06:02.160 session. And of course, you know, once I started to heal and become more conscious of what the

00:06:08.420 situation was, I wanted to get back on the baseball field as well. But my return to baseball wasn't

00:06:13.900 smooth either. Like I, you know, it took quite a few months for me to even pick up a ball again.

00:06:19.100 And then when I did, I was cut from the team. I was the only junior cut from the varsity baseball

00:06:24.340 team the next year, which was very hard for me, given that I had played the sport since I was like

00:06:28.860 four or five years old. And I grew up in a household where baseball was a really important

00:06:33.600 thing. My dad had played professionally for the St. Louis Cardinals in the minor leagues for a little

00:06:38.440 while. And I always had this dream of playing professionally as well. And for whatever reason,

00:06:44.440 despite my high school career, not going to plan, I still thought I could be a good player. And I knew

00:06:49.800 that if I was going to do that, I needed to take responsibility for it and make it happen.

00:06:54.120 And so I started with, and this is where we come kind of full circle back to small habits.

00:07:00.760 I started with the only thing that I could do. Like I wasn't really in a situation where I could

00:07:04.640 flip a switch and just like transform overnight or where I could, you know, try to make some big

00:07:09.340 change. Like all I could manage at that time was to do small habits. And so I did little things like

00:07:15.740 making my bed every morning or started working out consistently. I would study and prep for class

00:07:21.760 each day. And like none of those things by themselves were earth shattering or radical,

00:07:26.900 you know, or radical changes or anything, but they gave me a sense of control over my life.

00:07:32.560 I felt like I, you know, a lot of, it felt like things had been taken from me or like I had never

00:07:37.700 asked for this. So instead I just focused on, and rather than focusing on what was taken from me,

00:07:43.220 I focused on what I could improve each day. And that little shift of focusing on those small habits

00:07:49.080 led to a lot of growth. So, you know, I ended up making a college baseball team.

00:07:53.560 I didn't start my first year, my sophomore year. I started my junior season. I was captain my senior

00:07:58.800 season. I was an academic all American, which is something that only about 30 players around the

00:08:04.260 country are named to that team. And I, I don't think that like my story is legendary or heroic or

00:08:09.440 anything. Like we all have things that we go through and this was, this injury was just one of mine

00:08:13.580 and I never ended up playing professionally, but I do feel like I was able to fulfill my potential.

00:08:19.760 And at the end of the day, I think one of the deeper purposes of why I wrote atomic habits and

00:08:25.500 why I believe small habits can be meaningful and are important is because regardless of the

00:08:30.800 challenges that life throws you, small habits can allow you to fulfill your potential, whatever that

00:08:36.980 happens to be in a particular area. And that's all we can really ask. You know, like you don't have

00:08:41.440 control over external events. You don't have control over how much talent or what genes you

00:08:46.140 were born with, but you do have control over your effort and the philosophy that you use each day.

00:08:53.320 And in my case, I believe it should be something like, how can I get 1% better today? And if you

00:08:58.000 can adhere to that over the long run, then it can make a meaningful difference.

00:09:01.900 Yeah. We've had someone on the podcast talking about the Kaizen method and that whole idea of 1%

00:09:05.300 better. And I think people really underestimate how much you can improve over the long run. If you just

00:09:10.560 get 1% better every day, every week, it works both ways, you know, like habits are, they're like

00:09:17.660 easy to dismiss on a daily basis because they seem kind of insignificant in the moment. It's like,

00:09:22.480 what is the difference between eating a burger and fries for lunch or eating a salad? Like the

00:09:28.140 on any given day, not really a whole lot, you know, your body looks basically the same in the mirror

00:09:32.080 at the end of the night. Scale hasn't really changed very much. It's not, it's really only like two or

00:09:37.140 five or 10 years later that you turn around and you're like, Oh wow, those daily choices like

00:09:40.960 really do matter a lot. And I think it is a very like, it's like applying Kaizen to your personal

00:09:46.040 life. And if you can do that, whether it's writing or health or business, then you turn around like

00:09:53.080 five or 10 years later and you're in a like really strong position, even though it didn't seem like

00:09:57.680 you were doing that much on any given day.

00:10:00.020 So the book is all about small habits, atomic habits, like little small ones, but the same thing

00:10:03.640 with an atom, there's a lot of power in that, right? If you unleash it, I'm curious based on

00:10:09.200 your research and just talking to people about habit formation, reading about it, are there some

00:10:13.240 big misconceptions you've seen that people have about making a habit or breaking or habit or even

00:10:18.660 the power of habits? Yeah. So, well, let me, I do have quite a few that like come up often just about

00:10:24.840 habits in particular, but you just mentioned something at the end of that question about like

00:10:28.340 the power of habits or perhaps where habits are useful. And so I should just like, I'll just lead with that.

00:10:33.540 Like habits are not, they're incredibly important. So important that I felt like it was worth spending

00:10:38.140 three years of my life to write what I hope is the definitive book on how habits work and how to

00:10:43.120 build them, but they're not everything. I think they are part of two of the, like the two major

00:10:49.240 pillars in life. So your habits and your decisions or your choices kind of both play a central role and

00:10:57.440 decision-making is kind of like, it sets the trajectory for either your results in life.

00:11:04.040 Like, let's say you're going to start a business. You could choose to start like a pizza parlor,

00:11:08.180 a local pizza shop, or you could choose to start say a software company, like an email marketing

00:11:13.680 business or something. And those two businesses, you're going to be working hard either way,

00:11:19.440 right? Like you're, you're, it's going to be difficult to be an entrepreneur. You have to,

00:11:22.080 to put a lot of effort in, but they have different trajectories. If you're like going to map out a

00:11:27.820 dotted line in front of you going out from the moment you start the business, then the software

00:11:32.360 company might have the steeper slope. It might have like more potential or a growth curve,

00:11:36.060 but your decisions set your trajectory, but your habits determine how far you walk along that

00:11:42.440 trajectory. So, you know, you could have really killer habits and end up creating a more successful

00:11:48.340 business with the local pizza parlor than someone who has an idea for a great software company,

00:11:52.940 but doesn't have the execution behind it. And of course, ultimately what we're looking for

00:11:57.560 is to make great decisions and have amazing habits behind them. And anyway, so I mentioned that because

00:12:03.780 I think sometimes there's this misconception that, Oh, if I just, you know, like master my habits,

00:12:08.540 then everything will fall into place. But the, the trajectory that you put yourself on matters a lot

00:12:13.460 as well. So decision-making plays a central role. And then the other ideas that came to me when you

00:12:19.400 mentioned the myth. So the first myth of habits is like, and this is so relevant around like new

00:12:25.400 years and so on, people will always say things like, okay, this year it's going to be different.

00:12:29.740 I have to try harder. Like if I just had a little more willpower grit, then I would make it happen.

00:12:34.780 You know, I wish I had as much willpower as you, that kind of thing. And I think that that looks at

00:12:39.660 habits from the entirely wrong angle or lens. Your habits are, and I talk about this a lot in

00:12:44.660 the book, they're often a response to the environment that you find yourself in. So

00:12:48.080 environment design, whether that's the physical environment or the social environment shapes your

00:12:53.320 habits in a really meaningful way. And willpower is not necessarily like the best way to approach

00:12:58.440 it. So that's, that's one myth. And then the final one that I'll mention is about this idea of

00:13:04.080 like, how long does it take to build a habit? So often people will say, Oh, you know, it only takes

00:13:09.520 does it take 21 days or 30 days or 66 days is a really common one. Now you, there was one study

00:13:14.820 that showed that on average, it took about 66 days to build a habit. And so you see that number

00:13:19.980 quoted a lot now, but even within that study, the range was quite wide. And, um, I think that the

00:13:26.980 honest answer to that question, how long does it take to build a habit is forever? Because if you stop

00:13:32.540 doing it, then it's no longer a habit. And I think that looking at it that way, it kind of gets,

00:13:37.780 there's like this implicit assumption behind that question, which is, well, how long until it's easy?

00:13:41.960 How long until I can stop working? And if you view habits as a lifestyle to live and not a finish

00:13:48.820 line to cross, then it becomes easier to focus on making these small sustainable changes because

00:13:54.900 what you're actually looking to do is create a new normal, not to just like work hard for a month

00:13:59.120 and then you're done. So let's segue off that idea of, you know, goals can often lead us astray

00:14:05.040 or they're not, sometimes they're not very, they're not as useful. I mean, they are useful,

00:14:08.000 but they can lead us astray and they cannot be useful. I mean, you talk about this idea in terms

00:14:13.000 of habits. There's two approaches to habits and behavior change. There's, um, outcome-based habits

00:14:18.020 and then there's identity-based habits. So walk us between the difference of this two. And is there

00:14:22.560 one that's better or, you know, are they two tools that you use in different situations?

00:14:26.180 So I think our default is to build what I call outcome-based habits. You know, like it's very

00:14:32.200 natural for people to be like, okay, what outcomes do I want? You know, I want to lose 40 pounds in

00:14:36.600 the next six months or I want to double my income this year or something like that.

00:14:40.820 And then once we have the outcome, once we've set the goal, we come up with a plan for achieving it.

00:14:45.580 Like, all right, I want to lose 40 pounds. So I'm going to follow this diet plan and go to the gym

00:14:50.040 four days a week. And then we kind of like whatever person we are as a result of that,

00:14:55.080 we just kind of let it flow naturally. We think like, all right, well, if I do those things and I

00:14:59.120 lose weight, then I'll be the kind of person I want to be. And we don't give much more thought to

00:15:02.820 it. And instead, I think it's often more useful, especially in the beginning when building a habit

00:15:08.680 to focus on what I call identity-based habits instead of outcome-based. So you basically just flip

00:15:15.120 the script rather than starting with the outcome and letting that inform the habits and then having

00:15:19.660 your identity come as a result. You start with the identity and then you build the habits and you

00:15:24.820 let the outcomes come as a result. So for example, you might say, all right, I want to lose 40 pounds

00:15:30.860 in six months. And then the question would be, well, who is the kind of person that could lose weight?

00:15:36.600 And then you realize, well, maybe it's the identity, someone who has the identity of,

00:15:40.220 you know, I don't miss workouts. And then you just focus on building habits that reinforce that

00:15:45.320 identity. So it's like, all right, you know, I went, I had to travel and I've been on the

00:15:50.600 plane for five hours and I got to the hotel and I'm exhausted and I don't have time for a full

00:15:54.920 workout, but I'm going to do five pushups before I collapse on the bed. And it wasn't what I wanted

00:15:59.540 to do. It was, you know, it might not help me lose 40 pounds, but at least I'm the type of person

00:16:04.200 that doesn't miss workouts. And so this is where I think small habits can be very useful because they

00:16:09.240 can reinforce a different type of identity. They can, it's kind of like every action you take

00:16:14.860 is a vote for the type of person that you believe that you are. And so even those small things like

00:16:19.680 writing one sentence is a vote for being a writer or doing five pushups is a vote for being a fit

00:16:25.260 person or being the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And once you, you know, no single

00:16:30.660 instance is going to change the way that you look at yourself. But if you can do it enough and you start

00:16:35.340 accumulating those votes, it's like you have evidence of being a new kind of person.

00:16:39.300 And eventually your identity has something to like root itself in and believe in.

00:16:43.320 And, uh, this kind of like the scales tip and you start to see yourself in this new light.

00:16:47.920 And I think that outcomes and goals can be useful. We may talk about that more in a little bit,

00:16:53.220 but in the beginning and ultimately true behavior change is really identity change.

00:16:59.020 Because once you look at yourself, once you see yourself in a particular way,

00:17:02.560 you're not even really trying to convince yourself to do anything new. You're not even really

00:17:06.780 pursuing behavior change. You're just acting in alignment with who you already believe that you

00:17:10.620 are. You know, like people say things all the time, like, uh, Oh, I need to motivate myself to

00:17:15.420 work out. Or I wish I just had enough, you know, willpower to, to get into the gym.

00:17:18.660 But once you identify as a certain type of person, you don't have to motivate yourself at all because

00:17:23.860 once you see yourself as that kind of person, it just is natural and effortless to do. And that's

00:17:28.820 kind of what we're trying to get to with, uh, using small habits to reinforce the desired identity

00:17:34.180 rather than an unfavorable one. Yeah. It sounds very Aristotelian, right? Like virtue ethics. Like

00:17:40.000 you want to become a virtuous person. That's the identity you want to achieve. And

00:17:44.180 Aristotle said, well, you do that by doing little small things every day to develop that identity.

00:17:49.760 Right. I think that's right. You know, it's like the, the key insight here, I think is

00:17:54.740 the distinction of evidence. So a lot of the time people will say things like fake it till you make

00:18:01.500 it. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with fake it till you make it. There's nothing wrong with

00:18:06.020 thinking positive or trying to, you know, be confident if you don't feel like it or whatever,

00:18:09.440 but fake it till you make it is like a short-term strategy, not a long-term one,

00:18:14.320 because it is asking you to believe something that you don't have evidence for.

00:18:19.160 And we have a word for beliefs that don't have evidence. We call it delusion, right? Like at

00:18:23.260 some point your brain doesn't like the mismatch between, I keep saying I'm a fit person, but I

00:18:27.840 never go to the gym. And so I'm talking about let the behavior lead the way and let the beliefs

00:18:33.040 follow, you know, like do something small and easy, even if it's only five pushups and then let the

00:18:38.440 belief that I'm a fit person come naturally once you've shown up and cast enough votes.

00:18:43.600 And so I think in that sense, I guess to use the, the Aristotle kind of angle with it,

00:18:49.280 the way to be a virtuous person is to act with virtue. And by doing that, even in small ways,

00:18:55.180 you eventually come to see yourself in that light.

00:18:57.860 And I imagine this identity insight, right? Can also go to bad habits. I mean, I think part of the

00:19:02.260 process of changing your identities, it might be accepting. I'm the kind of person who,

00:19:06.520 who drinks a lot. You have to accept like, maybe I'm an alcoholic or maybe I'm a smoker.

00:19:10.680 And that, I think a lot of people might not want to do that because it's uncomfortable and it makes

00:19:14.480 you feel bad, but maybe you have to do that to, so you can begin that identity changed where like,

00:19:18.740 I'm not going to, I'm, I want to be the person type of person who's not a drinker or a smoker or

00:19:23.220 whatever.

00:19:24.220 Yeah, that's a, I mean, it's a deep point and an important one identity. And this is true for all

00:19:29.980 things related to habits. Everything that we're talking about here is a double-edged sword.

00:19:33.640 It can work, habits can work for you or against you. You can get 1% better or 1% worse.

00:19:38.340 And in the sense of identity, there are all kinds of identities that people adopt that hold them

00:19:43.160 back. You know, things like I have a sweet tooth or I'm bad at math or I'm terrible at remembering

00:19:48.460 directions or, you know, I never remember people's names at parties or things like that.

00:19:53.040 And as soon as you start to adopt that identity, and we often do it blindly, non-consciously,

00:19:58.760 we don't even realize that we're identifying in that way.

00:20:01.100 Like people say, I have a sweet tooth all the time. I've heard it so much recently since I've

00:20:05.680 published the book and I'm starting to notice it. And we, they often just use it as like an

00:20:10.600 excuse. They'll say things like, uh, Oh yeah, you know, I'm like eating all this chocolate,

00:20:14.280 but I have such a sweet tooth or you're out to dinner and they're like, Oh yeah, we have to get

00:20:17.960 some cake. Like, uh, you know, I have the sweet tooth. I love dessert. And they don't think like

00:20:22.420 I am identifying as the kind of person who, you know, like has a sweet tooth. It's not,

00:20:26.760 it's not that kind of like script going on in your mind, but I think that you are correct in

00:20:32.100 that once it's stated, once it become, once you become aware that you have this identity,

00:20:37.620 which can be a painful process or something that we'd like to avoid, then though you have

00:20:42.380 the chance to change it. And I think that's the power in realizing that you're identifying in a

00:20:47.420 particular way. Okay. So let's recap that. It's a lot of useful information there. So basically

00:20:51.500 we want to, one of the more effective ways to instill new habits in yourself is start from an

00:20:56.500 identity. Think of like, I want to be a runner, the type of person who's a runner, the type of

00:21:00.540 person who's a weightlifter. And then you make that decision. And then every day you do little

00:21:05.000 small things to reinforce that new identity. I think that's right. Okay. Well, so let's dig in

00:21:11.480 to a little deeper into this. You talk about the four steps of habit building that Charles Duhigg

00:21:17.960 made famous in his book, the power of habits. Can you summarize that? And how did you build off of

00:21:23.560 that? So Duhigg's approach is a three-step model where he's got cue, routine, reward. And I could

00:21:30.240 give you a very long explanation for why I changed it, but I'll keep it short, which is basically that

00:21:34.700 model is backed up by a lot of behavioral psychology research, which shows that our behaviors are kind of

00:21:40.620 dependent on the rewards that they give us. And when we get a reward for doing something, when an action

00:21:45.560 makes us feel good, we start to associate the cue that came before it with the feeling that comes

00:21:51.500 after. So simple example is like you walk into a kitchen and you see a plate of cookies and that's

00:21:57.900 the cue. And then you eat the cookie and it tastes good. And so your brain starts to learn, hey, each

00:22:02.440 time I see a cookie, I should pick one up and eat it. So that's the behavioral psychology model.

00:22:07.460 And then my model also, it takes that backbone, which is very well proven, and also integrates

00:22:13.740 another major area of science that has a bunch of research studies behind it from cognitive

00:22:18.840 psychology, which has realized that, hey, not only do our behaviors happen as a result of the cues and

00:22:26.540 rewards that are in our environment, they're also shaped by our internal states, our thoughts and moods and

00:22:32.680 emotions and feelings and our beliefs. So for example, you could walk into a room, let's say you have two

00:22:39.900 people and there's a pack of cigarettes on the table. And one person is a smoker and they see

00:22:45.860 that cue of the cigarettes and they interpret it as, oh, I have this craving to smoke. I should pick

00:22:51.800 up a cigarette. And the other person has never smoked a cigarette in their life and they see it

00:22:55.960 and they just think, oh, it's just a pack of cigarettes. It doesn't mean anything. It's just

00:22:58.720 like a neutral thing. They don't even really focus on it. And so the lesson here is that the way that

00:23:05.020 you interpret the cues in your life determines how you respond to them. And that is contingent

00:23:10.980 upon your current state, your internal moods and emotions, and what I call in my four-stage model,

00:23:17.040 the craving, which is basically the prediction you make about the cue and whether you should act on

00:23:21.400 it or not. So my hope was that this four-stage model integrates both behavioral and cognitive

00:23:27.320 psychology so that we can understand our behavior at a deeper level. And those four stages are cue,

00:23:33.060 craving, response, and reward. And the cue is usually visual, but it can be any of your senses.

00:23:40.640 But it's something that gets your attention, like that plate of cookies on the counter.

00:23:44.200 The craving is the way that you interpret that cue and what kind of action or response you think

00:23:49.340 you should take because of it. So it's like the motivating force that drives you to act.

00:23:53.900 The response is the action itself. And then finally, there's some kind of reward or consequence.

00:23:59.180 But if there's a consequence, then you tend to not do it again. And so with a habit,

00:24:04.020 it tends to be rewarding, which is why you repeat the cycle over and over again.

00:24:08.280 Right. And also, I mean, I loved how you delved into the craving aspect because I think a lot of

00:24:12.440 our habits are... Yeah, that motivation drives it. It's not so much that you get the thing that you

00:24:17.680 want, right? That's not what lights up dopamine in your brain. It's just the anticipation of you

00:24:23.700 getting that thing. So it's like, you smoke a cigarette because there's that anticipation that

00:24:27.760 you're going to get some kind of dopamine hit. Or you're going to do, I don't know,

00:24:30.960 play a video game because there's all the variable anticipation that goes on. You don't know if you're

00:24:35.400 going to get the thing that you want. And so you just keep doing it until you get that thing.

00:24:39.120 Yeah, that's correct. And there was kind of this really big shift in the dopamine research a few

00:24:45.840 years ago where they realized this, that actually, once a habit is formed, dopamine spikes before

00:24:51.680 the behavior, not after. If you show cocaine addicts some powder, some cocaine, the dopamine

00:24:58.080 will spike in their brain before they take it, not after they take it. Or gamblers will get a spike

00:25:02.960 of dopamine when they see dice, not after they throw them. And so it's actually that spike of

00:25:08.060 dopamine, in addition to many other things, but that's one of the key players that motivates you

00:25:12.380 to take action and perform the habit. And so it's a very key stage. And I would summarize it just by

00:25:17.860 saying perceived value motivates you to act. Actual value motivates you to repeat.

00:25:25.020 So when you see the plate of cookies, you perceive that there is some value there. This is going to

00:25:30.080 be tasty. This will be sugary. This will be enjoyable. And what gets you to act is not the

00:25:35.320 cookie itself because you haven't eaten it yet. It's the image that the cookie creates in your mind.

00:25:40.680 It's your expectation. That anticipation gets you to walk over and pick it up and eat it.

00:25:45.400 And then the actual value, the way that it tastes, the sugar and the sweetness and the chocolate and

00:25:51.180 so on, if that is enjoyable and satisfying, if it's rewarding, then you have a reason to repeat

00:25:57.000 it again in the future. So the reward is what gets you to come back again because it's like,

00:26:01.380 hey, this did have a payoff, but it's the anticipation that gets you to act in the first place.

00:26:05.980 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:26:07.700 And now back to the show. So knowing this information, basically the structure you've

00:26:15.800 built up, this four steps of habit building, you created or came up with these four laws

00:26:20.780 of behavior change. So what are those four laws of behavior change?

00:26:24.780 So basically there's just one for each of the four steps. And for the cue, the first law is to make it

00:26:30.280 obvious. So you want the cues of your good habits to be obvious and available and visible.

00:26:34.580 For the craving, the second law of behavior change is to make it attractive. So the more

00:26:39.700 attractive a behavior is, the more likely you are to repeat it. And we can talk about some ways to do

00:26:44.360 that. For the third stage, the response, the third law of behavior change is to make it easy.

00:26:50.440 The more easy, frictionless, convenient your habits and behaviors are, the more likely you are to repeat

00:26:56.160 them in the future. Why do we check our smartphones a hundred times a day? It's because they're literally

00:27:00.760 like a millimeter from your skin, right? They're in your pocket all the time. It's so easy that you do it

00:27:06.040 constantly. And then the fourth law of behavior change for the reward is to make it satisfying. And the

00:27:12.720 key here is really about making it immediately satisfying. Behaviors that have an immediate payoff are more

00:27:18.040 likely to be repeated. And so those four laws make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it

00:27:23.680 satisfying. Are the four laws of behavior change that you can follow to build a good habit? It's

00:27:29.920 kind of like this toolbox that you can use. And then if you want to break a bad habit, you just invert

00:27:34.940 the four laws. So for your bad habits, rather than make it obvious, you want to make them invisible

00:27:39.520 rather than attractive, make it unattractive, make it difficult, make it unsatisfying. And there are many,

00:27:45.360 many ways that I cover in the book, and we'll talk about some of them now that are strategies that you

00:27:49.200 can use to do those four things. Are these strategies you have to do at the same time,

00:27:53.600 or can you use one? Or do you have to rejigger or mess with all of these all at once to actually

00:27:58.600 have the payoff? Yeah, good question. You definitely don't have to use them all at once. And in many

00:28:03.420 cases, you'll only need to use one or two to kind of get over the friction and have that new habit built.

00:28:09.040 So for example, when I wanted to start flossing consistently, I realized that I always brush my

00:28:14.920 teeth, but I wasn't flossing as much as I wanted to. I wasn't doing it consistently. The key

00:28:18.800 issues is that the floss was in the drawer in the bathroom. I just wouldn't see it. It was tucked

00:28:23.700 out of sight. And so first law of behavior change, make it obvious. I bought a little bowl and I put

00:28:29.620 the floss in the bowl and I set it right next to my toothbrush. So brush my teeth, put the toothbrush

00:28:33.740 down, pick the floss up, it's right there. And that was pretty much all I need to do to build that

00:28:38.760 habit. So that's one example of a habit that was built that I've now stuck to for years that all I had

00:28:45.000 to do was just make it more obvious. So you don't have to use all four.

00:28:47.700 Yeah. The flossing habit is something, every time I go to the dentist, I'm always motivated

00:28:52.260 to start the, cause I, you know, the hygienists, they do that thing where they poke your gums,

00:28:56.200 they tell you how deep your pocket is. And I'm always like, she's like, well, we got some four

00:29:00.560 millimeters here. My wife, my wife and I call them the pockets of shame because I always feel

00:29:04.840 so ashamed sitting there laying down and you're like bleeding, like clearly you haven't been doing

00:29:11.440 this. Right. I tell them like, I haven't been flossing. And then, but then like after the visit,

00:29:15.500 I'm like, I'm going to become a flosser. And I do all the things with little, little floss sticks

00:29:19.280 and it goes for about a month. And then it's, then the pockets of shame develop again. Anyways,

00:29:24.780 maybe I'm going to start using the things in your book to, to finally make this an identity

00:29:28.300 for me that I'm a flosser. So let's dig into some of these tactics on how we can implement

00:29:32.860 some of these laws of change. So let's talk about make it obvious without the cue obvious

00:29:37.080 or not obvious. What are some things that you've uncovered based on your research that you

00:29:41.400 can, to make your, the cue more obvious or unobvious based on whether you want a good

00:29:45.220 habit or a bad habit? So I think, I think the first place to start is with what I call

00:29:49.300 environment design. And so similar to what I just described with the floss, you basically

00:29:54.080 want to restructure your environment, whether that's the office that you work in or your kitchen

00:29:59.040 counter at home or your living room to make the cues of your good habits obvious and the

00:30:04.100 cues of your bad habits invisible or hidden. And so putting the floss on the counter in the

00:30:09.240 bathroom is one example. Another one is for a long time, I realized we would go to the,

00:30:14.940 my wife and I would go to the store and buy like apples and then we would put them in the

00:30:19.080 crisper in the bottom of the fridge. And I would always forget they were there. And so then,

00:30:23.280 you know, I'd turn around like two weeks later and they would have gone bad. And then I'd be

00:30:26.520 annoyed and you're like throwing money away and wasting food and whatever. And so instead I bought

00:30:31.340 a big display bowl and we put it right in the middle of the counter and put the apples there.

00:30:35.600 And so now I eat them, they're gone in like three days, right? Just, just because I see them and

00:30:40.280 they're right there. Like I'll just snack on whatever is out. And I think that's true for

00:30:43.940 a lot of people. Like if I walk into the kitchen and there's a plate of 10 cookies, I'm going to

00:30:48.260 eat them. I'll probably eat them all that day. Like I'll just, you know, keep coming back again and

00:30:52.100 again. And so you can do that just by improving your nutrition habits. Just keep, you know, keep some

00:30:57.260 fruit in a bowl or keep a, like a clear jar of nuts on the counter so that it's obvious and easy

00:31:03.400 for you to get the stuff that you should be eating rather than the bad stuff.

00:31:07.220 And then on the flip side, of course, you could take the unhealthy food and, you know, you can put

00:31:11.680 it on the highest shelf in the pantry or tuck it down low in the fridge. I don't think this would

00:31:16.860 actually work for like, if you were dealing with alcoholism or something like that. But I've noticed

00:31:21.360 that if I buy a six pack of beer and I put it at the front of the fridge or in the door where I can

00:31:26.740 see it as soon as I open it up, I'll pull one out and drink it each night just because it's there.

00:31:30.960 But if I take that same six pack and I put it on the bottom shelf all the way in the back where I

00:31:35.940 can't see it when I open the door up, sometimes it'll sit there for like a month. And that's always,

00:31:41.380 examples like that are always interesting to me because you would think like if you're drinking

00:31:45.220 each night, oh, I must've wanted a beer, but actually you were just responding to the way that

00:31:49.760 the environment was designed. So those are a few examples with relation to food. And then another

00:31:56.760 example, and this one's kind of more for breaking a bad habit. A lot of people feel like they

00:32:00.920 watch too much television or they spend too much time, you know, browsing Netflix or whatever.

00:32:04.980 But if you walk into pretty much any living room, where do all the couches and chairs face?

00:32:09.840 Like they all look at the TV. So what is that room designed? What is that room designed to get

00:32:15.040 you to do? Right. And so there are a variety of things you could do. Like you could take a chair

00:32:20.400 and turn it away from the TV and maybe like have a book on the shelf next to it. Or you could

00:32:26.080 take the remote control and put it inside a drawer in the coffee table and put a book in its place.

00:32:31.720 Or you could unplug the TV after each use and then only plug it back in if you can say the name of

00:32:37.320 the show that you want to watch. So like you're not allowed to just like turn Netflix on and find

00:32:42.020 something. Or you could put the TV inside a wall unit or a cabinet. Or even, you know, if you really

00:32:47.840 want to be extreme, take it off the wall and put it in a closet and only set it back up when you

00:32:52.060 wanted to watch it bad enough. But anyway, my point there is just that there are varying levels

00:32:56.580 of extremity. And a lot of people find themselves watching TV because all the chairs face it.

00:33:02.460 There's a television in the bedroom right in front of their bed. Like it's just, you know,

00:33:06.060 it's obvious. And so by removing that from the environment, you make it easier to stick with

00:33:10.460 some of those new habits. Right. And that's counter to what a lot of people want to do when they try to

00:33:14.480 form a habit because they just want to use pure willpower. Like they'll keep their environment exactly the

00:33:18.360 same. And they'll just say, well, I'll just, if I see the cookies, I'll just force myself

00:33:22.920 not to eat the cookies. But like the easier thing to do is like exercise some willpower at the

00:33:27.160 beginning. Don't buy any cookies. Don't bring them to your house. And then you don't think about it

00:33:31.520 after that. Right. It's so strange that we do that, but that that's like the standard narrative,

00:33:36.580 you know, is like, oh, I just need to, what we think is I need to try harder. But something that's

00:33:41.140 important to realize about habits is that habits are tied to a particular context. So like early on,

00:33:48.360 when a habit's first being built, and in some cases in the long run, maybe your habit is tied

00:33:52.980 to a very specific cue, like seeing the cookies on the counter. But over time, your habits kind of

00:33:59.420 become tied to the general context that they happen in. Like, you know, if you make a cup of coffee every

00:34:05.660 morning, you could say that the cue is like the coffee machine on the counter. But really, it's probably

00:34:12.380 even broader than that. It's like the context of being in your kitchen at 730 in the morning,

00:34:17.040 that all of that that's wrapped into that is kind of like what gets you to remind you to make that

00:34:22.180 coffee. And this is true for all kinds of habits. So like, the key insight here is that changing your

00:34:29.160 environment not only makes it easier for some behaviors to occur and harder for others. And so

00:34:35.120 structuring it in that way can make it easier for you to stick to a new habit. But also changing it,

00:34:40.600 your environment makes it easier for you to build a new habit, because it changes the context

00:34:45.380 that all your previous ones were tied to. Like, let's say that, um, let's say that you want to

00:34:50.960 build the habit of reading. And so you go to work and come home and you sit down on the couch after

00:34:56.060 dinner. And you're like, all right, I want to read 20 pages tonight. And you sit down, but that

00:35:01.140 same couch that you're sitting on to read, maybe previously, it's been the couch where you, you know,

00:35:06.980 watch television for an hour. And so you don't think about it. But subconsciously,

00:35:11.120 your mind is kind of nudging you towards like, you have this behavioral bias in that environment

00:35:16.080 where it's like, this is the couch where I watch television. And so oftentimes it can be easier to

00:35:21.380 build a new habit. If you have a change in your environment or an entirely new one, like you could

00:35:26.480 have, um, you could buy like a new chair and put it in the corner and that becomes the reading chair.

00:35:31.460 And the only thing you do in that chair is you read 20 pages. And if you can do that, especially in the

00:35:36.620 beginning, then you can start to tie that habit to that new context or, you know, like say you want

00:35:42.260 to start journaling. And so you come home from work and you try to journal on the couch, but you

00:35:46.180 again, find yourself being pulled to television. Instead, you could say, after I leave work, I'm going

00:35:52.240 to go to a coffee shop. I don't usually go to, and this is going to become the journaling coffee

00:35:56.880 shop. And when I walk in, I turn off my phone and I sit down at the same table and I journal for 10

00:36:02.280 minutes and then I get back in my car and I drive home. And, you know, it depends on the habit

00:36:06.260 you're trying to build. But my point is just that a new context does not ask you to overcome

00:36:11.780 your previous behavioral biases. And so it's not just environment design, but also selecting the

00:36:17.520 right environment that makes new habits easier to form. Okay. So we talked about making the cue more

00:36:22.540 obvious or invisible based on whether we're trying to get a good habit or a bad habit. Let's talk about

00:36:27.180 the craving so we can make that craving more attractive or unattractive. But this is tricky because

00:36:33.240 oftentimes the good habits we want to develop, like they're not very attractive. Like flossing

00:36:39.200 isn't a lot of fun, like paying your bills regularly journal. I mean, they're not very attractive,

00:36:44.820 but then like the bad habits, they're really attractive, right? Like surfing the internet,

00:36:50.880 smoking, alcohol, porn, whatever. They're super attractive. So how do you make things that are

00:36:56.160 good for you, but aren't attractive in the short term, more attractive. And then we can talk about

00:37:00.400 how do you make things that are attractive in the short term seem less attractive?

00:37:04.700 So making the things that you want to do more attractive, you can use a strategy called

00:37:09.440 temptation bundling. And the basic idea is you pair something you do want to do, you actually want

00:37:15.620 to do with the thing that you need to do. So for example, I came across this woman in my research,

00:37:21.360 she always had these overdue work emails and she was like, oh, you know, I never want to process these.

00:37:26.440 And so she created a rule for herself because she loved getting pedicures where she said,

00:37:30.820 okay, I will only get a pedicure if I'm processing overdue work emails while I'm doing it.

00:37:35.880 And I came across another guy, this engineering student who he knew that he needed to be exercising

00:37:41.760 more, but he would always just go home and binge watch Netflix. And so he put his engineering degree

00:37:47.640 to use and linked his stationary bike to his computer such that Netflix would pause unless he was

00:37:55.440 pedaling. And so he basically forced himself to, yeah, I can binge watch Netflix, but I have to be

00:38:00.300 riding the bike. And little strategies like that are ways to layer the thing that you want to do

00:38:06.340 with something you need to do. And it makes it inherently more attractive. It is now more

00:38:11.580 attractive to cycle because it means I get to watch Netflix. And so little rules like that, like,

00:38:16.940 I want to read the next Game of Thrones novel, but I'm only allowed to do that if I'm walking on the

00:38:21.700 treadmill or something like that allows you to kind of make that good habit more attractive.

00:38:27.540 And then your second question, which is, okay, a lot of these bad habits are very attractive.

00:38:33.500 We seem to fall into them without much effort. So what can we do about that? And basically you can

00:38:38.840 use what psychologists call a commitment device. So one of my favorite examples of this is Victor Hugo,

00:38:44.020 who was the famous author, wrote Les Mis and Hunchback of Notre Dame. And while he was writing

00:38:49.940 Hunchback of Notre Dame, he signed the book deal and he just procrastinated for like a year. He had

00:38:56.120 a bunch of friends over, they partied, he hosted dinners, he went out to eat, he traveled, he basically

00:39:02.360 did everything except work on the book. And so his publisher got upset with him and they said,

00:39:07.280 listen, we need this book to get done. Either you have to finish this in six months or we're going

00:39:12.420 to cancel the deal. And so Hugo had his assistant come into his chambers and they gathered up all of

00:39:19.720 his clothes and put them in a big chest and locked them up. And then he took the clothes out of the

00:39:24.380 chamber. And the only thing that was left in the house was this big like shawl, this like robe.

00:39:30.140 And so suddenly he didn't have any clothes that were suitable for entertaining guests or hosting

00:39:34.700 dinner parties or traveling. And he basically put himself on house arrest and it worked. He got the

00:39:40.420 book done two weeks early. And that is an example of a commitment device, a choice that you make up

00:39:45.600 front that locks in the better behavior rather than the bad habit. That's like easy for you to do.

00:39:51.120 So like, let's say you want to start running in the morning, you know, and you're like,

00:39:55.360 you go to bed at night and you're like, all right, tomorrow's the day. I'm going to stick to the habit

00:39:58.740 of running and I'm going to wake up at 6am and go to the park. But then 6am rolls around and your bed

00:40:04.620 is warm and it's cold outside. And you're like, uh, you know, like I'll just snooze for a little bit

00:40:09.240 and you end up not going. Well, you could use a commitment device, like texting your friend earlier

00:40:15.800 in the week and saying, Hey, you know, can we meet at the park 6am on Thursday and go for a run?

00:40:20.840 And now it gets to the morning and it's still cold outside and your bed is warm and you want to stay

00:40:26.460 in there. But if you do, you're going to be a jerk because you're going to leave your friends stranded

00:40:31.180 at the park. And so you've effectively committed or locked in your future behavior and made it more

00:40:36.820 attractive now to get out of bed because not getting out of bed means you're a bad friend.

00:40:42.600 And so those are two examples of ways to utilize temptation bundling to make good habits more

00:40:48.780 attractive or commitment devices to kind of get over the hump of the bad behavior.

00:40:54.160 So let's talk about response. Now, uh, the, the laws there are make it easy, uh, to form a good

00:41:00.660 habit, make it difficult to get rid of a bad habit. So what are some tactics you can do with that?

00:41:05.120 So the simplest way to do this one is what I call the two minute rule. And you basically take

00:41:10.100 whatever habit you're trying to build and you scale it down to just two minutes or less.

00:41:14.580 So let's say you want to read a book every month for the next year. Well, read 12 books becomes read

00:41:21.040 one page, or you want to do a weightlifting four days a week. And that becomes, you know,

00:41:26.860 like put on my weightlifting shoes and get out the door or something like that. And people,

00:41:31.080 sometimes people resist this because it sounds like a little too simple, a little too easy.

00:41:35.960 You know, like I know the real goal is to actually work out for 45 minutes. It's not to put on my

00:41:40.140 lifting shoes, but this is a key insight about building, building better habits, which is that

00:41:45.400 a habit must be established before it can be improved. Like you need to make it the new normal

00:41:50.600 in your life, make it the standard before you worry about optimizing it. And so the two minute rule

00:41:55.640 basically gives you a way to make good habits easy and master the art of showing up.

00:42:01.020 Gotcha. And what about making things harder? How can you make things harder for yourself?

00:42:04.400 So this is a lot about friction and basically the core idea is to increase the number of steps

00:42:10.760 between you and the bad behavior. So BJ Fogg, who's a professor at Stanford writes a lot about habits as

00:42:15.920 well. And I thought he had a good example where he liked, he enjoys popcorn, but he didn't want to eat as

00:42:22.080 much of it, but he didn't want to like eliminate it entirely. And so he took the popcorn out of his

00:42:27.080 pantry, walked down the hall, went into the garage and put it on the highest shelf in the garage.

00:42:31.920 And so if he really wants it, he can just go out and get it. But if he's designing for like his

00:42:37.540 default decision for his lazy action, he's not going to go get it. And so now there are more steps

00:42:43.720 between him and the bad choice. And this is kind of like another version of environment design,

00:42:48.320 but rather than like making the cues invisible or making the, um, the cues your good habits obvious,

00:42:53.560 you're trying to increase the amount of friction between you and the task.

00:42:57.040 And some of the things that you mentioned earlier, um, about like social media or, you know,

00:43:02.560 reading ESPN too much or checking porn or all that kind of stuff, you can do this in the digital

00:43:08.220 environment as well. So, you know, there are tools like freedom or self-control. Those are two of the

00:43:14.180 names of these applications you can use to block websites and effectively like increase the

00:43:19.280 friction of doing the bad habit or on my phone. You can't see it right now, of course, but on my

00:43:25.880 home screen, I have no applications. And if I want to get to social media sites, I have to be able to

00:43:31.420 swipe over twice and then click inside a nested folder. And it's not like, you know, some bulletproof

00:43:37.420 strategy, but it just increases the friction a little bit enough for me to be like, do I really want to

00:43:43.260 check Instagram or am I just like going to this mindlessly because it's the first thing I see when

00:43:47.060 I open my phone? And, uh, so little strategies like that to increase the friction of bad habits

00:43:52.140 can make it more difficult to do the thing you don't want to do.

00:43:55.320 So this is just accepting the fact that human beings are really lazy and we're going to do the

00:43:59.180 thing that, you know, the path of least resistance. So just add some friction to that.

00:44:03.040 Uh, yeah, I think that's right. I mean, and that's not, you know, like I, I do say something

00:44:06.860 similar to that in the book that like our real motivation is to be lazy, but that's not a bad strategy.

00:44:11.540 Like ultimately what your brain and body are trying to do is conserve energy because energy

00:44:16.700 is precious and you want to make sure that you don't waste it on anything. And so when we were

00:44:22.620 living in tribes on the Savannah, that was a great strategy because it meant that, you know,

00:44:27.240 we didn't waste effort walking to a berry patch two miles away if there was one, you know, 50 feet

00:44:32.100 to the left. But in modern society, we have like all these weird setups because now we can get things

00:44:39.680 just by tapping a button on a screen. And so the path of least resistance is not necessarily the

00:44:44.680 one that serves us. So let's talk about the reward step in habit formation. So the law there is to

00:44:50.740 form a good habit, make it satisfying. And then to break a bad habit, make it unsatisfying. So what

00:44:56.020 are some tactics that you found that to do that? So the core idea here is that if a behavior is

00:45:02.560 followed by a feeling of pleasure, by a feeling of satisfaction, then you have a reason to repeat

00:45:07.840 it again in the future. It's kind of like this positive emotional signal to your brain where

00:45:11.900 it was like, Hey, this felt good. You should do this again next time. And the key insight,

00:45:16.760 which I hinted at earlier, is that it's really about what makes you feel good in the moment

00:45:22.180 that gets habits to stick. And you can, this makes sense because if you ask yourself like,

00:45:26.920 well, how come bad habits form so readily? You know, like we don't really try to form bad habits.

00:45:31.300 We just seem to do that, do it automatically, even though we know it's a bad habit,

00:45:35.960 right? Like, well, why would I do that if I know that it's not good for me?

00:45:39.100 And the answer is that habits and most behaviors produce multiple outcomes across time. So in any

00:45:46.920 given moment, the immediate outcome often of bad habits is favorable. You know, like if you eat a

00:45:52.540 donut right now, it's great. Tastes sugary, feels good, sweet. But the ultimate outcome in six months

00:45:59.060 or a year, if you repeat that habit is unfavorable. Meanwhile, good habits are kind of the reverse.

00:46:04.340 You know, like the immediate outcome of going to the gym is, well, it takes effort and you sweat

00:46:09.240 and it's hard work. And the ultimate outcome of, you know, I'm ripped and I can bench press 300

00:46:14.000 pounds. That's not happened until six months or a year or five years later. And so a lot of the

00:46:19.780 challenge of building good habits and breaking bad ones is figuring out how to take that long-term

00:46:25.480 reward, that satisfaction that eventually you'll get if you stick with it for your good habits and

00:46:30.460 pull that into the present moment so you can feel it right now. And products are great examples of

00:46:35.960 this. So like one of my favorite examples, well, a very common one is toothpaste. So, you know,

00:46:43.060 there's no reason that toothpaste has to taste minty. It could just be like a bland paste and still clean

00:46:48.000 your teeth just fine. But it has this fresh flavor, this mint flavor, because it's more satisfying to

00:46:55.640 get this clean mouth feel at the end of brushing your teeth. It feels more satisfying and thus you

00:46:59.980 want to do it again. But one of my favorite examples is from car manufacturers. So a few

00:47:05.160 years ago, BMW added this feature to some of their cars where if you stepped on the accelerator and

00:47:12.220 really pressed on the gas, it would pump additional engine growl through the speakers.

00:47:17.200 The engine wasn't actually faster. It wasn't actually a better car or like had more roar,

00:47:21.880 but it felt like that because they played the music with it. And Ford has kind of a similar

00:47:26.780 setup where on a couple of their cars, there's like this valve. And if you drive normally,

00:47:31.740 the valve stays shut and the interior is relatively soundproofed. And if you really slam on the gas,

00:47:36.540 the valve opens and lets the engine noise in. But that's really about making the experience of

00:47:41.220 driving the car more satisfying in the moment. And so ultimately what you're looking for are ways to

00:47:47.340 experience that with your good habits. So how can you feel satisfied right away?

00:47:52.640 And one way to do that, I think that you can apply to almost any habit is with habit tracking.

00:47:59.640 So tracking is basically you write down, you know, you put like an X on the calendar for each day that

00:48:04.980 you do a habit or something like that. And it's a small thing, but it feels good to cross off another

00:48:10.340 workout or another day of writing. And that can give you some small sense of satisfaction in the

00:48:15.260 moment. So we've talked about these different laws that you can use to change behavior for the good

00:48:20.200 or the bad. But one of my favorite chapters is at the end, you talk about, you know, okay,

00:48:24.580 and this kind of goes back to that earlier discussion we had at the beginning that

00:48:27.880 about decision-making and habits. Oftentimes I feel like when people make habits, they're like,

00:48:33.160 I got to wake up at 4.30 in the morning, but that might not be what you need to do. Like,

00:48:37.780 it's not like your personality isn't suited for waking up at 4.30 in the morning. So you try to do that

00:48:42.800 and you're just kicking against the pricks and it's not making your habits work for you.

00:48:46.260 So what can people do to take into account their personality or their own personal situation so

00:48:51.620 their habits actually work for them instead of against them?

00:48:55.220 Yeah, I'm glad you liked that chapter. That was one of my favorites as well.

00:48:58.360 So basically, first of all, there are a lot of different ways to build similar habits.

00:49:04.060 You know, like let's say you want to get in the habit of exercise. Well, there are a bunch of

00:49:07.720 ways to do that, right? Like you don't, not everybody has to train like a bodybuilder.

00:49:11.020 I love lifting weights, but you could go hiking or rowing or rock climbing or do yoga or Pilates.

00:49:16.740 Like there, I mean, there's like an infinite range of things. And similarly, like if you're

00:49:21.360 looking to build a reading habit, well, yeah, I think that reading nonfiction books and business

00:49:26.260 kind of books, the type of thing that I wrote with atomic habits, I think that's really useful

00:49:29.260 and solves a lot of problems. But if you're not into that and you want to read Harry Potter or

00:49:33.540 science fiction or romance novels or whatever, like that's fine. Just build the form of the

00:49:38.400 habit that is most satisfying to you. And you don't have to do the habit that like society

00:49:43.740 says you should do. So that's, that's kind of the first lesson. But the second thing with

00:49:49.440 regards to personality is that success, whether we're talking about building habits or just

00:49:56.180 more generally in life is often a matching problem. It's often about figuring out how to

00:50:01.580 match your particular makeup, whether that's your physical genes or your psychological

00:50:06.400 characteristics with the right environment. You know, like if you have genes that make you

00:50:12.420 seven feet tall, well, that's a really useful thing on a basketball court, but it's a great

00:50:18.540 hindrance if you're on a balance beam and trying to do a gymnastics routine. And so this is something

00:50:24.040 that I think is often overlooked when we talk about genes and personality, because people bring

00:50:28.480 those topics up and they kind of want to avoid them a lot of the time because it's like,

00:50:33.080 oh, it feels fixed and deterministic or like, why bother if it's all just my genes? Like,

00:50:38.060 isn't it all predetermined? But the lesson is that the usefulness of your genes, the usefulness of

00:50:45.020 your personality is dependent on the context that you find yourself in. And so if you can put yourself

00:50:51.360 in, basically genes do not like change the need to work hard. They just show you like where to work

00:50:56.800 hard. They inform your strategy. So for example, one way to measure personality is with a test called

00:51:04.340 the big five. And one of the, it kind of maps personality on five spectrums. And so like the one

00:51:10.240 most people are familiar with is introversion on one side and extroversion on the other. But there's

00:51:15.640 another spectrum there, which is called agreeableness. And it's basically like how warm and kind and

00:51:21.120 considerate your personality is. And you can imagine people who are high in agreeableness,

00:51:27.480 like it might be easy for them to get in the habit of writing thank you notes or get in the habit of

00:51:33.060 like organizing social events and getting friends together. Whereas someone who's low in that,

00:51:37.620 they may struggle more with that. And so essentially what that tells you is if you understand your,

00:51:43.860 your personality a little bit better, it can show you like where to focus. Like maybe the person who's

00:51:48.620 low in agreeableness, who's going to have a harder time, like naturally feeling like writing thank you

00:51:53.600 notes, maybe it's really helpful for them to use environment design and to have thank you notes

00:51:58.920 pre-selected and in a little box, like right in a very visible place on their desk so that it's

00:52:05.020 there reminding them since they aren't naturally going to feel that themselves. And so little things

00:52:10.940 like that can help tweak or improve your strategy for building new habits.

00:52:15.300 No, I love that because I think, especially with social media, there's a tendency because you see

00:52:20.380 people who are successful and they're typically extroverted and, you know, on that. And that's

00:52:26.080 great. But then you see, there's people who see that who might be an introvert and like, well,

00:52:29.060 I want that. It seems like society values that. And so they try to do it and they're just miserable

00:52:33.340 in the process because it doesn't suit them. And they probably might've been happier doing

00:52:37.040 something else and just as flourishing and successful.

00:52:40.240 Yeah, a hundred percent agree. You know, like the, there's no reason to, there's no one way

00:52:46.000 to be successful. There's no one way to make it work. And there's also no one right way to build a

00:52:50.700 habit. And so that's why I wanted to kind of give people a tool set that they could use. And I think

00:52:55.600 ultimately, you know, you can have the best advice in the world, but you need to be willing to

00:53:00.260 experiment. And part of that philosophy of experimentation is self-discovery and figuring out

00:53:05.260 what works for you and like, what kind of person am I and what resonates with me?

00:53:09.260 And so thinking through some of those questions, I think it doesn't disregard or ignore the fact

00:53:16.060 that like, there are some fundamentals that work for everyone, but it shows you how to apply the

00:53:20.760 fundamentals for your particular use. So we've talked about a few of the tactics. There's a lot

00:53:24.880 more that we can go into and people can get that in the book. What do you think there's something

00:53:28.380 like the one thing that someone can do today that will provide a lot of ROI in starting a good

00:53:33.480 habit or breaking a bad one? Well, the single biggest choice is what kind of habit you are

00:53:39.320 trying to build. And so the first thing that I would suggest is scaling it down. We talked about

00:53:44.520 the two minute rule as one possible way to do that. But, you know, like if you want to get in

00:53:49.360 the habit of reading, man, there are a bunch of ways to set that out for yourself. You know,

00:53:52.680 you could say, I want to read a new book every week. I want to read a new book every month. I want

00:53:57.100 to read 20 pages a day. I want to read one page a day. And just those four that I've

00:54:01.980 brainstormed right now are very different. They land in your brain in a different way.

00:54:07.060 And so I think the most useful thing you can do is choose the simplest version of the habit you're

00:54:12.060 trying to build so that you can feel successful again and again and build up some of that momentum.

00:54:17.600 I mean, this, you know, you mentioned a few moments ago, video games. One of the reasons that

00:54:22.880 video games stick so well is because they give continual signals of progress. You know,

00:54:27.880 you have the score, the little counter up in the top right corner that's showing you your scores

00:54:32.040 going up. Whenever you come across like rubies or coins or, you know, resources or guns or little

00:54:38.000 power ups, there's like a jingle or a chime. Even the pitter patter of footsteps as you run through

00:54:44.620 the different levels is giving you a signal of, hey, you're making progress, you're moving forward.

00:54:48.660 And real life, it's hard to have that. It's hard to feel like you're always making progress every

00:54:55.320 moment of every day. And video games are so addictive. So they're so sticky because it feels

00:55:01.720 good to make progress. And so by choosing a habit that's small, something you can do in two minutes

00:55:06.380 or less, you can feel satisfied in the moment. You can feel like you're making progress. I did my

00:55:10.960 pushups today. I wrote my one sentence today. I stretched for a minute today. I read one page,

00:55:16.060 whatever it is. And I think that's a great way to build up some momentum and get started and start

00:55:20.540 to feel confident about your ability to change. Well, James, there's someplace, someplace people

00:55:25.040 can go to learn more about your work. Yeah. So, you know, if you just want to check out some of

00:55:28.600 the articles I've written, things like that, you can go to jamesclear.com. If you click on articles,

00:55:32.520 I have them organized by topics. You can feel free to poke around and see what interests you.

00:55:36.720 And then if you'd like to check out the book, it's called Atomic Habits,

00:55:40.060 an easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. And you can find that at atomichabits.com.

00:55:46.060 Well, fantastic. James, it's been a great conversation. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks

00:55:48.860 for coming on. Yeah, you bet. Thank you so much for having me.

00:56:02.760 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website,

00:56:06.080 artofmanliness.com, where you find over 3,000 articles on personal development, personal finance,

00:56:10.480 social skills, health and fitness, you name it, we've got it. If you haven't done so already,

00:56:14.040 I'd appreciate it if you give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. It helps out a lot. And if

00:56:17.100 you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or

00:56:20.000 family member you think would get something out of it. As always, thank you for your continued

00:56:23.340 support. And until next time, this is Brett McKay. Encourage you not only to listen to the

00:56:26.900 AOM podcast, but put what you've learned into action.

00:56:44.040 Thank you.

00:56:51.100 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - January 02, 2019

#470： A Proven System for Building and Breaking Habits

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