The One You Feed - James Clear

Episode Date: December 8, 2014

James Clear is an entrepreneur, weightlifter, and travel photographer. He writes at JamesClear.com, where he talks about scientific research and real-world experiences that help you rethink your health and improve your life. His blog gets millions of visitors per year. In This Interview James and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable.How money can be an addiction that society rewards.How much we over estimate one defining moment versus steady day to day behavior.The aggregation of marginal gains- improve by 1% in everything you do.Small changes can lead to big results.Reduce the Scope, Stick to The Schedule.Not letting your emotions drive your behavior.The difference between professionals and amateurs.It's not the result that matters but the action and habit.The 2 Minute Rule.How willpower often comes after we start, not before."Start with something so easy you can't say no to it"- Leo BabutaYou don't have to be great at the start, you just need to be there.Learning from our failures and seeing it as a data point.Seeing failure as an event, not as part of us.How mentally tough people define themselves by their persistence, not failure.Acquiring more mental toughness or grit.How 21 days to create a habit is a myth.Missing a habit once in awhile is not a big deal.Never missing twice.Fixed Mindset versus Growth Mindset.How your job is to live out your unique path.The difference between competitiveness and comparison.How the performance matters, not the judgement of it.Ambition and contentment are not opposites.James Clear LinksJames Clear HomepageJames Clear Free Habits KitJames Clear TwitterJames Clear Facebook   Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:Kino MacGregorStrand of OaksMike Scott of the WaterboysTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We often think that, oh, if I start with something so small, then it isn't going to make a difference. It's not going to matter. But the truth is, because that momentum builds after you get going, you can often start with something very tiny, and then it'll blossom into something much bigger afterward. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Hey y'all, I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. This January, join me for our third annual January Jumpstart series. Starting January 1st, we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kickstarting Thanks for joining us. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is James Clear, entrepreneur, weightlifter, and travel photographer.

His work can be found at jamesclear.com, where he writes about scientific research and real-world experiences that help you rethink your health and improve your life. His blog gets millions of visitors per year. Here's the interview. Hi, James. Welcome to the show. Hey, Eric. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. Yeah, it's great to get you on. I think the listeners are really going to enjoy this one. Your writing on the web is very compelling, and I think we actually talk about a lot of the same things. I think you might be a bit more eloquent about it, but there's just a real common sense approach to everything you do, which is something that always resonates with me. Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that.

So our podcast is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the parable of two wolves where there is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. And he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are engaged in an epic battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. And he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah, it's a good thing to think about. It's an interesting concept because I think often

society pushes us to feed maybe the evil wolf in some ways, or we at least reward that in society in many ways. If you think about it, money and wealth is the only addiction that we applaud. Millionaires are on the covers of magazines but people who are addicted to

drugs rather than money or alcohol rather than money or have an eating disorder or whatever else they aren't, you know, they aren't, um, applauded for that. So I don't know. It's interesting how the, a similar mindset and obsessive mindset can be positive or at least seen positively in one way and very negatively in another. Um, anyway, that was just a thought that popped in my mind. But as far as my own work, I, I have, I guess I'm in a fortunate position now. So I've been an entrepreneur for four years.

During the first two years, I started a bunch of different things that, you know, failed or flopped in one way or another, and then eventually found my way to building a business that succeeded and did well. Um, one of the best pieces of advice that I got early on was to try things until something comes easily. So in that first year, I tried probably, I don't know, five or six different business ideas just to see what would stick. Uh, and then eventually, like I said, I sort of made my way toward, toward building a business around, um, teaching people how to travel for free with frequent flyer miles and, um, you know, different work. I've done travel photography work in over 20 countries now, so it was something that was top of mind for me as well. And after I built that up over the first two years, I was able to transition a little bit.

So the business is run mostly by employees now, and I check in every week or so. But the last two years, I focused pretty much exclusively on writing at jamesclear.com, which is how we got in touch. And so I guess what I'm getting to is, I don't have to worry about money now, which is very different than where I was when I was starting, you know, four years ago. And so I don't have to worry about feeding that wolf as much. And so all the work that I do at JamesSkiller.com is focused, the phrase that I use a lot is mission first, business second. So I'm working on my first book right now and I have a habits workshop that I'll sell and I'll be paid to go speak at different conferences and whatnot.

But the business model is secondary. The primary thing that I care about is spreading the message and trying to build a platform where I can help as many people as possible. Last year, my articles were read by over 2 million people. This year, that doubled over 5 million. And so that's probably the most important metric for me at this point is growth and reach and impact in some way. And I feel lucky that I am able to feed that wolf of integrity and value and meaningfulness and an impact and sort of do work that focuses on that rather than work that focuses on the bottom line. Right? Well, what I think is really interesting about that, however, and we'll get into this a lot as we talk through the show is what we're doing here is, is very similar. I think our business model is certainly secondary. This isn't a show where the goal is to,

is to make a lot of money. So that, so that means there are other things that, that I still do for, for money. But one of the things I think is interesting is a lot of people tend to have this, well, I can't really do the thing that matters to me until I can do it all the time or completely versus the ability to sort of start where you are. And I know that a lot of what you talk about from creating habits perspective and being successful talks a lot about that all or nothing mentality. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think this is one of the biggest pitfalls we find ourselves in when it comes to building new habits or really just making a behavior change of any type. Is that we think, you know, it's so easy to overestimate the idea of one defining moment or, you know, overnight success or this massive transformation or change like flipping a switch and becoming a new person.

And so we see things in very black and white terms, but it's not that way at all. To share a story about this, one of the stories I like telling is about this guy named Dave Brailsford. And Brailsford was hired by Great Britain's professional cycling team. They're called Team Sky. And when they hired him, they had never won a Tour de France. And they said, Mr. Brailsford, we're bringing you on because we want to win Tour de France. What's your plan for doing Brailsford, we're bringing you on because we want to win Tour de France. What's your plan for doing this? And he believes in this concept called the aggregation of marginal gains. And the way that he describes it is it's the 1% improvement in nearly everything that you do.

And so they started by looking for improvements that you would expect of a professional cycling team. They got bike tires that were slightly lighter. They had their outdoor riders wear indoor racing bike tires that were slightly lighter. They had their outdoor riders wear indoor racing suits because they were lighter weight. They had their riders wear bio feedback sensors to see how they were responding to the training. You know, they did all these things that are associated with cycling performance. But they also made a bunch of changes that you wouldn't expect. So they figured out the type of pillow that led to the best night sleep and had their riders bring it with them on the road to hotels.

Can you share that with me, what that pillow is? I wish I knew myself. They taught their riders how to wash their hands to reduce the risk of infection and try to promote health in the best way possible and help them recover. They figured out the massage gel that led to the best recovery over time. And so they use that every day after practice. So they made all these little changes. And Brailsford said, I think if we can execute on this strategy, if we can actually make this happen, I think we can win a Tour de France in five years.

He ended up being wrong. They won the Tour de France in three years. And then they won again in the fourth year with a different rider. they won again in the fourth year with a different rider. And when the professional cycling team from Britain went to the Olympics in London in 2012, Team Great Britain won 70% of the gold medals available to them. So the the moral of the story here is that 1% gains actually can add up to something very significant over the long run. And it doesn't have to be a major switch or some like, you know, incredible change that leads to significant results. And I think that this is important because we often when we talk, you know, your original question was about this idea of the all or nothing mindset. Or, you know, if I if I just do a little bit, but make a mistake

every now and then, does that actually add up to anything? And the answer is, yes, it does add up to something significant, if you can just maintain it consistently. It doesn't mean you have to be perfect by any means, but if you can aggregate these little 1% choices and tiny improvements day after day, even if it's only three days or four days or five days a week, it doesn't have to be seven, then it can actually lead to a very significant result in the long run. Yeah, you've got a lot of different things that touch on that. There's something that I say a lot on the show, which is a little of something is better than a lot of nothing, which I think reflects a phrase that you have, which is reduce the scope, stick to the schedule. So I've been an athlete pretty much all my life.

I played baseball through college and I compete in Olympic weightlifting now. And, um, when I first started training in the gym, I, I don't know. I just thought like, if I couldn't get the perfect workout in, then it wasn't like I wasn't doing enough. Basically it was, it was very much all or nothing mentality. So as an example, you could say something like, if your goal is to run three miles after work today, you look up at the clock and it turns out that you were going to run for this next hour, but time's gotten away from you a little bit and you only have 25 minutes left. And you're like, well, 25 minutes is enough time for me to get changed and run three miles and get back. So what I would have said in a situation like that in the past is, well, let me not waste this time. Maybe I don't have enough time to get

my workout in. So I'll answer some emails that are important. I'll make that phone call I've been putting off or I'll do something else like productive, right? I'd rationalize using the time in a better way. But what I think is actually more useful now is to reduce the scope of what you're planning to do, but always stick to the schedule of doing it. So maybe running three miles isn't possible in 25 minutes, but you could run one mile, for example, or you could get your shoes on and run 10 sprints, whatever is actually feasible within that amount of time. And I got this idea from a software company called 37 Signals, which has been very successful. They're over $100 million company at this point. And one of their main

principles is that they always ship software updates on time. It doesn't matter if it's as big as what they were hoping, like it may not be the full feature that they were hoping to launch, but it's going to get out at the deadline. And I've seen this to be very useful in a variety of different areas. It's useful in the health example, as I just gave, but it also is very helpful for work-related habits. So when it comes to my writing, I publish new articles every Monday and Thursday. It doesn't matter how long or how short they are, how good or how bad they are. It doesn't matter how I feel about the work.

The main thing is that I ship something every Monday and Thursday. And of course, I'm going to try my best each time. But what I've realized is that occasionally there'll be a dud of an article, but that's a cost that I'm willing to pay because I know that if I stick to the schedule every Monday and Thursday, if I show up consistently, then there are going to be some gems in there. That's on average eight or nine articles a month for me. And I know that if I try my best on those eight or nine, there's going to be two or three decent ones. Now I can't predict what they're going to be just as I can't predict when my best lifts are

going to be in the gym, right? Like I train every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If I only went to the gym when I felt motivated or when I felt inspired to go, then, you know, I would never be able to show up consistently enough to put up a decent number. But I know that if I show up three days a week, every week, then sometimes there's, you know, there's going to be a good number on the board. There's so much good stuff in what you just said there. And I think that idea, I like that phrase, reduce the scope, stick to the schedule, or as I said, a little of something is better than a lot of nothing, because at least, you know, my life is very, and I think a lot of our listeners and a lot of people in the modern world today, our lives are very chaotic and

routines are harder to come by than they used to be. You know, you've got a kid who's got this on this night and this on that night, and then the next week it's here. And, and I've just found that ability to say, okay, I'm going to have to be flexible on what it is that I do. It's going to be five minutes versus 10 minutes or whatever it is, but that, that you stick with that schedule. I think that's really important. The next thing that you led into in there is something we've talked about a lot on the show. And it's the idea of doing what you've committed to doing regardless of what your mood or not letting your mood be your decision making tool. I started writing, I actually wrote in private for over a year before I published anything. And I was coming up with all sorts of excuses for why that was that, you know, I, my ideas aren't fully formulated yet. My marketing skills aren't good enough.

I, you know, I don't, I'm not a great writer. I haven't figured out my voice, whatever, all these different things. And eventually I talked to a friend of mine named Todd Henry and Todd's a published author and much better writer than I am. And so I was talking to him and I said, Todd, I feel like I only write when I get this burst of motivation or this, you know, the spark of inspiration, this creative muse. Like that's when I get my best ideas. So I'll write then.

And he was like, well, that makes sense. I only write when I feel motivated too. It just happens to be every day at 8 a.m. And like when he said that, I was like, oh, this is the difference between professionals and amateurs, right? Amateurs do things when they feel motivated or when it's easy for them, when they feel inspired. And professionals do things on a schedule. And so that was when I decided to set my Monday, Thursday publishing schedule.

And I've been able, November 12th, 2012 was the first day, the first Monday that I published. And I've been able to stick to that schedule ever since. The caveat here is that you have to choose a schedule, a pace that you can sustain. One of the stories I like to tell about this is about Southwest Airlines. So in the mid-90s, Southwest had been growing very rapidly for almost 20 years at this point. And this was a period of time when most airline companies were either losing money or going bankrupt, at least in the United States. And in 1996, I believe it was, Southwest had offers to expand to over 100 different cities. And if you're a business, this is a great problem to have, right?

They're like, okay, we have tons of options for growth. But what Southwest did was they turned down almost all of them. They only expanded to four new locations in 1996. And Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, I think he's the one who originally found this story. And one of the reasons that he says Southwest was so successful is that they set like an upper bound for their growth, like an upper limit for what they were going to do, right? They had 100 options with this. So we're only going to grow to four new places. And sometimes I like to keep that in mind when it comes to behavior change and building new habits as well. You know, so often we think about the lower limit for what we want to do. I want to

work out for at least 45 minutes, or I want to write at least 1000 words today, or, you know, I want to lose at least 15 pounds in the next four months. But I think in many ways, it would be much more useful to set an upper limit for our behavior, especially in the beginning four months. But I think in many ways, it would be much more useful to set an upper limit for our behavior, especially in the beginning, because the only thing that matters is the consistency of the habit. It's not the result that matters in the beginning, because if you don't do the action consistently, then you're never going to get the result anyway. So if you can check your ego a little bit and set an upper limit for yourself, you could say something like, like I had a reader, his name is

Mitch, he lost over 100 pounds over the course of two years. And when he was adding exercise into his routine, he told himself, I'm not allowed to stay at the gym for more than five minutes. So he would go to the gym, he does for over four weeks, first four weeks, he went to the gym for five minutes a day, five days a week. And then when it got to six minutes, he left. And he was like, after four or five weeks, I kind of, you know, felt like I'm coming here all the time. I sort of want to stay longer. Right. And the important thing there is he wasn't worried at all about the result or the outcome in the beginning. Right. He was only focused on the behavior. How do I make it a habit? How do I become the type of person that shows up at the

gym every day? How do I become the type of person that doesn't miss workouts? And once I know that I'm going to be here consistently, then I'll worry about improving the performance. But so often we flip it so often, we're so obsessed with the idea of the outcome or the result that we want, that we never think about how can we actually build this into a behavior that's habitual and repeated. Yeah, we had Todd on as one of our first guests, and he's amazing. And one of the things one of the earlier guests we also had was a guy named Dan Millman, who wrote a book, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. But he talked in our interview about this idea. It's very similar. He called it, you know, start small and connect the dots. But, you know, exercise for two minutes a day, but do it for, you know, do it every day for a week or two weeks. And then if you, if you exercise for four, you've just, you've doubled it. But I think it's, it's back to that idea of all or nothing. It's really, it's easy to get into that. All right, I'm going to go 45 minutes a day every day. And then when I, when I fall off, it's, it's hard to maybe stick to that, which I think is what you're saying is to keep, keep the scope of what we can do. The podcast, for example, we do once a week, I occasionally put

out a mini episode on the weekends. And the data is clear that if you want to grow a podcast, you put one out as frequently as you can. But the reality is, it's not a pace we could keep. And so, it's more about the slow and steady. Every week on Tuesday, an episode goes out. Well, and the data is also clear that podcasts that put something out every week succeed more than ones that do five in a row and then don't do anything. Right. Exactly. So I would say, yeah, that's a great strategy. Hey, y'all.

I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves, and who we know ourselves to be and who we

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No Really. Go to reallyn to really no really.com and register to win 500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign jason bobblehead it's called really no really and you can find it on the iheart radio app on apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts so that idea of breaking things into smaller, smaller chunks is one that, that I'm a big fan of. And you have something you call the two minute rule. I think I call it the five minute rule. I think they're very much a very similar thing. Can you tell us about the two minute rule? Sure. So the original two minute rule comes from David Allen's book, getting things done. And it's just a productivity strategy that he uses to try to do things that you keep putting off. So for example, making the phone call that you've been

wanting to make for the last week or responding to that email that's been sitting in your inbox or washing the dishes that are in the sink, throwing a load of laundry, whatever. If it takes less than two minutes, do it right away. That's his two minute rule. But I think we can adjust that rule for building new habits and behaviors. And the basic idea is nearly any habit that we want to do for the most part is going to require some conscious effort. They're actually bigger in scope than what academic researchers would define as a habit. Academic researchers would say a habit is something you do automatically, like scratching your head or biting your nails or flossing your teeth. But a lot of times when we talk about building new habits, we're talking about things that are, you know,

I want to make a habit of eating healthy, or I want to make a habit of going to the gym, or I want to make a habit of making five sales calls a day, whatever it happens to be. And these are things that are going to require conscious effort. But the thing that often happens is that when we think about the whole habit that we're trying to build in scope, it seems like too much. You know, it's kind of like what I mentioned earlier. If you want to run three miles, maybe you get home from work at the end of the day and you feel exhausted.

And the thought of running three whole miles sounds like too much for you, right? It's more than the motivation or willpower that you have available at that time. So rather than focus on the entire event, on the whole scope of the project, focus just on the first two minutes of it. So most habits cannot be completed in under two minutes, but nearly any habit can be started in less than two minutes. And so the idea behind this is put all of your motivation and willpower into starting the behavior and trust that in many ways, motivation comes after starting, not before.

We have this sort of myth in our head that the reason that we don't get started on things is because we don't have enough willpower. We weren't born with enough willpower. It's not this innate, I don't know, trait that we – something we lack for one reason or another. And that if we only had more willpower, then that would be the solution to accomplishing these tasks. But what often happens is that the willpower shows up not before we begin, but after, and it pretty much, uh, anyone has experienced this in one way or another when you start a behavior and all of a sudden it's much easier to finish it. You know, a lot of times, like if you're, it may be hard for you to get your workout going,

but if you can simply get to the gym and start your first exercise, you're going to follow through with it at the end to the end. So the idea behind the two minute rule is focus all your intensity and motivation on the first two minutes. So for example, if we take the running thing, then it's just get your shoes on, get out the door, close the doorknob, right? Something like that. And then after that, if you don't run at all, fine, no big deal. No need to judge yourself. But often you'll find that you feel motivated enough to finish the task. Yeah, that's exactly what I do it for five minutes.

And I'm very deliberate about setting a timer. But it's usually I can trick myself into starting for five minutes. And then momentum is a particularly powerful force, you know, nine times out of 10. You're right. It's sufficient to get the thing done. And I think the corollary to that too, and I've seen you reference it is a lot of the things that I tend to put off or feel overwhelming to me and breaking them down to two minutes doesn't feel overwhelming. Or if it's an overwhelming thing, breaking that thing into so many small tasks that I can find

one that's easy to start on. This is the classic phrase that Leo Babauti uses all the time, right? Like starts with something so easy, you can't say no to it. Right. And if you, you know, a lot of the time, some of this comes back, weaves back in with the 1% gain story that I mentioned in the beginning. We often think that, oh, if I start with something so small, then it isn't going to make a difference. It's not going to matter.

But the truth is, because that momentum builds after you get going, you can often start with something very tiny, and then it'll blossom into something much bigger afterward. You talk about not needing to be fantastic at the start. You just need to be there at the start. Yeah, I mean, this idea that we're we have to be an expert to some degree, I think is is is incorrect incorrect. So the phrase that I've been taught by a friend of mine named Beck Tench, she worked at a science museum, but she wasn't a scientist. And she said, one of the interesting things I learned when I was there was about how scientists treat failure. You know, when a scientist runs an experiment, there are many pieces of data.

Some of them agree with the hypothesis they have. Some of them may not. But they don't necessarily see the pieces of data that don't agree with the hypothesis as a failure. It's just a piece of data. It's just another data point. So there may be a positive result. There may be a negative result. But it's just a data point to them.

And I think that's a much more powerful way to look at failure in our own life. You know, you don't need to show up and have a positive string of data points from the very beginning when you start a habit. You could try to start a habit, fail, and then say, huh, that's interesting. What a useful data point. Let me take that and turn that into something, right? Use that as fuel for the next adjustment that I need to make rather than as an indication of who I am. So often we make the mistake of seeing failure as an indication of our identity, of our self-worth, of the type of person that we are, the talent that we have, or what we're capable of. But that's not true at all. If you went to a restaurant and ordered an entree and it came out and you ate it and it was bad, you wouldn't accuse yourself of being like a terrible food order, right? It's not like a, it's not a reference to the quality of you as an individual just because the result is negative. Um, instead you would just see it as a data point of, Oh, I don't like this food or this is something I'm not going to order again in the future. And I think it'd be much more useful if we took that same approach to creative tasks that we have

in our work to health and personal tasks and other growth tasks that we have in our life. Yeah, you say that a lot of people see failure, like you just said, as an indication of who they are. But mentally tough people define themselves more by their perseverance. There's a, you know, I don't know. It's interesting. Mental toughness is a topic that I've been thinking about more recently. And I'll probably write a lot more about it at some point but one of the the articles that i've written

recently that i enjoyed is about this finnish concept called sisu and there's a there's no direct translation for the word in in english but sisu and finish is sort of this quality that uh that the fins are proud of having this idea that they persevere even after they're out of options, even after there's no necessarily a forward or way to succeed in a particular task, yet still they find a way to move forward. And I find that a lot of people

who are really successful, whether it's entrepreneurs and CEOs or elite athletes at some level, really successful comedians or entertainers, whoever it happens to be, in the very beginning, they keep getting riddled with these failures, but they have this quality of Sisu in the beginning, this ability to persevere and continue to move forward, even when they're not getting positive results. Sometimes it's so hard to continue moving forward if you don't have an indication that you're making progress.

But there's this, I don't know, there's this magical quality of learning that requires failure in the beginning. And the people who embrace that are the ones who end up, you know, developing a significant skill set in the long run. I know it's something you've been writing more about and it's the idea of grit or

mental toughness. Do you have any thoughts on how people go about acquiring more of that? Yeah, it's a good question. That's the main thing that I've been thinking about. As I'm as I've been working on this recently, I think the the idea of starting small makes sense in this particular case as well. Because one of the, I think in many cases, one of the most dangerous things you can have is actually to grow very fast or really quickly. Like most of the trouble that I've gotten myself into or troubles, maybe the wrong word. Most of the, the setbacks that I've had, um, have happened when I've tried to do too much too fast and, or, or when I've gotten to a level that maybe I'm not prepared for too quickly.

And so in other words, it's kind of like training yourself with small failures to develop the ability to overcome those. And once you develop the ability to overcome something small, you can step up to the next level and take a slightly greater risk and then fail there, but still be able to handle it because now you have a new skill set. And then take a slightly greater risk and again be able to handle that because now you're a little bit better than you were before. And I think that idea of progression works really well here as well, because if you can prove yourself, prove to yourself that you're mentally tough in a small way, then maybe you can take that and leverage it into proving it again to yourself in a slightly bigger way. Yeah, it's a really interesting, it is about how do we define failure and how do we define success? And one of the things that you talk about, and I've learned so many of these things through what can only be described as bitter experience, but is the idea of don't make the second mistake. Well, I guess I'll back this one up with a little bit of research.

So there was a study done at University College London in England, and they were looking at the length of time that it took to actually build a new habit. And there's all these myths out there. It takes 21 days to build a new habit or 30 days or whatever. What they found was that on average, it took about 66 days. But even that number is largely unhelpful, I guess, because it's a huge range. And as you would expect, it depends on the habit, right? Little things like drinking a glass of water at lunch may only take three weeks, whereas big things like going for a run three days a week or some other habit that's much larger and requires more effort and willpower may require eight months before it becomes routine.

And so the range that they saw was anywhere from like 18 days to 250 something days. But the message that the exact numbers are important. The message is it's going to take months probably to build a new habit. But the second finding of the study, which I thought was very interesting, is that they looked at the people who stuck with habits over the long run and the consistency that they had. And what they found was that different people failed at different points along the curve, but at no point did missing one day, whether it was the first day, the 10th day, the 100th day, the 1000th day, missing one day had no measurable impact whatsoever on your ability to stick to a habit over the long run.

And so this goes back, one, to the all or nothing mentality, right? But it also triggered this idea in my mind, which is that top performers in many different industries make mistakes just like everybody else. I mean, you know, they're not perfect. They're just like you and I. They make errors. They slip up. They have a bad day. There's urgencies and emergencies of life they have to deal with that prevent them from doing their habits consistently every now and then. But the key is when they get off track, they find a way to get back on track as quickly as possible. So

the phrase that I like to keep in mind is never miss twice or don't make the second mistake, as you said. And so if I can figure out a way that once I get off track, I can get myself back on track as quickly as possible. I know that that's not going to hurt me in the long run. I don't need to be perfect. And there's no measurable impact that missing yesterday will have if I can get back on track today. And so for that reason, I think one of the most useful exercises you can go through when it comes to building new habits is, and this is an idea from a book called The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. She's a professor from Stanford. And her idea or her strategy is the main thing that takes your

willpower off course or that depletes your willpower is not understanding how and when you lose willpower, how and when you get off track. So in other words, if you get a piece of paper and list out all the things that could take you off track with your habits. You know, my kid gets sick or I'm ill or I forget. I didn't set a reminder on my phone or a thousand other things that could take you off course. My friends ask me to go out to eat when I'm trying to stick to my diet. Whatever it happens to be for the habit that you're working on. List out all the possible scenarios you can think of that could take you off course. If you can prevent those things, great.

Go ahead and prevent them. But if you can't, then come up with an if-then scenario for what you're going to do to get back on track as quickly as possible. Because then it becomes less a story of, oh, I'm a victim. This happened to me. Now I don't know what to do. It takes me two weeks to get back on track or two months before I feel motivated again to do this. It's less about that victim story of this happened to me and this is why I got off course and more about, okay, this happened. Here's my plan to get back on track. And if you can develop

this strategy to never miss twice, then you'll probably have much more success over the long run. And the little errors that occur every now and then, which are going to happen to all of us, won't have a measurable impact on your results. Yeah, that's such a big one. And the bitter experience I was talking about is that seems to be the thing in the past that would always derail me is I would fall off the wagon, whatever that wagon might be, and then just give up. And I think a lot of it gets back to the stories we tell ourselves about what that stuff means. And you just, you touched on it a minute ago that the idea of failure is not an indication of who we are. But I think it's so easy for us to start telling ourselves stories when we miss a day or we

fail to get into, oh, well, this means I'm just not cut out to do this, or I always do this thing, or what's the point? And those are all just, they're nothing but stories. Yeah, a great book to read on this particular topic is called Mindset by Carol Dweck. She also is a researcher at Stanford. And the strategy that she lays out or the discovery that she lays out from her research in that book is that there are two types of mindsets. The first type of mindset is a fixed mindset. And the fixed mindset believes that talent matters and that we're very focused on the outcome, the result that we get. We tend to avoid challenges that are faced to us because we think our skill set is fixed to some degree. I was born this way. This is the talent that I have.

This is the type of person that I am. And it looks at outcomes as an indication of who we are. So what you're mentioning there, oh, I slipped up on this habit. I always do this. I'm a failure. I'm the type of person who isn't good at working out or I'm the type of person who isn't natural at sales or whatever it happens to be. The growth mindset. So this first mindset is the fixed mindset. Second mindset is the growth mindset. Growth mindset is very focused on effort rather than outcome. I worked really hard on this. This is why I did a good job. You're process focused. How can I commit to the system and continually get better rather than worrying about a particular outcome? And you embrace challenges that come your way because you see them as ways to develop

your skill set. So the growth mindset says my abilities are not fixed. It's not a talent question. I can improve in some way even if I'm not good at it now. And the key to realize here is that you don't have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. We all have both in certain areas. So if you take my writing, for example, I'm very growth mindset oriented. I'm always looking for ways to improve. I think, I can look at my progress of the last year or two. I've definitely become a better writer. Let me look at other writers who are great at their craft and see what I can learn from them and try to develop my skillset. Always focused on moving forward. But with sales and selling, I would always tell myself the story of I'm not a natural salesman. I prefer to be really high integrity. This isn't something that, you know, I'm good at for that

reason and all these other things. And so I was hamstringing myself saying, Oh, this isn't who I am, right? I was just saying, Oh, this is a fixed thing. It's just not me. And so we can do this to ourselves in many different areas where we say we're fixed in a certain area, but we may be growth in another area. And when you notice yourself having that fixed mindset of, you know, using failure as an indication of who you are, or using an outcome as an indication of what you're good at or how talented you are. You need to remind yourself that the growth mindset is what is true, right? This is the approach that we need to take, that skills can be developed and cultivated, that you have the ability to improve in some way, even if you failed in the past. It's not an indication of the outcome that you're destined to have. It's just something that has happened in the past.

Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls, and I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag,

it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. It's a little bit of past, present and future all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've got two last areas I'd like to cover with you, which tend to be two of themes that I

always like to explore. And luckily, you've written about them a little bit. One of them is the idea of comparison. So you've got an article where you talk about a show choreographer who puts out a bunch of work that she doesn't feel is great, and then or that she does feel is great. And then something she puts out that she doesn't think is good becomes very successful. But you talk through that article about the idea of comparison, and comparison is one of those things that I think can be potentially very painful to us, and I'm interested to hear more about it from you. Yeah, so the story is about this choreographer named Agnes DeMille, who she choreographed a bunch of different shows that she thought were great, as you mentioned.

And then she did the choreography for Oklahoma, which is a blockbuster hit on Broadway, performed over 2000 times and had all the success. And she thought her work was average. And so she was talking to Martha Graham, who is one of the most famous dance choreographers of the 20th century. And she was like, Martha, I, you know, I feel like maybe I'm not cut out for this work because my whole concept of what is good work and what is bad work seems off. I, you know, the work that I thought was great, nobody cared about the work that I thought was very average. People loved. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. And Martha Graham just looked at her and said, you have something inside of you,

a unique set of skills, a unique set of circumstances and experiences and ideas that if you don't put it out there, if you don't deliver it to the world, it will never be. It will never exist in any other way. No one else can produce that. Your job is not to determine whether or not that is valuable. Your job is not to compare it to someone else or try to measure how good or how bad it is. Your job is simply to create the work, is simply to put it out in the world, and then you can let the world decide whether it's good or not. And I think that that's a great way to think about comparison for all of our own work and the comparison trap that we often fall into when comparing our lives and, um, and our, our choices to other people, you know, like your job is not to determine whether your life is more valuable than someone else's or your work is more creative or more compelling than someone else's. Your job is simply to live out the path that you have, because if you don't live it

out, nobody else will be able to, there's no one else that can put out this unique set of creative output, this unique set of circumstances and ideas and experiences, this unique set of conversations and stories and pieces of advice. Whatever it happens to be that you want to deliver to the world, it's your job simply to deliver it, not to try to measure it. And then you can let the world decide whether they love it or not. Yeah, I think that's such a great piece of advice on this. Because it's so easy to get into comparing. And one of the other things that listeners might be tired of hearing me talk about it, but the other thing I've noticed about comparing is that, you know, there's always somebody who you could think is better than you in certain things, somebody who could think is worse than

you in certain things. But the thing I've noticed in both those cases is I'm not connecting to the people at all. I'm kind of off in my own isolated world. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, you're kind of in the theater of your mind rather than in the, you know, the real world producing something. And one of the phrases that I keep in mind on this sometimes is it's, it's very easy to judge from the crowd. It's much harder to be in the arena and actually do the work. And as much as possible, I think we should try to keep ourselves in the arena, rather than up in the crowd judging what's going on in the field. Yeah, I was just on somebody else's show earlier today doing an interview. And he's he's somebody who's also in the bodybuilding world, which I thought it was interesting to have me on.

Nonetheless, we talked a little bit about that. And I'd just be curious about your perspective, because in the bodybuilding weightlifting world, there certainly is a great degree of comparison in physique, for example, or things like that. And it's easy to see how that quote from Martha Graham makes sense in a creative expression. How would you handle comparison in a more physical sense like that? Yeah, that's a good question. As someone who's an athlete, I feel like comparison and competitiveness often get confused, you know, and so for a long time, for most of my athletic career, I was very comparison focused, right? Like, how am I outperforming the person next to me or how am I performing against the team

that I'm playing against? But competitiveness does not necessarily require you to compare. You can compete against yourself. You can compete at the highest level possible. You can try to improve and be as ambitious as possible. But the judgment of whether or not it's good or whether or not you're better, actually, if you think about it, does not help you perform. It's not the performance. The performance itself is what matters, not the judgment of it from your side. And if we take

the bodybuilding example, comparing yourself is not what makes you a better bodybuilder, right? It's like doing more reps or focusing on a new type of exercise that maybe you've neglected in the past or optimizing your nutrition to a certain degree. You know, it's like spending time in the arena of doing the work that makes the difference. It's being more focused and missing fewer workouts. These are the things that actually drive better results, not how much time you spend comparing yourself to someone else. The comparison is not the work, but we often confuse it with being associated with the work or motivating the work. And so we spend too much time focused on it. If you were able to relieve yourself of all comparison, but do more work than you had

before, you would probably get better results. So I think oftentimes we use comparison as a crutch by saying, oh, this is what motivates me or this is what, you know, I'm always thirsting to get to the next level or whatever. But being focused on comparison and judgment is not the same as being competitive. And being competitive is great, but it doesn't require you to compare yourself to others. I think that can be similar to worrying, right? A lot of people think that worrying about something is the same as doing something about it. And one of the rules I tried to put in place for myself, and I do with varying degrees of success, though, is that if I start to worry about something, I ask myself, is there any

positive action I can take that would improve this outcome, whatever that thing is? And if so, I try and do it. And almost instantly upon that, the worry or the comparison or all that stuff vanishes once I'm engaged in some sort of positive action. Yeah, that's actually one of the main reasons why I tend to not watch any news or television really, unless it's an Ohio State football game. But I found that after a while, it was like watching the news didn't give me any particular action to take to become a better person. It didn't allow me to do anything positive or to make the world a better place in any way. And this is different. The criticism that I'll get sometimes when I talk about this is people are like, oh, well, you're an uninformed citizen. Well, this is different than saying that I don't

want to learn or that I'm uninformed, right? If it's something that's important to me or that I want to get better at or an action that I actually want to take to make the world a better place, then of course I'm going to seek out information to become better on it. But what I'm saying is I found that watching the news is relatively useless for me because getting that information pushed on me doesn't prompt me to make any better action. All it does is just prompt me to worry or think about things that don't allow me to become a better person in any way. Yeah, I agree 100%. I think that's, I've been doing a, uh, a course for some of the listeners on the seven habits of highly effective people. And that falls right into that, um,

circle of concern versus circle of influence kind of thing. Yep, exactly. So the last thing that I'd like to talk about is, and I love the way you phrased it, because it's, but it's something I'm always talking about and always wrestling with. And it's, and you say, ambition and contentment are not opposites, but we often make the mistake of thinking that they are incompatible. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because that's a fascinating topic for me, is how do you be ambitious and content at the same time? Yeah, it's, you know, and this is something I certainly haven't mastered to any degree. It's, it's something I've been thinking

about a lot recently and that, you know, you look at on one hand, competitiveness and drive is something that is central for me. I mean, it's the athlete in me is like, yes, I love this. And then on the other hand, you see people who are, you know, I was talking about, I was talking with some friends the other day about a particular entrepreneur that we know, and he said, he's literally the only person I know who does not want more. And when you think about that, it's like, wow, that is a really powerful thing, right? To not want more, that has to be the ultimate definition of success, right? To be completely satisfied with where you're at. And so on one hand, you're like, oh, if be completely satisfied with where you're at.

And so on one hand, you're like, oh, if I'm satisfied with where I'm at, then why would I feel driven or ambitious to move to the next level? But then on the other hand, you're like, well, I want to get to the next level. Growth is something that's very important to me. So how do I merge these two? How do I make these two things connect? And the best metaphor that I had heard of, it came from this book I was reading called The Inner Game of Tennis And the best metaphor that I had heard of, it came from this book I was reading called The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Galway. And he talks about a rose seed. And basically he says when a rose seed is planted, we don't criticize it for not having roots or not having stems or whatever. And then it grows and sprouts into a bud and a stem. And at that point, we don't criticize it for not being a full-grown tree or not having branches or more leaves.

And then it continues to grow and it develops more leaves and strong and so on. And at no point during this, this, uh, sequence, do we criticize the rose for being immature or underdeveloped or not, you know, fulfilling its full potential or not being ready yet. Right. But, uh, but it also never stops growing. So it's perfectly, it's perfect the way that it is at any given time. It's what it's supposed to be. It's content. It's happy. But it's also ambitious. It never stops growing.

And so I think that that's the type of metaphor and approach that I would love to take with my own life. It's like I am perfectly happy with who I am now, satisfied with the type of person I am, satisfied with what I've achieved. I feel self-confident. I don't feel like I have to prove myself to others or justify myself in some way. I don't feel a need to compare myself. I simply feel present and at peace. But I'm also never going to stop growing simply because that's what I do. Not because it requires me to be unhappy with my life or the current state that I have. Not because it requires me to constantly question whether I'm doing enough or whether I am enough, but simply because growing is what I do. Just as a rose seed grows, so do I. And I think that that idea of being both content and ambitious

is a really powerful thing that I would love to be able to master or at least do on a consistent basis. Yeah, that is such a great analogy. And I almost am tempted to end the interview with what you just said, because it was so powerful. But I think it is that so many of us have this idea that it's dissatisfaction or unhappiness that provides the impetus for growth or change. And that certainly is true. You can't deny that that is one of them.

But I like what you said. I think I actually go further. And I think it's not just what you do, or what a rose does. But I think it's kind of what the universe does, right? It's there is a clear bias towards growth and change and move forward that seems embedded in everything. And that's where I always get sort of, because you've got sort of the contemplative practices like buddhism that say well you know desire or craving is the is the the problem and you have one hand i go well yeah i kind of see that and then on the other hand i see that that idea of growth is seems inherent and i love the way you put that yeah yeah i agree it's it's a very interesting balance to strike and it's also i think a very difficult balance to maintain over the long run you know like in any given moment maybe we feel that way but it's it's also, I think, a very difficult balance to maintain over the long run. You know, like in any given moment, maybe we feel that way, but it's a challenge to

maintain that day after day. Well, James, thanks so much for coming on the show. This has been a wonderful conversation and I'll have links to your website and I will, you know, I do and will continue to encourage anybody to go read them because I think you're very, like I said, very common sense, very practical, and things are presented in a way that it's easy to take something powerful away. So thanks so much for coming on the show. Oh, yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me. I hate to leave people without anything. So if they, you know, obviously, they're welcome to

stop by the website if they like, but if they want more information about some of the habit stuff that we talked about specifically, like I have a couple exercises, there's this T chart exercise, it's relatively useful for building new habits. And a couple other ideas. I put them all in a little guide and it's totally free. They can download it at jamesclear.com slash habits. So if you feel like checking out more, feel free to pop over there and give it a look. Excellent. And I'll link to that also in our show notes. Well, thanks, James. Have a great afternoon. Sure thing. All right. Take care. Bye.

All right. You bet. Bye. You can learn more about James Clear and this podcast at oneufeed.net slash clear.