The One You Feed - James Clear on the Compounding Power of Habits Part 2

Episode Date: October 31, 2018

Chances are, you've heard the name James Clear. Especially if you have done any research whatsoever about building habits. That's kinda his neck of the woods. His work has appeared in The New York Times, CBS This Morning, Time, Entrepreneur and he has taught in colleges around the world. In this episode, part 2 of a 2 part series, he talks more about his new book, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones. You'll learn some really specific, easy and flat out "why didn't I think of that" genius methods to apply to your life and habits.Get Ad-Free Episodes and MoreQuip electric toothbrush fraction of the cost of other electric toothbrushes www.getquip.com/wolf and get first refill packet freeBombas INCREDIBLY comfortable socks which is reason enough to wear them but they ALSO donate a pair to a local homeless shelter for every pair that they sell get 20% off first purchase www.bombas.com/wolf offer code WOLFBlinkist- read or listen to thousands of nonfiction book summaries all on your phone in under 15 minutes www.blinkist.com/wolf to start your7-day free trial  In This Interview, James Clear and I Discuss...His book, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad OnesHabits are a response to the physical cues in our environmentIncreasing the friction it takes to complete the taskThe more you increase the steps between you and the bad behavior or decrease the steps between you and the good behavior the betterHabit stacking/Anchoring"After _____ I will _____"The more specific the betterSocial environment and habitsYou want to join groups where your desired behavior is the normal behaviorMake it easyThe two-minute ruleA habit must be established before it can be improvedOptimize for the starting line rather than the finish lineMake it satisfyingFeel successful at the endBring the long-term consequences into the short termJames Clear LinksHomepageInstagramTwitter  Please support the show with a donationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If I leave the phone in another room, then I never go get it in the morning, which is always so funny to me because I never wanted it enough to put in 45 seconds of work. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like 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 guys, here's part two of the interview with James Clear. He has a new book called Atomic Habits, an easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. James's work has appeared in the New York Times, Time, and Entrepreneur, and on CBS This Morning, and he has taught in colleges around the world. His website, jamesclear.com, receives millions of visitors each month and hundreds of thousands subscribed to his email newsletter. He's the creator of the Habits Academy, the premier training platform for

organizations and individuals that are interested in building better habits in life and work. So let's talk about making it obvious. One of the things that you talk about in the book, and there's so much research behind it, is you say environment is the invisible hand that shapes human environment. So a lot of the making obvious or invisible, right, the inversion of that law is really about how we structure our environment. So a lot of the making obvious or invisible, right? The inversion of that law is really about how we structure our environment. Right. So let me just give you some tangible examples. Um, many of our habits are a response to the physical cues that are in our environment. And, uh, so let's take the habit of watching television. You know, like if you walk into pretty much any living room, where do all the couches and chairs face? They all face the TV.

So it's like, what is this room designed to get you to do? Right. It's the most obvious thing in that environment, the very prevalent cue. So there are a variety of things you could do to change that. So in this case, we're talking about an inversion of the first law, make it invisible to watch TV. So you could take the remote control and you could put it in a drawer instead of leaving it out on the coffee table. You could take the television itself and put it inside a wall unit or behind like a cabinet and doors. You could also, uh, increase the friction associated with the task. So like if you wanted to, you could take the batteries out of the remote control and then

that adds like an extra five or 10 seconds. And maybe it's enough time for you to be like, am I, do I really want to watch this right now? Or am I just turning it on mindlessly? You could unplug the TV after each use and then only plug it back in. If you can say the name of the show you want to watch. So you're not allowed to just like mindlessly turn Netflix on and find something. And if you really wanted to be extreme about it and you wanted to reduce the

cues, you could take the TV off the wall, put it in the closet and then only take it out when you really wanted to watch something bad enough to set it up again. But the point here is that there's kind of like a range of options. And the more that you can increase the steps between you and the bad behaviors and reduce the steps between you and the good behaviors, and the more that you can make the cues of your good habits obvious, the more likely you are to fall into those. So to give you another example, when I wanted to build a flossing habit, I realized that I brushed my teeth twice a day, but I just didn't floss consistently. And one of the reasons was

because I had floss hidden away in a drawer in the bathroom. I just like, wouldn't think about it. I would, I would forget it cause it wasn't obvious. So I bought one of those, a little bowl and, uh, some of the flossers and I put them in the bowl and put it right next wasn't obvious. So I bought one of those, a little bowl and some of the flossers and I put them in the bowl and put it right next to my toothbrush. And now I brush my teeth, put the toothbrush down, pick a flosser up, do it right then. And that was pretty much all I had to do to build the habit of flossing. It kind of surprised me that like that was the only change that needed to happen. But it just, once it was obvious, it fell into place. And many habits are like that. And unfortunately, the cues of many bad habits are also like that. And so if you can cut them out,

if you can reduce exposure to those negative cues, you often find that the bad habit fades away naturally. The other classic example of that is if you want to play guitar more, don't have it in the case, which is one of those things that is 100% true. But when I think about it, I'm like, man, what, what, what creatures we are as humans. It takes eight seconds to take a guitar out of a case. And yet truly that difference of eight seconds makes a ton of difference in, I mean, A, it's that I see it because it's out, but B, there is just even, and this will get, this gets more to the make it easy stage, but, but just even that little bit of friction of having to open the case, get it out. I mean, it's, it's ridiculous, but that's, you know, it works. So, uh, a friend of

mine plays the violin and he was not practicing nearly as much as he wanted to or needed to. So he took his violin and he placed it right in the middle of his living room floor on a stand. And he was like, now I pass it like, you know, a dozen times a day. So I ended up playing like an hour a day just because it's there. Yep. And, uh, this also your example, the guitar, uh, the guitar case, it shows how like habits can bleed into each other and how it can be useful to, so like, let's say that you, uh, go to guitar lessons, you have an instructor or you play with a band or whatever. When you come home, you already have a habit of what you do with your guitar. When you come home, usually you keep in the case and you put in the closet or put it in the, you know, in the corner or whatever. Um, but instead it can be really

useful to build a new habit of when I get home, I take my guitar out of the case and I put it on the stand in the middle of the living room or on the side of the whatever. Right. In an obvious location, because just that action of what you do with it when you come home makes it easier for you to pick it up again throughout the day and play it. Yeah. What you just described, there's a borderline of two things, an implementation intention and habit stacking. Right. Yeah. So habit stacking, I think it's this really useful method for building a new habit. And I first heard about it from B.J. Fogg,, I think it's this really useful method for building a new habit. And, um, I first heard about it from BJ fog is this professor at Stanford and, uh, the basic anchoring, right? I think. Yeah, yeah, he does. Yes. I think he does called anchoring. Um, anyway, his idea is like, you want to anchor this new habit to a previous one that you have,

right? Do you want to, in my language, you want to stack the new habit on top of the old one. So for example, uh, you could, let's say you want to build the habit of meditation. You could say, when I make my morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for 60 seconds or after I make my morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for 60 seconds. And that's basically the formula for this is you say after blank, I will blank. So in the case of the guitar one, you could say, blank, I will blank. So in the case of the guitar one, you could say, after I come home from work or after I come home from a guitar practice, I will place my guitar, take my guitar out of the case and place it on the stand. Uh, and the more that you can come up with good habit stacks like that, the more you can prime your environment for taking the effective action. They're so useful

also because a lot of times what, again again when i'm working with people about putting this stuff into actual practice is the time of the day isn't always consistent so ideally you'd say i meditate at 7 a.m every morning but the problem is different things happen but you do walk your dog every morning right might be seven o'clock might be 7 0 5 might be 6 30 might be 8 you know right so the the advantage of that habit stacking or anchoring is that you can, the time doesn't have to be exact. You don't get thrown off if you miss your time because you're, you're, you're tying it to something that is going to happen, but it might be a little bit variable. You get home late from work instead of I meditate at six. I meditate when I walk in the door from work is, is a, you know what I mean? It's a more

practical point. Uh, it flexes with you a little bit. Right. And, um, this, that's why it's important to choose triggers for your habit stack that are things you actually already do every day and are, I guess, more specific would be better. Like if it's a vague thing, like, um, you know, after I get home from work, I will, uh, organize one item of clothing in my closet or something like that. Well, that's fine. But like, it actually would be better if it was more specific. Like after I take off my shoes from work, I will organize one item of clothing in my closet. And, uh, because of this, the specificity of it, it makes it very clear when to act. Yep. All right. Let's keep moving.

I've got about 10 more things we could talk about there, but I do think that idea of specificity is so critical. Sure. Knowing when, where as much exactness as you can have is such a big, is such a big deal. Let's get on to number two, make it attractive. So, you know, different habits are attractive to us at different times. So timing is part of it. But the more that you view a habit as attractive, the more likely you are to feel motivated to do it. And I think one important area to focus on here is social environment. So we've talked a little bit about physical environment and how that can prompt your habits. But social environment often determines what habits we find attractive. So, you know, everyone is part of multiple tribes.

Some of the tribes that we're a part of are really big, like what it means to be American or what it means to be French or what it means to be Buddhist or Christian or whatever. Um, and some of the tribes are small, like what it means to be a member of your local CrossFit gym or a neighbor on your street or to volunteer at your local school. But all of these tribes, large and small, have a set of shared expectations, a set of shared behaviors that are part of them. So just imagine some habits that like most people do, like when you step onto the elevator, you turn around to face the front. Or if you have a job interview, you wear a suit and a tie, or a dress, or something nice. Now, there's no reason that you have to job interview, you wear a suit and a tie or a dress or something nice.

Now, there's no reason that you have to do those things, right? Like you could face the back of the elevator. You could wear a bathing suit to a job interview. Like you don't have to do it, but you don't. It's a great idea, actually. Because it violates the shared expectations of the group, right? You don't do it because it goes against the grain of what the tribe wants. You don't do it because it goes against the grain of what the tribe wants.

And so the lesson there is that when habits go with the expectations of the tribes that we are a part of, they're very attractive because they help you belong. They help you fit in. You get praised and approved of by others for doing them. When habits go against the grain of our tribes, they're very unattractive. And so whether or not you feel motivated to do something is often contingent upon the people that you're surrounded by. And, uh, the punchline here, the practical takeaway is you want to join groups where your desired behavior is the normal behavior, because if it's normal in that group, it's going to seem attractive to you because it'll be the type of thing that helps you fit in. This is why you see people, you know, like people will join a CrossFit

gym and all of a sudden they start eating paleo and they buy certain types of shoes and they, you know, like all, they pick up all these other habits that they weren't even trying to do in the first place. They were just trying to get fit, but they do those because that's what it means to be part of that tribe. They start to get friends there and then they, they collect all these other habits. So, um, the caveat that I like to add to that, because in a sense, when you ask people to change their habits, you're kind of asking them to change their tribe to a certain degree. And that can be hard. That can be intimidating. And if you're, um, if your choice is either, I get to do the habits that I want to do, but I have to be alone. I have

to like leave the tribe I'm in to go do this new thing. Or I have to stick with my old habits, which aren't really the greatest, but I get to stay as part of the group. I get to keep my friends and family. Then we would often, we often choose to be wrong with the crowd than right by ourselves. And, um, it takes a very bold and courageous thing to be on your own. And so it's easier to go from one tribe to another. It may still not be easy overall, but it's easier if you have a new group of friends to go to. And that's why I think it's important to have like shared context with that new group or to try to find these like mutually beneficial areas of overlap so that you can be friends quickly around one thing while you're trying to pick up the new habit. So let me just give one more example.

Steve Cam is a friend of mine. He runs a company called Nerd Fitness. And Nerd Fitness is all about getting in shape, but it's specifically organized for people who identify as nerds who are into Star Wars or video games or the Marvel Universe, Spider-Man, Batman, whatever. And my point here is that if you're joining that group, getting in shape is still an intimidating thing. It doesn't change the habit of getting fit. But you can maybe bond with people over like your mutual love of Star Wars. And you're like, oh, now I'm friends with Mark and Lisa. And because we're friends, you know, they work out three days a week. So maybe, you know, if they can do it, I can do it, too.

And if you have that mutual area of overlap to develop a sense of belonging and friendship around, it becomes easier to adopt the habits of that new tribe. So it still requires effort, but I think that can help make those new habits more attractive. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth plus does tom cruz really do his own stunts his stuntman reveals the answer and you never know who's going to drop by mr brian cranson is with us how are you hello my friend wayne knight about jurassic park wayne knight welcome to really no really sir bless you all hello newman and you never know when howie

mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really? No, really. Yeah, really. No, really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really? No, Really? And you can find it on the i on the changes you're trying to make, even if those people aren't really, it's not, you can't get them into your life physically easily, whether that be their physical location, whether that be you've got a job and a family and so you don't have much time to be out. You can still get some of that support and that tribe and that belonging.

I don't think it's as good as, I can't change all that other stuff. So I just don't even look for that group. Whereas a step in the right direction is can I find that support, encouragement, guidance online? Yeah. And it's just getting better. I actually just talked to someone. They had, she had a fascinating idea for this business where it's work. They're working with self-improvement ideas. So, you know, weight loss group or things like that, but through virtual reality. And so, you know, now, right now you join like a Facebook group, you know, weight loss group or things like that, but through virtual reality. And so, you know,

now, right now you join like a Facebook group, you know, and you, you get support for your weight loss goal or whatever, and that's fine. That's better than nothing. It's, it's great. Uh, but we all know instinctively that being part of a Facebook group is not the same thing as like being in a room with people who share your goals. But if you can put on a headset and suddenly you like step into this room, it's kind of like you're watching a screen or in a video game. And now you're in the same room with 10 other people who are one person's in Montana. Somebody else's in Arizona. People are spread out all over, but you all have the same goals. Um,

then suddenly it starts to feel very real. Um, and, uh, and so I think we're going to see more of that over the next decade or two and certainly well into the future, where you can basically replicate what it feels like in real life. And now suddenly, you can be the parent who works a 60 hour week and has two kids at home, and you only have time from eight to 9pm. But during that one hour slot, you can connect with people from all over who share the same goals. Yeah, I think that's great. I mean, it's one of the things I spend a lot of time wrestling with my own in my own head is, all right, we've got this show. And there's, you know, we've got a got a large number of listeners, right, who have similar values,

similar, you know, how, how is it that we could use this thing that's virtual, and make it more supportive, we have a Facebook group that works good. It's nice, but it's it is different, you know, and, you know, it's very difficult to organize, you know, um, meetups in a hundred different, you know, we're not that big, right. You know? So I think often about that, how, what, what are ways to create some of that benefit for the community? Um, so I'm always looking for other options. So I'm, I'm, I'll ping you afterwards to learn more about that. Yeah, for sure. I'll be happy. All right. How about number three, make it easy. So if you're trying

to think like, where should I start with a habit? What's the first thing I should do? This is probably where I would recommend starting, which is essentially making your habits as easy and convenient as possible. The more, um, the more frictionless I have, it is the more convenient it is, the more likely you are to fall through. So just as an obvious example of this, consider your phone. Uh, you know, we all have our smartphones on us all the time. And one of the things about smartphones is that they are so frictionless, so easy to use that we slide into them all the time, even if we don't really want to. So I had a, um, an interesting thing that I realized recently. So this year I've started, uh, doing a new habit where I leave my phone in another room until

lunch each day. So I have a home office, so it's not that far away. It's maybe like 45 seconds up the stairs and into another room. Well, if my phone is next to me, if it's on the desk, I'm like everybody else. I'll check it every three minutes, you know, like I'm just looking at it because it's there. But if I do that, if I leave the phone in another room, then I never go get it in the morning, which is always so funny to me because it's like, well, I was checking it like a hundred times over those three hours, but I never, so in a sense you would think I wanted to look at it, but I never wanted it enough to put in 45 seconds of work. Right. And so this is the, the inversion of the, of the third law, which is make it difficult. But the point here is that if

you can add a little bit of friction to the bad habits, they often fade away. And if you can reduce the friction of the good habits, they often rise up and become much easier to perform. Now, the simplest way to do this for building a good habit is to practice what I call the two minute rule. And the two minute rule is basically you take whatever habit that you're trying to build and you scale it down to just the first two minutes. So, you know, do 30 minutes of yoga becomes take out your yoga mat or read 25 books a year becomes read one page, um, or write a book becomes write one sentence, whatever you can do in two minutes or less. And the key here is that you're really trying to automate or habitualize the first two minutes of the behavior, just the beginning of it.

And this is way more powerful than maybe it first seems. And the reason is because a habit must be established before it can be improved. If you don't master the art of showing up, if you don't master the art of just doing the habit every day, then there's nothing to optimize. So I had a reader who actually did this. He ended up losing over a hundred pounds. And one of the things that he did was that he went to the gym, but he had a rule where he wasn't allowed to stay for longer than five minutes. And it sounds silly, right? It sounds kind of ridiculous. Cause it's like, why would you go to the gym for only five minutes? But what you realize is he was mastering the art of showing up. He became the type of

person who would go to the gym every day, even if it was just for five minutes. And then after like six weeks, he was like, you know, I'm coming here all the time. I kind of feel like staying longer or figuring out what program I should do or get a personal trainer or whatever. But it's really crucial to do that. I think you need to optimize for the starting line rather than the finish line. Most people are always optimizing for the finish line. How much money do I want to earn? How much weight do I want to lose the next six months? I might, whatever. Um, but if you optimize for the starting line, how can I master the art of going to the

gym for just five minutes? Then you've got options because you're actually there every day. Uh, and same thing is true for, you know, if you write one sentence a day, it's like, well, it's going to be hard for me to write a book if I only write one sentence. Well, that's true, but you literally can't write a book if you aren't the type of person who at least doesn't write one sentence a day. It's like, well, it's going to be hard for me to write a book if I only write one sentence. Well, that's true, but you literally can't write a book if you aren't the type of person who at least doesn't write one sentence every day. So I think it's important to scale it down to the first two minutes and master that. And once you make it as easy as possible and you master the art of showing up, then you can optimize and improve from there. Yeah. My meditation habits, a classic example of this, because I would meditate for a while and I'd quit.

And then I'd pick up another book and they'd say, you should meditate 30 minutes a day. So I'd sit down to meditate for 30 minutes a day, which was, you know, I've joked before, like when I sit down to meditate, it's like the circus comes to town. You know, that's a long time to spend with the circus when you're not used to it. When I said, you know what, I'm going to meditate for two minutes every day. Then I built that. And then I could go to three and five and 10. I mean, it totally changed everything because it was something I was able to do. And, and I think, and this leads us a little bit into four, you know, which is to make it satisfying. I was able to have the satisfaction of feeling like I'm meditating every day.

Instead of the, I did good for two days, then I did crappy for five, then I did okay for one, that daily, day after day, began to, all the way back to the identity, too. I started to feel like I'm a meditator. I'm doing it. It feels good. I'm satisfied. I want to do it again. And Bill, I think that is one of such a fundamental ideas that make it easy.

And even if it's small, it can still reinforce that identity, like you just mentioned. And if it reinforces the identity, if it helps you believe that, hey, I am a meditator, then even though it's small, it actually is big, you know, it's meaningful. That's right. And so I think for that reason, that's a really good place to start. If you're looking to build a habit is scale it down, master the art of showing up and reinforce that identity. Yeah. Yeah. I will talk with people about that. Like, well, okay, you know what? Uh, how about we start with meditating for three minutes a day? You know, I'm not going to get peaceful meditating three minutes a day, right? No, you may not, but you can become a meditator, but you can become a meditator, right? But you

can, you, you can make progress and um you know yeah just that that starting small is is so critical One of the most important things we can do for our health is brushing our teeth. Yet most of us don't do it properly. Quip was designed to make brushing your teeth more simple, affordable, and even enjoyable. It has sensitive sonic vibrations, gentle enough on your sensitive gums. Some people brush too hard, and some electric toothbrushes are too abrasive. It has, as I've mentioned before, the two-minute timer that pulses every 30 seconds to remind you when to switch sides, helping get a full and even clean. It has a multi-use cover

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And that's why they're also backed by 20,000 dental professionals. And if you go to getquip.com slash wolf right now, you get your first refill pack for free with a Quip electric toothbrush. That's your first refill pack free at getquip.com slash wolf. Spelled out G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash wolf. All right. Number four. So the fourth law is to make it satisfying. And the idea here is it's really about the ending of the habit. You want to, you want, whenever I have it finishes, you want to feel successful in some way. You want to feel satisfied in some way. And the reason is because if you enjoy a habit, it's kind of like there's this

pleasurable emotional signal in the brain where it's like, Hey, this felt good. You should do this again next time. And so in a sense, we could say positive emotions, cultivate habits and negative emotions, destroy them. When you have this satisfying emotion associated with it, you want to do it again next time. And, um, there are a variety of examples of this. Some of them, uh, some of the best ones are from businesses. So toothpaste is a common example that's given. There's no reason that toothpaste needs to taste minty. It doesn't, the mint flavor doesn't actually increase the effectiveness of the toothpaste itself. It doesn't make it clean your teeth better, but it does lead to a clean mouth feel and makes it more satisfying to brush

your teeth. And because it's more satisfying and enjoyable, you have a reason to turn around again and do it the next time. One of my favorite examples, recent examples from car manufacturers. So a couple of years ago, BMW added this feature to one of their cars where if you really slammed on the accelerator and pressed on the gas, it would pump additional engine growl through the speakers in the car. So it made it more satisfying to press on the gas. through the speakers in the car. So it made it more satisfying to press on the gas. Um, Ford had a similar setup where they had like this valve that normally the car would be soundproofed. And if you really slammed on the gas, the valve would open and let the engine noise in. But the, the idea here is that there's some additional immediate satisfaction with driving, driving the car, and that gets you to enjoy it and want to repeat it and so on.

And, uh, the same is true for any habit, but it's really about the speed. It's really about feeling successful right away. And this is one of the challenges with building good habits or breaking bad ones is that behaviors often produce multiple outcomes across time. And those outcomes are somewhat misaligned. So for a bad habit, the immediate outcome is often favorable. You know, like if you eat a donut right now, it's sugary and tasty and feels good. But the ultimate outcome, if you continue that habit for a month or a year or whatever is unfavorable. Um, for good habits, it's usually the reverse, right? Like the immediate outcome

of going to the gym right now is you sweat it's effortful, requires energy and sacrifice, but the ultimate outcome that you're in shape a month or a year from now is favorable. And so a lot of the battle of building good habits and breaking bad ones is about figuring out how to take those long-term consequences of your bad habits and pull them into the present moment. So you feel like a little bit of the pain right now, and you have a reason to avoid it and taking the long-term rewards of your good habits and pulling those into the present moment so that you feel successful and feel satisfied right now and have a reason to show up again. And the ultimate example of this is a reinforcement of your desired identity. If you feel like, for example, so to continue this exercise one, I just said, you know, the immediate outcome for exercise is that it's effortful and

requires sacrifice. It's not that enjoyable, but that doesn't have to be true. And this is one reason why it's important to choose forms of exercise that you really enjoy. You know, like not everybody has to lift like a bodybuilder. If you want to go hiking or cycling or kayaking or whatever, do whatever form is most pleasing to you, because if it makes you feel good in the moment, you're going to want to repeat it again in the future. Similarly, if you can kind of reframe this using that growth mindset kind of thing that we talked about earlier and see it as, Hey, every time I show up at the gym, I am being the type of person who doesn't miss workouts or I'm reinforcing that identity. Well, now, as soon as you walk in the door and do one rep, you can feel satisfied. You can feel

good about the, the effort, even if, uh, you're still waiting for those delayed rewards to accumulate in the background for the scale to change or for you to get stronger or whatever. Um, and so I think what you see is that people who are often appear to be good at delaying gratification from the outside, it's like, man, he shows up at the gym multiple days a week. He must be really good at delaying gratification and like working hard for a long-term goal. Often for the person themselves, it doesn't feel that way. They instead are focused on an alternative way to feel immediately satisfied in the moment. It's like exercise makes me feel good. It reinforces my identity of someone who doesn't miss workouts. I get to hang out with my friends. I get, it feels good to move my body a little bit, whatever, but they're focused on the immediate outcome that

is pleasurable rather than the delayed gratification that they're waiting for. Yep. I, and back to BJ fog, he talks a lot about celebrating victories, right? I think that's the, that's the reason, right? If you celebrate even the little change that feels good. Yeah. It doesn't have to be big, but you just need some positive emotional signal in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. The other, the one that worked for me for exercise was when I went from exercising cause I would look better in the future or because I wouldn't have a heart attack in the future, all that. When I really became very focused on every single time in my life I've ever exercised, I felt better when I was done. There's never been a time where I was like, I wish I didn't do that. So that's what I focus on is like, it'd be great if I could

focus on like, boy, it feels good to be on the treadmill. And actually sometimes I can as I've gotten better, but I do know that, you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes from now, I'll feel good right then. And the same thing with eating. Like I've started to really focus on like after I eat like crap, how does it feel right then in that moment? You know, like, oh, I feel full or I feel, you know, like trying to shrink that window of gratification, you know, between the result.

And it is such a tricky thing. We're not well wired for that. Something that's, you know, planning for something that's way out in the future. We're, yeah, we're definitely wired evolutionarily speaking for immediate gratification because we had to be to survive, you know, like you had to account for, is there a lion threatening right in me right now? Or is there a storm that I need to take shelter from? Have I eaten today? Like it's very near term, immediate focused. But the downside of that in modern society is that there's all kinds of unintended consequences that now come, some of which we just talked about. But as a final example of this, it can be very useful to have immediate satisfaction for habits that what I would call

are like habits of avoidance. So things like I don't want to drink alcohol for 30 days, or I don't want to go out to eat at restaurants as often, or I don't want to spend money on Amazon today. In a sense, those people set challenges like that for themselves a lot. But those habits like that are really hard because they're not inherently satisfying. You know, like what is the, what is the satisfaction of not going out to eat at the restaurant? Right. You're just like resisting temptation to go out. Yeah. So I had a, a reader who wanted to do that. He and his wife wanted to eat out less and cook more meals at home. And so what they did was they opened up a savings account and they labeled it trip to Europe. And then whenever they wouldn't go out to eat at a restaurant, they would transfer $50 over to the account.

And being able to see that $50 go over and the savings account grow in the moment was just a little bit of immediate satisfaction that suddenly made it rewarding to stay at home and cook the meal. Um, and so little hacks like that, that give you some, a little bit of immediate pleasure in the moment can be really useful for sticking to some of those behaviors that otherwise wouldn't feel very satisfying. Yep. And keeping track of our habits is one of those things that is really useful. And you make that point that part, one of the main things that makes it useful is it, it makes it more satisfying. Yeah. It feels good to like, you know, I write down all my workouts, right. I log the exercises and the reps and the sets and all that. And, uh, closing my journal at the end of a workout feels good to have banked another one and, you know, and wrote and written it down. And, uh, the simplest version of that is just

whenever you do a habit, you put an X on the calendar for that day, but it's nice to have like a visual measurement of the progress you've made. It feels good to see yourself making progress and crossing off those habits. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Well, James, thanks so much for taking the time. I think we've, we've rapidly run out of time, but thanks for coming on again. Congrats on the new book and thanks for sharing all this with our listeners. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. I appreciate the opportunity. And if people want to check out the book, it's for sharing all this with our listeners. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity. And if people want to check out the book, it's called Atomic Habits, and you can just go to atomichabits.com. Yep, absolutely.

And we will have links in the show notes directly to that and all your other stuff. Tons of great writing on your website, too. So we'll point people there. Great. Thank you. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.