Morning Brew Daily - 'Atomic Habits' Author James Clear Helps You Own the New Year

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

Episode 225: Toby and Neal interview 'Atomic Habits' author James Clear on the best ways to establish habits and take control of your New Year's Resolutions in 2024. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Good morning, Brut Daily Show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, it's a new year and you've probably set goals you'd like to achieve. To help you get there, we chatted with James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, for practical advice on how to make and then hit your goals. It's Monday, January 1st, 2024. Let's ride.

Happy New Year, everyone. We have officially turned the page on 2023. That romantic midnight kiss feels like a fever dream and your pounding head reminds you why you never drink champagne. Sounds like a great opportunity to start setting some goals. The New Year is such a popular time to make resolutions for the next 12 months. But you know what, Neil? In 2024, I want us to get smarter about them.

No more vague, read more books or get in shape. Let's learn how to make resolutions that are actually achievable and push us forward. And I can think of no better person to put us on the right path than James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits and a deep thinker about all things self-improvement. We talked to James about the right and wrong ways. to set goals, how to actually get yourself to the gym, and whether my soccer coach's favorite way of motivating my team makes any sense at all, I think you'll get a lot out of the conversation. But first, it's a no year, so that means we have a new sponsor, Veem.

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And now on to our interview with James Clear. James, thanks for joining us. Hey, happy to do it. Thanks for having me. So it is January 1st and many people listening to this are probably thinking about their New Year's resolutions, but before they think too hard about them, do you believe this exercise is even worthwhile? Does it even make sense to set goals on New Year's at an annual cadence? Yeah, it's totally fine. There actually is some research that shows that I think they call it

like the fresh start effect, but basically beginning of the day, beginning of the week, beginning of the year, beginning of the month, anytime that you kind of have this feeling of rebirth or of starting anew, there is a little bit of a rise in most of the day, motivation. So it's a natural thing. I mean, you know, we all do it because we're all kind of thinking about how can my next year be better than my last year and, you know, what am I hoping to achieve and so on. So it's a very natural thing. I don't think there's anything wrong with using that momentum or using that motivation for you. There also isn't any reason to wait if you feel like making a change earlier in the year or at a different time. There's nothing special about

waiting until January. But certainly momentum is a powerful thing. And if you feel like you have some now, then go ahead and take advantage of it. of kind of last year, last December you post this thought starter to your newsletter readers. It's one year from now, the habit you were hoping to build during the year didn't stick. What is the most likely reason it failed? Why is predicting the reason a habit failed in the future worth thinking about in the present now? Well, there are many examples of this kind of thing in business and in life. There's kind of like failure pre-mortem, as they call it.

But basically, it's so unlikely that you will stick to a habit. just do it forever. Everyone is going to fall off course at some point. And there's going to be some interruption of life that weasels its way in. Maybe it's your kids get sick or you have to travel for work or you need to do something for your parents or whatever it is. But we all have things that come up. And when your habits fall off track, it's helpful to have a plan for how you how you're going to get back on track quickly. And I think actually as I have studied more and more people who who built habits and looked at people who are kind of top performers, so to speak, in their particular domain.

These people are human just like everyone else, right? They make mistakes and they fall off course. But one pattern that they do tend to share is they get back on track quickly. And if the reclaiming of your habit is fast, the breaking of it doesn't matter that much. So you get to the end of the year and it's just a little blip on the radar where you slipped up two or three times. So for all of those reasons, it's very helpful. And of course, I think we all know that having some kind of consistency has power.

And so if you can get back on track quickly, then you can often get the results you want without needing to be perfect. Is the process of getting back on track with your habits the same as starting out in the first place? Or is it kind of like riding a bike where you can pick it up a little easier? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I think broadly we could break a habit into two different kind of core problems. The first problem is getting started and the second problem is sticking with it. Now, at some level, what does it mean to stick with something? Well, it basically means that you get started each day.

So we could say ultimately, this boils down to being good at starting. And if you can just do that day in and day out, then you are consistent. And there are a variety of things that you can do to make starting easier. You can optimize your environment. You can scale the habit down to make it easier to get going. There are ways to track progress and kind of try to build up a feeling momentum. And we can talk about all that stuff in more detail if you want. But you do in the beginning, I think, need to have a couple things in mind that maybe you don't need to worry about as much once you're already going with a habit or once you're picking up a habit that you've done consistently.

And I would say two of the core things to think about when you're trying to build a habit for the first time. The first one is, what would this look like if it was fun? You know, what would it look like if it was fun to meditate every day? What would it look like if I enjoyed exercising? What would it look like if it was fun for me to write? And, you know, there are not a thousand ways to do everything in life, but there's almost always more than one way. And it's worth it to think about what is the version of this habit than I am most genuinely excited about. You know, the most common New Year's resolutions do some form of exercise.

And I kind of feel like a lot of people go to the gym in January just because they feel like they should be going to the gym or like society wants them to go to the gym. And you should choose the version of that habit that's most compelling to you. You know, yoga, rock climbing, kayaking, go for a run. Like, we could come up with a very long list of ways to live an active life. And you should choose the version of that that's most appealing to you. So I think it's worth leaning against this question of what would this look like if it was fun for me? That's a really good place to start. Speaking of stuff that is fun for me, I'm going to be selfish here for a second and use you while we have you.

I want to get better at golf. Neil does as well. I can tell in his face. but I live in New York City. How would you set up kind of a get better at golf system? What should step one be for us? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, I think you have to play with or sit with the question of like,

how good can you get at golf if you're not on a golf course? And so at some point, this might come down to prioritizing your time and figuring out how to actually get out to a course more consistently. But assuming that that's not possible and you are going to be in the city more, you got to come up with like a list of all the things that you could potentially do whether it's you know getting to a simulator or installing some kind of putting green in your apartment or whatever it is and then I think there are a lot of once you figure out what the actual behavior is going to be there are a lot of things you can do to optimize it so like let's

take the putting green in the apartment I had one reader who he would go to a he would go to his guitar lessons and he would practice and play with his instructor and then he go home and he wouldn't really do anything throughout the week and then he'd go back the next week and his instructor would be like, you didn't practice, you're not going to get better at this. And so he took his guitar stand and put it in the middle of the living room

where he'd pass it 30 times a day and now he's much more likely to play. So that's one simple example of environment design and we could think about doing the same sort of thing for golf. If you're only practicing when you're going to see an instructor, you might improve a little bit, but if you're not going every day or practicing every day, it's going to be hard to really get better.

So making it more obvious is one example. And then I kind of think, given the environmental constraints of this one, it's going to come down to being creative and figuring out, like, how can you tack on around a golf to every work trip? Or how can you tack on around a golf to every time that you, like, leave the city to visit your family? Basically, any time that you're getting out to somewhere where it's more likely to be able to actually get on to a course. James, you have no idea how much ammunition you're providing me right now. because, listen, James Clearer told me I have to go practice golf, Mom. I'm so sorry that I'm home for Christmas and I'm hitting the course. So thank you for all that.

That was actually very enlightening as well. Sure. So sticking in the sports category, my old soccer coach always used to say he was British. So this is my British accent. Toby, do you love to win or do you hate to lose? I never had a great answer for it. So I'm turning it over to you. What is a more effective motivator, positive or negative reinforcement?

enforcement. That's interesting. Do you love to learn and do you hate and lose? Okay. So there are two thoughts that come to mind. The last part of your question, what is the more effective motivator? They are both effective motivators. I find that in the long run, it is often better to have some kind of positive motivation

to pull you forward. In the short run, negative consequences for sure will shape your behavior. And, you know, you touch a hot stove once and burn yourself. You don't do it for most of the rest of your life unless it's an accident. So like that negative consequence certainly has shaped your behavior. And we can think of many examples of that throughout life. However, there is an interesting strategic piece to this, which is in some cases, you can actually win by avoiding loss better than you can by chasing victory.

So the classic example of this is if you're playing tennis. At the amateur level, if you're playing tennis in high school or against somebody in your neighborhood or something like that, almost always, the way to win that match is to just have fewer unforest errors. Just keep the ball in play. Keep going until your opponent makes a mistake. And so in that case, avoiding failure is actually the best path to win. However, at the high level, you know, if you're playing in your Roger Federer or Serena Williams

or something, the pros have to play to win. They can't play to not lose because their opponent will keep the ball and play all day long. And so I think it's worth asking yourself at what level am I playing and, you know, what am I actually working on here? In a lot of cases, you can make a great deal of progress by avoiding mistakes, but when you're at the top of your field, you often have to play to win. And so there's the strategic side of this, but then there's also the question of, like, do positive reinforcements or negative reinforcements work? The answer is yes, but I think positive is better in the long run.

Sorry to take us off Tovey's personal coaching track, but accountability partners are another popular mechanism for forming a habit where you rely on the peer pressure of someone else to keep you on track. Do you believe in accountability partners? And is there ever a world in which they could become a crutch in a bad way? Hmm. So the short answer is yes, I believe in them. But I actually think that they are much more common than they realize and they take a much different shape than we realize. And they for sure work in both positive and negative ways. The way that I would describe this, you know, most people think about an accountability partner and they think about like actually signing up with a group or enlisting a friend to you know keep track of whether they did their workout or something.

I would say if we just broaden this a little bit to say what is the social dynamic and how do so how does your social environment influence your habits? The answer is in a great and very meaningful way. So we are all part of multiple groups. Some of those groups are large like what it means to be American. Some of those groups are small like what it means to be a neighbor on your street or a member of the the local CrossFit gym. And all of these groups, large and small, they have an influence on your behavior and habits. And when actions are aligned with the expectations of the group with like those social norms, habits are pretty attractive. And the social environment will really help

like usher you along. And when habits go against the grain of the expectations of the group, when they kind of add a little bit of friction between you and your social relationships, that's a form of accountability too, sometimes not always the kind that you want, and habits will be very hard to build. And ultimately, this comes back to one of the deepest human needs that we all have, which is a desire to bond and connect. You know, we all, humans are social creatures.

We all want to be a part of something, even if it's just your little family unit. And so if people have to decide between, you know, I have habits that I don't really love, but I fit in. I belong. I'm part of something. or I have the habits that I want to have, but I'm cast out, I'm ostracized, I'm criticized.

A lot of the time the desire to belong will overpower the desire to improve. And so as best as possible, you need to get those two things aligned. And I think the punchline is you want to join groups where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. Because if it's normal in that group, then it's going to be really motivating to stick to it. Yeah. So if your New Year's resolution is to drink less, then maybe you want to stop hanging out with people who, drink a lot and start hanging out with people who go camping on the weekends. I mean, you could do it, but you're just playing the game on hard mode, you know?

And it's like it's so much easier if you're surrounded by people who have the habits that you want to have and then you can rise together. This is something that I talk about in atomic habits. There's a chapter called The Secret to Self-control. And one of the surprising things about a lot of the research regarding willpower is that when you look at people, elite athletes or someone who, you know, you aspire to be like and you think, oh, if I just had the discipline they had or I just had the willpower they have, certainly people can have varying levels of willpower, but the primary finding from a lot of this research is that the people who appear to have great willpower are the people who are tempted less frequently. And so they're

the benefits of favorable situations. Sometimes they're just lucky, but sometimes it's a situation they design. And I always think that's an interesting way to think about it. If you in the long run, your willpower will almost never beat your environment. And so it's up to you to design an environment and hang out with a set of people and put yourself in situations that serve the habits that you want to build rather than hinder them. Speaking of your book, Atomic Habits, it came out five years ago at this point. So is there anything in there that you've changed your mind about or anything that you've learned recently that you wish you could put in there? Yeah, well, there are two things that I wish I would have either emphasized more or added. And actually, we've touched on both of them briefly.

So the first thing that I didn't write about that I wish I would have is what would your habits look like if they were fun and finding the version of the habit that is most genuinely appealing to you. In a lot of ways, I feel like that is like maybe the most enormous hurdle to cross. Because if you're genuinely interested in a habit, there are like endless ways to improve it. But if you're not actually interested, if you're just kind of forcing the issue or making yourself do it, even the obvious improvements you're going to feel like a chore. So that's the first thing.

The second thing is I talked about the influence of family and friends on your habits and how that can kind of shape things. But I think I undersold the importance of social environment. If you look at habits that really last, like in some cases, years or even decades, like, let's say I walk outside my home in the summer and I see my neighbor mowing their grass. I might think, oh, I need to cut the grass too. And like, you'll stick to that habit of mowing your lawn for five, 10, 30 years, however long you live in the house. And like, we wish we had that level of consistency with a lot of our other habits.

And it's like, why do you do it? Partially you do it because it feels good to have a clean lawn. But mostly it feels good to have a clean lawn because you're going to be judged by the people in the neighborhood for being the sloppy one. And so it's actually the social expectation, the social norm for what it means to be a neighbor on your street that helps get that habit to stick. and so many of our habits are socially driven like that. Those are the two things that I wish I would have emphasized more. So maybe if my goal is to read a lot this year, the first thing I should do is create a good reads account because then my entire reading history will be online and I'll be judged by my peers about

whether I hit my goal or not. Sure. So that's one way to do it. Picking two friends that are also interested in reading and starting a book club is another way to do it. You don't even have to start one. Like, you could just join one that's already going. There are tons of ways to be part of that.

You know, start browsing subreddits with people who love books and just like engage there and leave comments. And then now you're kind of like surrounded by other people who are reading and feel like you have a little bit of momentum. There are many ways to do it. But the core idea is like, how can I build connection with people who already have the habits I want to have? And the more that those people start to become your friends or start to populate your thoughts, the more that you're going to feel compelled to do those things as well. This is just making me reconsider each other because we spend so much time with each other hosting this daily podcast. We better rub off in each other in the best ways, Neil.

So you mentioned social media a little bit in that last answer, and I want to talk about your social media account. Your profile picture is someone, it might be you, looking up at this seemingly infinite ice wall or glacier. Is nature kind of one of those things that helps put things into perspective for you? How does nature kind of fit into your philosophy and outlook on life? That's interesting. Yeah, I think to a large degree, many of the themes and concepts I write about originated in nature or you could be inspired from them there. Like, if you think about building habits or making positive change, what we're talking about is some kind of transformation or evolution. And of course, evolution is this huge driving force in nature.

And so there's a lot of inspiration in crossover there. As far as like what my profile picture is and why it shows that, I have very odd social media accounts. You know, like I never show my face. My Instagram account is just like blocks of text and, you know, different quotes and sayings. It's a very strange feed. But my way of thinking about it is like, I don't really care about being front and center. I want the ideas to be front and center. And I want a brand that's known by name, not by face.

So like Calvin Klein or Kate Spade or something like that. Like, you know, some people might know. what Calvin Klein looks like, but the vast majority of people know the name, but not the face. And I think that's fine. Like, James Clearer can be like that too. And I also feel like it's a useful handicap, you know? Like, I always think, I don't have anything to hide behind. Like, it's just the ideas. So they better be good because otherwise people are going to stop paying attention. James Clear coming to a handbag near you. I know. Yeah. When's the clothing line dropping? We'll be right back with James Clear after this.

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Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. You have talked to lots of different Fortune 500 companies, Capital One, Cisco G, Honda. The list goes on, what do these Fortune 500 companies want to know? What are they looking for from you, the quote-unquote habit guy? They're looking for the same thing everybody else is looking for, which is consistency. Most of the time, they know the things that they want their team to do. They're just trying to get them to do them more frequently.

So, you know, we all, I think we all could do this. If you were going to just do like a classic 80, 20 analysis on your job, you're going to write down everything that you do. And then we're going to draw a line at the top 20 percent. And you're not allowed to do the bottom 80 percent of tasks. But if you really crush it on the top 80 percent, or top 20 percent, if you just totally knock it out of the park, you probably still have a job because those are the things that really move the needle. We all sort of implicitly know what some of those things are. And all these companies are the same way. Like, they know what really matters.

And so what they're trying to do is to get their team. They're, you know, I'll speak to 800 salespeople or their top 300 executives or something like that. They're trying to get people to direct their attention towards those things more and to do them more consistently. Is setting goals for others like you would do in a business environment similar to setting goals for yourself or is there a different calculus that you would need to take? At some root level, it is the same. But I do think there are some meaningful differences. The primary difference is that when you set goals for yourself, you're the one who's setting them and you're the one who's in control.

In business, often as the executive or as the leader or whatever, you're setting goals for a bunch of other people who didn't choose that goal and then are asked to fall through on it. And that often does not go well because people want to be in control of their time and attention and energy and so on. I think the key in either case is that it's really helpful to be able to draw a through line from the goal that you're asking people to follow to the type of purpose. that you're asking them to be and how it serves them.

So in the individual case, I call this identity-based habits. And the core idea is that you don't start by asking yourself, what do I wish to achieve? You start by asking yourself, who do I wish to become? And by focusing on the type of identity that you want to build and the type of person that you're hoping to become, you can see how your habits are reinforcing a particular action. So, for example, rather than worrying about, like,

oh, I want to lose 30 pounds in the next six months, you focus on building the identity of I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. Now, in the team context, this becomes a little broader because often when we talk about identity in a business, we're talking about like, what is the culture? And so you need to be really clear about who are we and what are we trying to achieve. And if you can get people to buy into that vision or that shared identity, then it becomes a little easier if you can connect the goal to that. And you can say, hey, listen, we all said that we're in on this. We all said we want to become this, here's how these goals kind of feed in to that bigger picture. So I think that

helps with some alignment. There's one more thing that I want to mention that I think is particularly important with business goals and just driving results in business, which is getting incentives aligned. And this is one of the trickiest things with companies, because incentives are hard. But there's this story that illustrates, I think, this well. So in the early 90s, somewhere around that time frame, Boeing, the airplane manufacturer. The story is that they were switching from manually driven planes, manually driven wings by the pilots to software driven. And on the first test flight where they were going to test this software, they required that

the engineers who designed the software be on the flight. And partially there was a reason for that, like, you know, they're going to test things out. They may adjust some things on the fly and so on. I wanted to see how the system responded. But also, I always think like, man, better get it right. You know, like what a beautiful alignment of incentives. The person who designs the thing, their neck is on the line too. And I think if we ask ourselves honestly, are the incentives that cleanly aligned in most

of our businesses or institutions? A lot of the time, the answer is no. I always think you should ask yourself like, first, who is doing the work? Who reaps the rewards? Who bears the consequences? And when the incentives are aligned, it's often the same person for all three. And when the incentives are misaligned, somebody else is doing the work. else is bearing the consequences and somebody else is reaping the rewards. And so as best as possible,

you need to figure out ways to get the incentives aligned. And people will naturally want to do things that serve them and avoid things that punish them. That reminds me. It's kind of curious why Jeff Bezos goes up in his company's rocket, but Elon Musk doesn't. Oh, interesting, Neil. He's trying to start something. All right, James, you are pretty smart, but I assume that not all of your ideas just kind of spring out of your head one day? Who are some of the people, writers, thinkers that have been a source of inspiration for you? Oh, man, there are literally hundreds. I actually keep a list of sources on my website. So if you go to jamesclair.com slash thanks, it's like a thank you page to all the people that have been various

inspirations and sources of ideas to me. I am it would be impossible to list everybody. There are, you know, hundreds of sources and atomic habits alone. And I feel like I'm always looking, I don't even really read books anymore. I kind of like read chapters or read sentences. Like I'm just like looking for a little bit of insight. Oh, I really like how that was phrased or well, I really like how the way that they unpack that. Maybe I can, you know, like take that and make it my own or use that in some way. So pretty much everything that I share, two things are true. The first is pretty much everything is a reminder to myself. So like I struggle with all this stuff too. and it's just a way of me trying to pull myself back to center.

And then the second thing is almost nothing that I share is something that I originally thought of. I feel like my value is that I try to put it in a way that it's easy to understand and easy to apply, but the idea is almost all originated elsewhere. And I think we have this somewhat incorrect view of creativity, that creativity is origination, that it is like the creation, of something from nothing. But actually, I think almost every form of creativity is synthesis. It is the connecting of ideas that were previously unconnected. It is the sharing of something that has already been out there, but has never quite been put that way or has never quite

been delivered in that fashion. And that, I feel like is my job, is to come across the very best ideas I can and then to deliver them in a way where you think, you know what? I always have kind of felt that, but I just didn't have the way to the language for it. Or I've always believed that or seen that in my life too, but I've never heard it put that way. And if I can do that and try to deliver ideas in a more useful or more actionable or practical fashion, then I feel like that is a lot of value. And I'm happy to play that role.

And other people can play different roles. That's our job, too. Actually, at Morning Brew, we are synthesizers of information. So that definitely preach into the choir there. All right. I'm sure for our final question of the day, there's someone out there right now who is debating whether to follow through on their newly minted New Year's resolution. Maybe they're deciding whether to go to the gym right now.

What would you say to them to get them on track to start the year off right? So two things. One big picture, one tactical. So big picture. A lot of the time I feel like the two best timeframes to focus on are 10 years or one hour. You know, so like 10 years is – think about. any big meaningful thing in your life that you like to achieve. Creating a successful marriage, raising kids that you're proud of, getting in the best shape of your life, launching a successful

business, finishing a book, like whatever it is, it's probably like a multi-year thing. And so you can keep that big picture 10-year vision in your mind and then scale it down to one hour. What can I do in the next hour that moves me toward where I want to be 10 years from now? And if you can do that, then I think you start to see how small changes can really add up, how these small actions day in and day out and can accumulate into something meaningful. And it really doesn't take much to feel good about yourself or to feel like it's moving forward. You know, like all you really need is five good minutes. Five good minutes of exercise can reset your mood for the day. Five good minutes of conversation can restore a relationship that's been shattered or has been, you know, fragmented.

Five good minutes of writing can make you feel like the manuscripts move forward again. So it doesn't take much. So that's a big picture view, 10 years or one hour. And then the tactical thing is utilize what I call the two-minute rule. So very simple, just says take your habits and scale it down to something that takes two minutes or less to do. So read 30 books a year becomes read one page. Or do yoga four days a week becomes take out my yoga mat. And sometimes I mention this and people resist a little bit, you know, but I had this reader,

a guy named Mitch, mentioned him in atomic habits. and he started going to the gym, and he's lost over 100 pounds now, kept it off for more than a decade. And when he first started going, for the first six weeks, he had this strange little rule where he wasn't allowed to stay for longer than five minutes. So 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.

You know, it sounds silly. Like, this is obviously not going to work. But what you realize is he was mastering the art of showing up. And this is this deep truth about habits that people always. often overlook, which is a habit must be established before it can be improved. You know, it has to become the standard in your life before you can scale it up and turn it into something more. You need to standardize before you optimize. So I'm reminded of that quote from Ed Latimore where he says, the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. Like there are a lot of

things in life. They're like that. So think about the big 10 year vision, scale it down to the next hour or five minutes or two minutes, make it as small as possible and cast some little vote, makes some little action today that moves you toward that big picture view that you have for the future. James, thank you so much for joining us. I can't imagine listening to you speak and not wanting to become the absolute best version of yourself possible. So I hope everyone listening at home feels the same. If you want more of James, you can find his book, Atomic Habits, his habit journal and his newsletter at jamesclear.com or on social at James Clear. James.

Until next year, hopefully, my man. Sounds great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thanks, James. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th,

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