Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #229 BITESIZE | The 4 Steps to Make Habits Stick | James Clear

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

Starting point is 00:00:51 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. The start of a new year is a time when many of us look to make changes in our lives. Today's clip is from episode 145 of the podcast with James Clear, the author of the brilliant book, Atomic Habits. In this clip, James explains why our daily habits are so important and gives some great tips for creating healthy habits that can last a lifetime.

Starting point is 00:01:54 There are a variety of things that influence your outcomes in life. There's luck and randomness. There's your choices, individual decisions you make, where to go to school, who to marry, what job to take, what career to pursue. And then there are your habits and your actions. And by definition, the first one, luck and randomness is not under your control. Now your choices, we, you know, we could talk more about that possibly, but the one that I've explored the most is your habits. And the reason is because they are decisions. They're, they're also choices, but they're ones that get repeated day in and day out. And I think for that reason,

Starting point is 00:02:24 they exert an enormous force on your outcomes in life. And we could potentially boil it down and simplify it and say that your current life today is largely the sum of your habits. In many ways, it's the habits that you've been following for, say, the last six months or the last year, the last two years that have carried you to whatever results you have right now. I had a friend who told me a couple months ago, I thought I liked the way he phrased it. He said, if you're enjoying good results right now, you were killing it six months ago. And I think that speaks to the quality of habits and how they build up and compound. And it's really the process that you've been running. We also badly want better results in life. You know, we also badly want to make more money or

Starting point is 00:03:06 to reduce stress or to find love or to be more productive. But the results are actually not the thing that needs to change. It's the system that precedes the results. It's the habits that precede the outcome. So it's kind of like, fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves. Why is it that we don't sort of intuitively get that? Why is it, you know, classic case, January the 1st every year where it's okay, complete lifestyle overhaul, get to the gym three times a week, eat completely perfect whole foods, you know, don't bring any sugar in the house. And it lasts for about two weeks or three weeks at the most for many people. And then if they're not seeing results, you know,

Starting point is 00:03:52 there's something isn't there in the human psyche that actually we judge the success of our habits maybe a little bit too early, I guess. I really like what your friend said about how you are now is what you were doing six months ago. It's such a beautiful way to think about it. But what's going on there with human psychology that we sort of, we don't quite see it? Whether it's the daily news cycle, or social media, it tends to be very results focused, it tends to be very results oriented. So you know, you're never going to see a news story that says something like man eats chicken and salad for lunch today, right? It's only going to be a story when it's like man loses, you know, all this weight or it's

Starting point is 00:04:35 only we only hear about the Broadway play once it's a hit, not when it's being written, right? We only hear about the successful team after they've won the championship, not while they're training in the offseason. And so the results of success are often highly visible and discussed, and the process of success is often hidden from view. And for that reason, I think we tend to overvalue results and undervalue the process that precedes it, precedes it, the, all the, the work that comes before. I'm not saying that results don't matter. They do, but people who focus only on results when one time people who focus on systems when again and again. And so the place that you want to focus is on building better habits and developing better systems. Um, not necessarily

Starting point is 00:05:22 achieving a particular outcome. Yeah. Yeah, so much for people to reflect on there, I think. But Jameson, but you've got these four laws, these these four laws of change of behavior change, I guess. And I wonder if we could go through them. So if you want to have it stick, you kind of roughly have four different things that if you can get them working for you, they're sort of like levers. And if they're in the right positions, building good habits is easier. And if they're in the wrong positions, you're kind of fighting an uphill battle. So the first thing is you want to make your habits obvious. Most habits are preceded by some kind of cue. And so you want the cues of your habits to be obvious, available, visible,

Starting point is 00:06:02 easy to see. The easier it is to see or get your attention, the more likely you are to stick with the habit or perform it. The second one is to make your habits attractive. If you want your habits to be motivating, if you want them to be compelling, then you need it to be attractive in some form. The third law is to make it easy. So the easier, more convenient, frictionless your habits are, the more likely you are to perform them. And the fourth and final thing is you want to make it satisfying. So the more satisfying or enjoyable a habit is, the more likely you are to stick with it. Now, not every behavior in life is satisfying or rewarding, right? Sometimes things have a cost or a consequence.

Starting point is 00:06:42 Sometimes they're fairly neutral. But if a behavior is not rewarding, if it's not enjoyable, at least to some degree, then it's unlikely to become a habit. It needs to have some kind of positive emotional signal associated with it that kind of tells your brain, hey, that felt good. You should repeat this again next time. So real quick summary, the four laws of behavior change, make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying. And I think that sort of gives you a high level framework for getting a good habit to stick. So someone's listening to this or watching it on YouTube, and they go, right, okay, I'm bought in, gonna get James's book, I'm going to start a meditation practice. Where should I begin? How would you advise them using your sort of framework of these

Starting point is 00:07:28 laws? So usually, if I if I say, okay, we got to start in some place, what's the first thing I should do, I actually typically recommend what I call the two minute rule. And the two minute rule is part of that third law, which is making it easy. And the two minute rule says take whatever habit you're trying to build, and scale it to something that takes two minutes or less to do. So do yoga four days a week becomes take out my yoga mat or meditate for, you know, 15 minutes a day becomes meditate for two minutes. And sometimes I say that and people resist it a little bit. Cause they're like, okay, you know, I know the real goal isn't just to take my yoga mat out. Right. And I know I'm actually trying to do the workout. So this

Starting point is 00:08:07 is some kind of mental trick that like, why would I fall for it basically? And I get where people are coming from, but so I have this reader, his name's Mitch and he lost a bunch of weight, kept it off for over a decade. But for the first six weeks that he went to the gym, he had a rule for himself where he wasn't allowed to stay for longer than five minutes. So he'd get in the car, drive to the gym, get out, do half an exercise, get back in the car, drive home. And it sounds ridiculous, right? It sounds silly. You're like, obviously this is not going to get the guy the results that he wants. But if you take a step back, what you realize is that he was mastering the art of showing up,

Starting point is 00:08:44 right? He was becoming the type of person that went to the gym four days a week, even if it was only for five minutes. And I think this is a much deeper truth about habits that often gets overlooked, which is a habit must be established before it can be improved, right? It has to become the standard in your life before you can optimize and scale it up. And for whatever reason, we get very all or nothing with our habits. It's like I have to find the perfect workout program or the ideal business plan or the best diet to follow before I can take a first step. And a lot of the time we put off action because we think I need to learn more. But usually the best way to learn is by taking

Starting point is 00:09:25 action. And so the two minute rule kind of helps you overcome that tendency to have this like perfectionist spiral and research too much, and encourages you to just get started. So I think that's step number one, starting with keeping the bar low, and you need to get in your reps. And this is true, I think for almost any kind of habit that you're building, like you need the repetitions, whether it's meditating for one minute or writing one sentence or reading one page, it doesn't matter that it's, it's almost always better to do less than you had hoped than to do nothing at all. And, um, the two minute rule kind of helps nudge you toward that direction, nudge you toward the direction of getting in your reps, getting it done, and mastering the art of showing up, even if it's in a small way.

Starting point is 00:10:11 And then using that as a foothold to advance to the next level and kind of build some momentum and get that feeling of progress. And then we can start to apply some of the other laws. What are some of the ways that people can make things satisfying? Often the problem is with good habits or, you know, in adverse commas, good habits. The problem often is the desired effects is somewhere in the future. And so how can people bring that into the present? Well, I think the ultimate form of a reward is feeling like you're showing up as the type of person that you want to be, that it's reinforcing your desired identity. But as you mentioned, the problem is it takes a long time for that to be true. Like the first time you meditate, you don't identify as I'm a

Starting point is 00:10:54 meditator and it feels good to do this because that's part of who I am and part of my identity. It might take you a year or two or who knows how long before you actually start to adopt that feeling. I mean, I didn't identify as an author until I actually had a published book. Like even when I was writing it, I didn't feel like I was an author. So that that can take a long time. I think the key though, is that in my opinion, there are kind of two things. One, you want some kind of a reward that is immediate. And I think the speed of it is actually quite important. You need to feel that positive emotional signal right away so that you have a reason to tie that behavior to feeling good. And you have a reason to repeat it again in the future when the same situation arises. So there are a couple different ways you can do this. One very simple way that

Starting point is 00:11:40 applies to almost any habit is to use a habit tracker. So I'd like to use my dad as an example here. So both of my parents like to swim. But one of the challenges with swimming is that your body looks exactly the same when you get out of the water as it does when you jumped in. And so you have no evidence that that workout was worth it, right? You have no evidence that this is actually getting you what you want. And so what my dad does is after each workout, he pulls out a little calendar and he puts an X on that day. And it's a small thing, but that X in the moment is something that matches the frequency of the habit. Every time he swims, he also gets to put an X down and it gives him a signal of visual progress. Progress is one of the most motivating feelings for the human mind. You need to have some way to visualize that some way to see that you're progressing. Because if you can't see the change in your body, or there's no change on

Starting point is 00:12:29 the scale yet, you need something else that says, hey, that was the right thing to do. This feels good to show up and do the thing I want to do. So a habit tracker is one very simple one. The other thing though, and people talk about external rewards all the time. And so you know, like, oh, I went to the gym. And so I'm going to reward myself by getting an ice cream cone or something. But my little nuance or argument here is I think you want to choose external rewards that align with the internal identity that you're trying to build. So if you reward yourself for going to the gym, by getting an ice cream cone, that's kind of like casting votes for two different identities. Like on the one hand, you're casting vote for being a

Starting point is 00:13:08 healthy person. On the other hand, you're casting a vote for eating ice cream or whatever. So instead, you could do something like reward yourself, you know, any week when you don't miss a workout, you reward yourself with a bubble bath at the end of the week. And that's sort of like an external reward that also is a vote for taking care of your body. And that's sort of like an external reward that also is a vote for taking care of your body. And so that kind of aligns with that identity that you're trying to build through working out. Or say, any month that you hit your target of saving for retirement, you some people might say, Oh, well, you could reward yourself by buying a leather jacket, but that doesn't really align with the financial saving mentality you're trying to build. So instead, I would say, well, any month that you hit that target,

Starting point is 00:13:49 you could reward yourself with, say, a free hour where you get to take a walk in the park or a free time to do whatever you want. Because really what you're trying to get to with retirement is freedom. And so you're kind of aligning with that same internal identity that you're trying to build. But I do think that the faster, so the immediacy part, the faster you can get a positive reward, that's a really powerful thing. And the more that your external rewards can align with the internal identity you're trying to build, that's an important thing to keep in mind as well. It's not just about habits. Of course it is. But it's what doing those habits regularly does for you and how you think about yourself. True behavior change is really identity change.

Starting point is 00:14:32 And what I mean by that is, if you start to look at yourself in a new way, if you assign a new story to yourself, you're not even really pursuing behavior change anymore. You're just acting in alignment with the type of person that you see yourself to be. So if you identify as I'm a meditator, you're not really convincing yourself to be to meditate each day. You're just like, no, this is what I do, because that's part of who I am. And so the real goal is not to run a marathon. The goal is to become a runner, right? The goal is not to read 50 books a year. It's to become a reader. The goal is not to do a silent meditation retreat. It's to become a meditator. And once you start assigning those identities to yourself, you start seeing the behavior in a new way. It's not an obligation or, you know, something you're trying to achieve. It's not a challenge. It's just part

Starting point is 00:15:20 of your natural action. Ultimately, and kind of to connect this idea to the rest of our conversation, I think this is where habits come back into play. And it's the real reason I think why habits matter. Like we often talk about habits as being the pathway to external results. Oh, habits will help you lose weight or make more money or be more productive or reduce stress. And you know, it's true, habits can help you do all those things. And that's great. But I think the real reason that habits matter is they reinforce a new identity, they reshape the way you think about yourself. Every action you take is like a vote for the type of person that you wish to become.

Starting point is 00:16:01 And so no, doing one pushup does not transform your body, but it does cast a vote for I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And no, writing one sentence does not finish the novel, but it does cast a vote for I'm a writer. And the more that you do these things, the more you perform these little habits, the more you cast votes and build up kind of a body of evidence for being that kind of person. And eventually, the weight of the evidence sort of shifts things in this, the story shifts in that direction, to start by doing one push up or meditating for one minute or writing one sentence or sending one email, and letting that be undeniable evidence that in that moment, you were that kind of person, you were an athlete, you were a meditator, you were a salesperson, whatever it is that you're trying to achieve. And so for all of

Starting point is 00:16:49 those reasons, I kind of think the first question to ask yourself is what kind of identity do I want to build? Who do I wish to become? And if you have a good idea of that, then you can start to back into habits that reinforce that identity. The things that you identify as are part of how you live. They're part of your daily routine. And so you're not just looking to like do them for a sprint. You're looking to make them part of the long run.

Starting point is 00:17:17 Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Please do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family and if you want more why not go back and listen to the full conversation with my guest and if you enjoyed this episode I think you will really enjoy my new bite-sized Friday email it's called the Friday Five and each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that I'm reading,

Starting point is 00:17:49 quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good to get you ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it at drchastity.com forward slash Friday five. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Starting point is 00:18:11 Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #229 BITESIZE | The 4 Steps to Make Habits Stick | James Clear

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