How to Create Atomic Habits for a Better Life with James Clear (Part 2)

we hope you'll enjoy part two with James Clear. 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 forty five seconds of work. Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers 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 guys, here's part

two of the interview with James Clear. He has a new book called Atomic Habits and 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, James Clear dot 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. 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 all face the TV? So it's like, what is this room design to get

you to do? Right, it's the most obvious thing in that environment, the very prevalent que 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 indoors.

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 ten seconds, and maybe it's enough time for you to be like, I do I really want to watch this right now? 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 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 a range

of options. And the more that you can increase the steps between you and the bad behaviors and reduce the steps, but when you and the good behaviors, uh, And the more that you can make the cues of your good habits obvious, the more likely you are to to fall into those. So to give you another example, UM, 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 because 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 to my toothbrush. And now I brush my teeth. Put the toothbrush down, pick 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 the need 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. Now. Really, 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 one 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 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 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. 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. 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 too. 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. 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, around 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 as a borderline of two things and implementation intention and habit stacking, right, Yeah, so habit stacking, I think it's it's this really useful method for building a new habit. And um, I first heard about it from B. J. Fauk because it's professor at Stanford and the big Yeah,

yeah he does, yes, I think he does call it anchoring. Um. Anyway, his idea is like, you want to anchor this new habit to a previous one that you have, right, do you wanna 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 sixty seconds. Or after I make my morning cup of coffee, I will

meditate for sixty seconds. And that's basically the formula for this. As you say, after 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 habits 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, say I meditate it seven am every morning, But the problem is different things happen. But you do walk your dog every morning. It might be seven o'clock, might be seven oh five, mightbe six thirty, might be eight.

You know. 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 late home late from work instead of I meditate at six, I meditate when I walk in the door from work. Is a you know what I mean, It's a more practical, great point.

It flexes with your right and that's why it's important to choose triggers for your habits 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 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 my closet. And because of the specificity of it, it makes it very clear when to act. YEA, all right, let's keep moving. I've got about ten more things we could talk about there. But I do think that idea of specificity is so critical, knowing when where as much exactness as you can have is such a big is such a big deal. Let's get on too. Number two, make it attractive. So you know, different habits are attractive to us at different times, So

timing is part of it, um. 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 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 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. You don't have to do it, but you

do 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 are 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 will be the type of thing that helps you

fit in. This is why you see people, you know, like people join across fit Jim 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 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 if you're 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, Um, Steve cam It's a friend of mine who 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 up 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 think one of the things about technology 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 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 in a family and so you don't have much time

to be out. You could 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 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 a ship, 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, 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.

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 ten other people who are one person's in Montana, somebody else is in Arizona. People are spread out all over, but you all have

the same goals. Um, then suddenly it starts to feel very real 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 sixty hour week and has two kids at home and you only have time from eight to nine pm. But during that one hour slot you can connect with people from all over who shared the same goals. Yeah, I

think that's great. 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 got a large number of listeners, right who have similar values. 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 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'll ping you afterwards to learn more about that. Ye 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 the habit 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. 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 forty five 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 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 the 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 forty five seconds of work. 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 rules. 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 thirty minutes of yoga becomes take out your yoga mat, or read twenty five books a year becomes read one page um or write a book becomes right 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 at first seems uh. 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 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 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 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? 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 the same thing is true for you know, if you write one sentence today, it's like, well, it's gonna be hard for me to write 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 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 master the art of showing up,

then you can optimize and improve from there. Yet, my meditation habits a classic example of this because I would meditate for a while and I quit, and then I pick up another book, and they'd say she meditate thirty minutes a day. So I'd sit down to meditate for thirty minutes a day, which was you know, I've joked before like when I sit down to meditate, 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 I mean it totally changed everything because it was something I was able to do um 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 met I'm meditating every day, right, instead of the I did good for two days, and I did crappy for five, and I did okay for one that daily day after day began two is you know, all the way back to the identity to I started to feel like I'm a meditator. I'm doing 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 and actually is big, you know, it's meaningful. Um. And so I think for that reason that's a really good place to start if you're looking to be able to have it is scale it down,

master the art, showing up and reinforce that identity. Yeah. Yeah, I will talk with people about that, Like, Okay, you know what, how about we start with meditating for three minutes a day. You know, I'm not gonna get peaceful meditating three minutes a day, No, you may not, but you can become a meditator. But you can become a meditator, right, but you can you can progress and um, you know yeah, just that that's starting. Smallness is so critical alright. 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 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 pleasure dorble 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 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. UM. 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 impressed 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. Um Forward had a similar setup where they had like this valve that normally the car would be sound proofed 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 drying 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 outcomes often favorable. You know, like if you eat a donut right now, it's sugary and tasty and feels good. Sweet, but the ultimate outcome if you continue that habit for a month or year or whatever is unfavorable. Um for good habits, it's usually the reverse, right, Like, the immediate outcome of going to the gy him 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 I 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 its exercise one I just said. You know, the immediate outcome for exercise is that it's effortful and require 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 gonna 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 workout, So 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 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 in 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, 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 b J 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. You know, 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 because 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, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty 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, you know, like trying to to shrink that that window of of gratification, you know, between the result and it's 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 beef to survive, you know, like you had to account for is there a lion threatening right me right now? Or is there a storm that I need to take shelter from or to 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 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 thirty days, or I don't want to go out to eat at restaurants is often um 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. 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 fifty dollars over the account. And being able to see that fifty dollars 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 look 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. Ye, 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 along the exercises and the reps and the sets and all that, and closing my journal at the end of a workout feels good to have banked another one and you know, and written written it down. And uh, the simplest version of that is just whenever you do a habit, you put next 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 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 um, if people want to check out the book, it's it's called Automic Habits and you can

just go to Atomic Habits dot com. Yep. Absolutely, we will have links in the show notes directly to that, and all your other stuff on your tons are great right 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 monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.

It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now. We are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member of the one You Feed community. Go to when you Feed dot net slash Join The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.