The One You Feed - Unlocking the Power of Identity: How Small Changes Lead to Big Transformations in Your Life with James Clear (Part 2)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Eight years ago, I was completely overwhelmed. Career, two teenage boys, a growing podcast, a mother who needed care. That's when I stumbled into something I now call the Stillpoint method, a way of using small moments throughout my day to change not how much I had to do, but how I felt while doing it. So I built something I wish I'd had back then. Overwhelm is optional, tools for when you can't do less. It's an email course that fits into moments that you already have less than 10 minutes total a day.

Starting point is 00:00:34 It's not about doing less. It's about relating differently to what you do. Holiday price is $29. Check it out at one you feed.net slash overwhelm. 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, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.

Starting point is 00:01:15 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,

Starting point is 00:01:43 how they feed their good wolf. Most of us set up our changes like a finish line problem, and then we're surprised when we don't want to run the race. James Clear makes a shift that I do. keep coming back to. Optimize for the starting line, not the finish line, not how do I transform my life, but how do I become the kind of person who shows up today? This episode is a re-release and it's a perfect conversation to revisit as we look towards 2026. It's also part two of a two-part series, so if you haven't heard part one, I'd start there. James and I recorded

Starting point is 00:02:20 this one in person and there's a real energy to the conversation. In part two, we talk about the power of scaling habits down to the first couple of minutes, why consistency starts to reshape identity, and how to make changes satisfying now, so you actually want to come back tomorrow. I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Are you thinking about senior living for yourself or a loved one? Choosing the right community is important.

Starting point is 00:02:46 At Amica Unionville, we offer personalized care that evolves with seniors' needs and 24-7 support and security for peace of mind. Plus, Amica Unionville residents never need to worry about cooking or cleaning. so they can focus on enjoying social activities and rediscovering passions. We're ready to welcome you. Don't spend your time on a wait list. Book a visit now at 905-947-990 or at amica.ca.ca.ca slash unionville.

Starting point is 00:03:10 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. Right. So let me just give you some tangible examples. Many of our habits are a response to the physical cues that are in our environment. And 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 does this room design to get you to do, right? It's the most obvious thing in that. that environment, the very prevalent queue. So there are a variety of things you could do to

Starting point is 00:03:58 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 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 um 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

Starting point is 00:04:35 want to watch so you're not allowed to just like mindlessly turn Netflix on and find something um 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 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

Starting point is 00:05:14 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 because it 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 needed to happen. But it just once it was obvious, it fell into place. And many habits are like that. And, um, unfortunately the cues of many bad habits are also like that and so if you can cut them out if you can

Starting point is 00:05:55 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 a 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 yeah 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 right because it's out but b there is just even and this will get this gets more to the make it easy right 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 a friend of mine plays the violin and he was not practicing

Starting point is 00:06:43 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 end up playing like an hour a day just because it's there. Yep. And this also, your example, the guitar, 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 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. Right. Usually you keep in the case and you put in the closet or put it in the, know, in the corner or whatever.

Starting point is 00:07:20 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 in implementation, intention, and habit stacking.

Starting point is 00:07:43 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 BJ Fogg, who's this professor at Stanford. And the basic idea is anchoring, right? Yeah, yeah, he does. Yes, I think he does call it anchoring. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:07:57 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, 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. to take for 60 seconds. And that's basically the formula for this is you say, after blank, I will blank. Yeah. So in the case of the guitar one, you could say after I come home from work

Starting point is 00:08:28 or after I come home from a guitar practice, I will place my guitar, taking my guitar out of the case and place it on the stand. 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, 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, I'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.

Starting point is 00:09:01 Right. Might be 7 o'clock, might be 705, might be 630, might be 8.10, you know. Right. So 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 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

Starting point is 00:09:24 from work is is a you know what i mean it's a yeah i think that's a great point uh it flexes with you right right 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 yeah and are i guess more specific would be better Like, if it's a vague thing, like, you know, after I get home from work, I will 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 because of the specificity of it, it makes it very clear when to act. Yep.

Starting point is 00:10:07 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 deal. Let's get on to number two, make it attractive. So, you know, different habits are attractive to us at different times.

Starting point is 00:10:26 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 promise. 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 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. And some of the tribes are small, like what it means to be a member of your local CrossFit

Starting point is 00:11:02 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 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.

Starting point is 00:11:40 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. 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.

Starting point is 00:12:11 And 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 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

Starting point is 00:12:40 part of that tribe. They start to get friends there, and then they collect all these other habits. So 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 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.

Starting point is 00:13:14 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 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, share. 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

Starting point is 00:13:45 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.

Starting point is 00:14:18 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. that is so useful is that the internet in particular is that you can find people to support you on the changes you're trying to make, even if those people aren't really, you can't get them

Starting point is 00:15:18 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, I don't think it's as good as in person in real life but it is an option and I think that a lot of people I think just say well I can't change all 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

Starting point is 00:15:58 things like that but through virtual reality and so you know now 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 great. But we all know instinctively that being part of the 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 is in Arizona.

Starting point is 00:16:29 People are spread out all over. but you all have the same goals, then suddenly it starts to feel very real. That's great. 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 8 to 9 p.m. But during that one hour slot, you can connect with people from all over who show the same goals.

Starting point is 00:16:59 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 a, you know, we've 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, 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'll ping you afterwards to learn more about yeah for sure 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

Starting point is 00:17:53 the more frictionless a habit is, the more convenient it is, the more likely you are to follow through. So just as an obvious example of this, consider your phone. 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 an interesting thing that I realized recently. So this year, I've started 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,

Starting point is 00:18:36 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 inversion 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

Starting point is 00:19:03 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 do. 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 or write a book

Starting point is 00:19:33 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 100 pounds.

Starting point is 00:20:05 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 because 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.

Starting point is 00:20:35 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'm whatever. 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. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:20:54 And the same thing is true for, you know, if you write one sentence today. 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. When you mastered the art of showing up, then you can optimize and improve from there.

Starting point is 00:21:17 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 is 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 things. three, then five, then ten. I mean, it totally changed everything because it was something I was able to do. And I think, and this leads us a little bit into four, you know, which is to make

Starting point is 00:21:56 it satisfying. I was able to have the satisfaction of feeling like I'm meditating every day. Right. Right. Instead of the, I did good for two days, then I did crappy for five, and I did okay for one, that daily day after day began to, you know, 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

Starting point is 00:22:37 reason, that's a really good place to start if you're looking to build a habit is scale it down, master the artist 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 you you can make progress and um you know yeah just that that starting small is is so critical All right. So the fourth law is to make it satisfying.

Starting point is 00:23:29 And the idea here is it's really about the ending of the habit. You want whenever a habit 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.

Starting point is 00:23:53 When you have this satisfying emotion associated with it, you want to do it again next time. And there are a variety of examples of this. Some of them, 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.

Starting point is 00:24:22 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. 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 idea here is that there's some additional immediate satisfaction with driving the car.

Starting point is 00:25:02 And that gets you to enjoy it and want to repeat it and so on. And 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.

Starting point is 00:25:28 You know, like if you eat a donut right now, it's sugary and tasty and feels good. Yeah. But the ultimate outcome, if you continue that habit for a month or a year or whatever, is unfavorable. 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

Starting point is 00:26:03 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.

Starting point is 00:26:47 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. 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 effort, even if 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. 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.

Starting point is 00:27:33 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. 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. And back to BJ Fogg, he talks a lot about celebrating victories, right?

Starting point is 00:27:58 I think 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 one that worked for me for exercise was when I went from exercising because I would look better in the future or because I wouldn't have a heart attack in the future or 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 you didn't do that. Yeah. So that's what I focus on is like, it'd be great if I'd be great if I

Starting point is 00:28:33 I could focus on like boy it feels good to be on the treadmill and actually sometimes I can right 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 ugh or you know you know like trying to to shrink that that window of gratification you know you know know, between the result and it's, it is such a tricky thing. We're not well-wired for that planning for something that's way out in the future. Yeah, we're definitely wired, evolutionarily speaking, for immediate gratification because we had to be to survive. You know, like you had to

Starting point is 00:29:19 account for, is there a lion threatening me right now? Or is there a storm that I need to take shelter from or 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

Starting point is 00:30:02 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 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.

Starting point is 00:30:42 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. Yeah. 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 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 written it down and uh the simplest version of that

Starting point is 00:31:18 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 your yourself making progress and crossing off those habits. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Well, James, thanks so much for taking the time. I think 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 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.

Starting point is 00:31:55 lot on your tons of great rain on your website too so we'll point people there great thank you thank you so much for listening to the show if you found this conversation helpful inspiring or thought provoking i'd love for you to share it with a friend sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do we don't have a big budget and i'm certainly not a celebrity but we have something even better and that's you just hit the share button on your podcast app or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.

The One You Feed - Unlocking the Power of Identity: How Small Changes Lead to Big Transformations in Your Life with James Clear (Part 2)

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