The Mel Robbins PodcastThe Science of Making & Breaking Habits: How to Change Your Life in 1 Month
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
95 min read · 19,161 words- 0:00 – 3:14
Meet the Guest
- JCJames Clear
Procrastinating is choosing to delay a better future. It's choosing to ignore the results that you could be having, the potential that you could be fulfilling. Fix the inputs, and the outputs will fix themselves. Fix the daily habits, and you'll be led to a different destination. Time is precious.
- MRMel Robbins
Today, you and I are getting to learn from the incredible James Clear. He's widely regarded as one of the top experts in the world on habit formation and behavior change, whose book on habits has sold 25 million copies. I'm talking about none other than Atomic Habits.
- JCJames Clear
I feel like if I sit there and I ruminate about something, it just gets worse. It gets bigger in my head. But if I take one small action on it, if I just get started on it, now I'm influencing the outcome. You know, now I'm shaping what's gonna happen. Action relieves anxiety.
- MRMel Robbins
You said at the very beginning is that the secret to winning is knowing how to lose. How do you start the engine up again, and what's the mistake you see people making?
- JCJames Clear
There's just a period where you just gotta get through them. Life might be bad now, but that doesn't mean it's always gonna be that way. Life might be hard now, but it's not always gonna be hard. And you're gonna be okay. You're gonna make it out the other side. I think we should all give ourselves permission for our habits to shift based on the season that we're facing.
- MRMel Robbins
Explain the four laws of behavior change.
- JCJames Clear
The first law is to make it obvious. The second law is to make it attractive. The third law is to make it easy. The easier, more convenient, frictionless, simple a habit is, the more likely it is to be performed. And the fourth and final law is- (beep)
- MRMel Robbins
That's amazing. Hey, it's your buddy Mel, and before we jump into this unbelievable conversation with James Clear, you're about to learn that you're not the problem. The fact that you don't have systems is the problem. You're gonna learn these systems. We're gonna get right into it. You're gonna love this. It's gonna help you achieve your goals. But I have a goal too. My goal is that 50% of you who watch here on YouTube are subscribers. And right before we were about to start this episode, my team showed me this. 57% of you who watch the Mel Robbins Podcast here on YouTube are not subscribers. You're the kind of person who likes supporting people who support you. My goal is that we get to 50%. So please, if that subscribe button is lit up, it means you're not a subscriber. Please hit Subscribe. It's free. That's how you can show your support to your friend Mel Robbins, and that way you don't miss a thing. It also tells me and the team, oh my gosh, you love the guests that we're bringing you, the content that we're putting here, and an attempt to support you in creating a better life. All right, thanks for doing that. You ready to break bad habits and lock in new ones using James Clear's research? I bet you are. So let's jump in. James Clear, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
- JCJames Clear
Hello, Mel. How are you?
- MRMel Robbins
I am fantastic. I am so excited to be able to have this conversation with you, because your work has made such a big difference in my life. I have bought Atomic Habits and pressed it into people's hands more times than I can count. And to be able to unpack the simple but powerful insights today, I- I've just been looking forward to this since I started the podcast.
- JCJames Clear
Mel, thank you so much. That's very nice of you to say.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, it's true. And here's where I
- 3:14 – 11:28
3 Ways to Build Better Habits for a Better Life
- MRMel Robbins
wanna start. What will I experience in my life that could be different, James, if I take everything that you're about to share with us and teach us today to heart and I apply it to my life?
- JCJames Clear
Well, I'll give you three things right off the bat. So first is action relieves anxiety. Action relieves anxiety. So if you're feeling stressed about something, you fear something, there's a problem that's kinda bothering you, taking action on it reduces the fear that you feel about the problem, because now you're influencing the outcome. Second thing is it builds resilience. So in a lot of ways, I feel like the secret to winning is knowing how to lose. And what I mean is it's knowing how to bounce back from a loss. And so many of the things that we'll talk about today are about getting started and about making it easier for yourself to get started, particularly after you fail, after you suffer something. And so the secret to winning is knowing how to lose, and these strategies will teach you how to be more resilient and bounce back from those losses. And then the third thing is better results. You know, um, in a way, procrastinating is choosing to delay a better future. It's choosing to ignore the results that you could be having, the potential that you could be fulfilling. And most of our outcomes in life are a lagging measure of the habits that precede them.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
So your bank account is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your, um, physical fitness is a lagging measure of your training habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your reading habits. It's the thing that is the result of the action.
- MRMel Robbins
You're basically saying the bank account I see today is a result of the habits that I had like a year ago?
- JCJames Clear
Yeah, almost all of the things that we have now are a result of the daily life, the daily system that we've been following for the last, say, six months or year or two years. You know, it's- it's the things that you do each day that lead you to the outcomes that you have right now. Now look, I'm not saying that habits are the only thing that matter in life, right? You have luck and randomness.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
You've got misfortune. There are all sorts of things that can influence the final outcome. But by definition, luck and randomness are not under your control.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
And your habits are. And the only reasonable, rational approach in life is focus on the pieces of the situation that are within your control. And so we all so badly... It's this interesting thing in life. We all so badly want better results. You know, we all so badly want to make more money or double productivity or be fit or reduce stress. But the irony is the results are not actually the thing that needs to change. It's like fix the inputs, and the outputs will fix themselves. Fix the daily habits, and you'll be led to a different destination. You know, in some ways, I feel like the two time frames that matter most in life are like 10 years and one hour.So, 10 years is shorthand for, like, what are the big meaningful things you really care about in life? I mean, you s- sit there and think about most of us, like, what do we really want to do? You know, want to have a marriage that we're proud of, or raise kids that are successful, or to build a business that thrives, or to get in the best shape of your life? Whatever it is, whatever that big thing is, it's almost always a multi-year, sometimes a multi-decade process.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
So, 10 years is shorthand for, like, what's that big vision?
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
And then one hour is shorthand for, what can I do in the next hour that contributes to where I wanna be in 10 years? You know, like, never let a day pass without doing something that is gonna benefit you in a decade. And if you can live in those two mind frames, if you can have, like, both this long-term vision and this bias for short-term action, you don't let a day pass without doing something that's gonna benefit you 10 years from now, you don't even need- need to wait 10 years usually. Usually it's, like, a year or two and you're s- shocked by how much progress you've made.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, already you are dropping very clear, very simple, and very powerful truths, I'm gonna call them. That action relieves anxiety, which we're gonna get- dig into. That the secret to winning is knowing how to lose. And tell me the third one again about procrastination.
- JCJames Clear
Procrastinating on something important is choosing to delay a better future.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- JCJames Clear
So, you know this is important to you-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
... you know this is important to your life, but not taking action on it, now you're just pushing- kicking the can down the road, right? Pushing the results further and further out. And so by, um, you- the question you asked me was, if I take this seriously-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
... and I follow through on these things, how will life change?
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
And the answer is, you'll no longer be delaying a better future, you'll be working toward it. You'll be contributing to it.
- MRMel Robbins
Interview's over.
- JCJames Clear
(laughs)
- MRMel Robbins
I mean that right there was absolutely... I cannot wait to dig into this. What I would love to talk about first though, in case the person who is listening right now or who's watching on YouTube, doesn't know what a habit is. What is the simplest-
- JCJames Clear
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... definition for how to think about a habit and why are they so important?
- JCJames Clear
Sure, okay. So, good question. I'm gonna define habit in a couple of different ways.
- 11:28 – 18:54
The 1% Rule: Master the Art of Continuous Improvement
- MRMel Robbins
in the future? Now, before we get into goals versus system, for somebody who hasn't read the book, could you talk about that concept in Atomic Habits, getting 1% better every day?
- JCJames Clear
This is one of the key ideas in the book and it's just this idea that tiny changes add up to a surprising or remarkable degree. So, the math of this, if you get 1% better each day for a year, so 1.01 to the 365th power, you get 37.78 times better by the end of the year. If you get 1% worse, so 0.99 to the 365th power, you drive yourself almost all the way down to zero. I think it's 0.03. Um, and so you have these results that are-... shockingly large or shockingly small based on little tiny actions that you do each day. And I think it's interesting because, you know, like, what is the difference between a choice that's 1% better or 1% worse? I mean, on any given day, not a whole lot. I mean, what is the difference between somebody who reads for 10 minutes today and somebody who doesn't read at all?
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- JCJames Clear
Basically nothing. You know, like, reading for 10 minutes does not make you a genius. Um, but if you're the type of person who always goes to bed a little bit smarter than they were when they woke up, the person who always finds a little bit of time to learn something new, yeah, that can be a pretty meaningful difference in wisdom and insight, especially over a 10, 20, 30-year period. So, we all have these habits that we're doing each day, and, um, it's easy to overlook them, but time will magnify whatever you feed it. So, if you have good habits, time becomes your ally. And every day that goes by, you put yourself in a stronger position. If you have bad habits, time becomes your enemy. And every day that goes by, you dig the hole a little bit deeper. And that's really what getting 1% better is about. It's this emphasis on trajectory rather than position. Now, if you had a, a 747 that was sitting on the runway in Los Angeles-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
... and it takes off and it's gonna go to New York, if you nudge the nose of the plane six feet at the start-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
... when it takes off, it, you land in Washington, DC rather than New York City. And it's just about this difference that a tiny change can make, the, the difference that a small improvement or being on a slightly different trajectory can result in. Small changes, when they're compounded over a great distance or a long time, can lead you to a very different result.
- MRMel Robbins
It's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that if I just focus on getting 1% better every day for a year, that I end up 37.7 times better?
- JCJames Clear
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
Can you give me like a, like, like, what? If I do, like, a pushup every day, then maybe at the end of the... Like, no, I'm serious.
- JCJames Clear
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's-
- MRMel Robbins
I wanna visualize what this is, because that's amazing.
- JCJames Clear
I think first all, first of all, it's not really about getting caught up in the exact number.
- MRMel Robbins
Right.
- JCJames Clear
It's more about the philosophy. It's like an attitude, an approach of-
- MRMel Robbins
Got it.
- JCJames Clear
... "Can I try to find some small way to get better each day?"
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
Um, the math of it is just compound interest. You know, like, it's just, it's just a compounding curve. And compound interest is almost always surprising what it turns into in the long run, and the effects of your habits can also almost always be surprising what they can turn into. Now, your habits are not exactly like a mathematical formula, right? Like, your, your life is not exactly like some equation that you're gonna calculate. But the principle, trying to find some small way to improve and trusting wh- how that can accumulate and compound over time, that is very true. And it also, I think, is very much how it feels on a given day, which is the actions feel kind of insignificant on a daily basis.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
They're very easy to overlook on a daily basis and very surprising what they turn into, good and bad, a year or two or three from now. And so it's really about mastering those small daily actions and what that can lead us to in the long run.
- MRMel Robbins
What are the top two or three surprising ones that, if you did 1% better every day, you'd be shocked at where you ended up in a year?
- JCJames Clear
You'd be surprised... If you work on almost anything consistently for, say, two years, uh, you're almost guaranteed to be in the top, you know, one to 5% of the population on it. I mean, nobody else is spending that amount of time on it. So, that doesn't mean that you're gonna play in the NBA if you practice basketball for two years, but it does mean you will be a much better basketball player.
- MRMel Robbins
You know, James, let's talk more about this. There is a deeply personal story, something that happened to you, that explains the 1% rule.
- JCJames Clear
Yeah. So, I, you know, I grew up in a family that played lots of different sports and I played baseball for a long time. And when I was in high school, I suffered this really serious baseball injury where I was hit in the face with a baseball bat. And it was an accident. You know, a classmate of mine took a swing and kind of bat came out of his hands and, uh, rotated through the air and struck me right between the eyes. Um, broke my nose, uh, shattered both eye sockets, broke the bone behind my nose, kind of deeper inside your skull. I was air carried to the hospital and I was in a medically induced coma overnight. Um, and then the next day, my vitals had kind of stabilized to the point where they could release me from the coma. And it was a really long road back. Um, you know, I couldn't drive a car for the next nine months. Uh, when I went to my first physical therapy session, I was practicing basic motor patterns like walking in a straight line. I had double vision for weeks. So, it took a while, um, and all I wanted... You know, I was a teenager. I was 16, 17 years old. All I wanted was to get back to being this normal, young, healthy kid before. You know, be able to drive a car and go to baseball and play and whatever. But it was a time in my life when I was forced to start small.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
You know, I had to just focus on, "What can I do at this physical therapy session? Am I making any progress from tod- yeah, the last session to this one?" Um, you know, if I can't do anything physically, couldn't play baseball for about a year, then, you know, can I study and do well on this test or try, try to find some small win, some small improvement that I can make? And all the things that we're about to talk about today, I would never have said it that way then.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
Like, I wouldn't have said, "Oh, I'm just trying to get 1% better." You know?
- 18:54 – 30:57
Build Habits Aligned With Who You Are
- MRMel Robbins
rule.
- JCJames Clear
The human mind is a learning machine. Almost every skill that you have today was previously unknown to you. When you were born, you didn't know how to tie your shoes or cut a tomato or make spaghetti or whatever. Um, but you know all that stuff now because you practiced it. And you can get better at anything that you practice. And I think it's interesting if you look at people, what are people spending their time practicing each day? You know, like a lot of people are practicing the art of getting mad on social media. People are practicing the, the fine craft of being fearful and reading about all the ways that the world is falling apart. They're practicing scrolling their phone. You know, like, what, what are you trying to get good at? And I think it's worth it to ask, like, "What am I practicing each day? What am I training for?" And every moment is a repetition, and your brain will automatically get better at the things that you repeat. Uh, whatever you repeat, you reinforce. And so, you wanna make sure you're reinforcing the right things.
- MRMel Robbins
What I love about what you just said is that oftentimes when you're thinking about habits, you're thinking about the new ones, and we don't often have that moment of honest reflection with ourselves-
- JCJames Clear
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... where we say, "Wait a minute. I already have a lot of habits. And if I don't like how my life looks and feels right now, whether that's the balance in my bank account or the way that my- I feel in my body or the kind of relationship I'm in or my drinking habits or what I'm doing with my free time, then changing my habits-"
- JCJames Clear
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
"... is the way I change the circumstances of my life."
- JCJames Clear
So here's an interesting one for you. I, uh, something like scrolling your phone or whatever-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
... mo- most people w- would be like, "Yeah, that's probably one I don't wanna do as much."
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
But what I find interesting are the habits that used to serve me well but don't serve me as well now. That- those have been much harder for me to give up. The way that I think about it is, I like to ask myself this question of, "What season am I in right now?"
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- JCJames Clear
You know, and life has a lot of different seasons. Sometimes... There can be all kinds of reasons that seasons shift. You know, maybe it's you get married or you have a kid or maybe you move to a city or start a new job. I was just talking to a mom who, she just became an empty nester, and she's like, "You know, for 25 years, I've been taking care of these kids. Now all of a sudden, nobody's here. Like, what season am I in?" And what I've slowly learned, I- I can be a slow learner in a lot of ways, um, is when your seasons change, your habits often need to change. And I found, you know, for me, I- a lot of the time, I'll have a season shift, and then I keep trying to force fit my old habits into this new season. Uh, it takes me 18 months to realize, "Hey, something needs to change." And I think this is an important conversation to have about habits, because people don't say this explicitly, but a lot of the time when people are focused on their habits and they start something new, they don't say it to themselves, but they're kind of thinking in the back of their mind, "What would it look like to be successful at this? Oh, well, I would just do this habit forever-"
- MRMel Robbins
Hm.
- JCJames Clear
"... is what it w- and if I stop doing it at some point, that must mean that I failed or I quit or something like that." I- I don't think it has to be like that at all. You know, like, take my writing habit, for example. For the first three years, I wrote two articles a week. Those were about 2,000 words each. Then I signed the book deal for Atomic Habits. Season changes. Can't, can't write those anymore, so that shifted. Then I worked on the book for three years. Now, uh, for the last five years, I've been writing a newsletter once a week. Um, that's much shorter. Um, but at no point in there do I feel like my writing habit failed. Just 'cause I'm not writing two articles a week anymore doesn't mean that, uh, I don't know, I screwed up or something. Um, the habit just needed to change shape based on the season that I was in. And I think we should all give ourselves permission for our habits to shift based on the season that we're facing.
- MRMel Robbins
That's so relatable and helpful, because as you were talking about writing, I was thinking, "Well, that's just happened for me-"
- JCJames Clear
Hm.
- MRMel Robbins
"... around exercise and around nutrition." The more that I learn about the difference between men and women physiologically, the more I learn about hormone changes in women, the more I'm like, "Oh, wait a minute. Running, yoga, that's not going to help me the way that it used to. I gotta focus on protein, and I gotta focus on resistance training."
- JCJames Clear
Hm.
- MRMel Robbins
Different season, different habits.
- JCJames Clear
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
Makes a lot of sense.
- JCJames Clear
Yeah, I think knowing which season you're in right now is a really helpful thing. There, there's a certain... (sighs) There are, like, some questions I like to ask (claps hands) just for self-awareness.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
They, they help bubble up some insights about yourself that then lead to some discoveries about maybe how I should shift my habits or whatever. So, uh, some of the questions I like, one is, "What am I optimizing for?" Different people optimize for different things. You will probably optimize for different things at different points in your life. Sometimes you optimize for making money. Sometimes you optimize for free time or creative freedom. Sometimes you optimize for family.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
Uh, but whatever it is, the answer's probably very personal to you and the season that you're in.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
So what am I optimizing for? Second question is, "What season am I in right now?" So, we already talked about that. The third one, uh, can be a little bit cutting, but it's if... I, I call it like the, it's kinda like the alien test or something. Imagine, imagine that an alien comes down from outer space, right, and it's gonna follow you around throughout your day. Can't speak your language, can't communicate to you. If it could only see your actions and not hear your words, what would it say your priorities are? The interesting thing, I think especially about smart people...... is you can come up with a good excuse for most things. You have very good reason for why things aren't happening. And so it's for, uh, very easy for you to talk, uh, your way out of why things didn't occur.
- 30:57 – 36:26
The Power of Starting Small
- MRMel Robbins
You know, one of the things that I'd love to have you unpack for us is, you know, when someone's sitting around waiting for motivation, and they're struggling to either get started or they're struggling as they're waking up today to do the thing they say that they wanna do, could you unpack for the person listening why you have to take the action first, and how motivation shows up after the action, not before?
- JCJames Clear
So, a habit is a behavior that you want to do consistently. Right? You want to do it-
- MRMel Robbins
That you want to do consistently.
- JCJames Clear
That you want to do consistently.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
Motivation, we all know, sometimes you're motivated, sometimes you're not. The motivation rises and falls throughout the day. So, why would you want a behavior that you want to do consistently to rely on something that fluctuates? It doesn't make sense. And so this is a good reason why you want to scale habits down to a level where they're so easy to do, getting into it is so simple, that you'll do it even when motivation is low. And so, this is another reason for the phrase Atomic Habits, right? It's about making it tiny and small so that you stick to it even when motivation isn't there.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah, but what does that mean to scale down if I'm trying to meditate, or I'm trying to exercise, or I'm trying to make that sales call?
- JCJames Clear
I'll give you two examples.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
So, there's this concept in chemistry called activation energy.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
It's how much energy is required to activate a reaction. So you can think about, like, striking a match. There's a certain amount of effort that you have to put in to strike the match and for the flame to start, okay? Your habits are kind of like that. Some habits have really big activation energy. If you wanna do 100 pushups a day, that requires a certain amount of motivation. You gotta keep doing sets of five and 10 throughout the day or whatever. And if it gets to nine o'clock one day and it's time to go to bed, and y- you haven't done your 100 pushups yet, now you gotta kinda motivate yourself quite a bit to get that in before you go to sleep.
- MRMel Robbins
I need gasoline for the bonfire in that case.
- JCJames Clear
Right.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
So, if your, uh, objective instead is to do 10 pushups a day, well then, it's nine o'clock and you still haven't got them in yet, but you're like, "I can probably do 10 before I go to sleep." That's, that's probably doable.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
Um, and so you can see these two habits have very different activation energies.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- JCJames Clear
They have very different amount of effort that they're requiring from you. So scaling it down is choosing the thing that's easy to do that has small activation energy.
- MRMel Robbins
So that would be 10 pushups a day.
- JCJames Clear
Do 10 instead of 100. Read-
- MRMel Robbins
Got it.
- JCJames Clear
Instead of reading 30 books a year, it's read one page, right? It's like, stuff like that. Scale it down.
- MRMel Robbins
Got it. Okay.
- JCJames Clear
There is something that can be tied to this or is related to this, which i- is a phrase that I feel like I remind myself of a lot, which is reduce the scope but stick to the schedule. So there's so many times where the day kinda gets away from you, you know? Like, thing- things get busy. Let's say you wanted to work out today, and then you look up the clock and, you know, you were planning on doing an hour workout or 45 minutes, and you only have 15 or 20 minutes. In that moment, the conversation I used to have with myself was, "Well, I guess I don't have time to work out today."
- MRMel Robbins
Yes. (laughs)
- JCJames Clear
Uh, and then you'd move on. But instead, what I'm trying is to say, "Reduce the scope but stick to the schedule." And so I'll go down, I'll change into my workout clothes and go down to the, my basement and go down to this little home gym area that I have. And maybe I only have 15 minutes and I can only do one set of squats, but that's what I do. And in some ways, I feel like the bad days matter more than the good days. You know, it's showing up on the days when it's not ideal, it's showing up on the days when you don't have energy or time or capacity that keeps the habit alive. And if you keep the habit alive, all you need is time. But if you throw up a zero, now the streak is broken, and sometimes one day can turn into five days and can turn into three months, and then you find yourself wanting to get back on track. And I think rather than asking yourself, "What can I do on my best day?" you should start by asking, "What can I stick to even on the bad days?"
- MRMel Robbins
Oh, I love that. So-
- JCJames Clear
And that becomes your baseline.
- 36:26 – 42:05
Why Most Habits Fail Before You Start
- MRMel Robbins
and you failed again. So what is the failure premortem?
- JCJames Clear
Okay, so first, you want optimism. My little shorthand is, I, I don't wanna be my own bottleneck, okay? So-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
... um-I try to work backwards from magic at the start. What would the magical outcome be? What would the thing that I really want to achieve look like? What's the optimal outcome look like? Then, the next phase, this is where the failure pre-mortem comes in. So you switch from optimism to pessimism. All right. I know where I wanna go, so now let's be, let's be my own critic for a minute. The failure pre-mortems, it's the, just the simple question of, if we look back six remont- six months from now and this has failed, where does it fail? So it's just you're pre-analyzing where the-
- MRMel Robbins
Oh, so this is before-
- JCJames Clear
... potential points of failure.
- MRMel Robbins
... you even get-
- JCJames Clear
You haven't done anything.
- MRMel Robbins
... started. You haven't done anything.
- JCJames Clear
You haven't done anything yet. But you're trying to be the one to figure out what are the flaws in what I'm about to do?
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
And so the, the failure pre-mortem just says, "If this fails, where does it fail?" And you can come up with all kinds of things like that. Let me give you an example for habits. So, like, let's say that you wanna start going to the gym.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
And you're like, "Well, if this plan fails, where does it fail?" And y- it might fail because you don't know which gym you're gonna use. So you're like, "All right. I'll pick one that's on the route of my commute each day."
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
So then you say, "Okay. It might fail because I don't have my gym clothes ready." So you're like, "All right. I need to send my clothes out the night before, have my gym bag ready early." I had one person who they were like, "I g- am going to the gym and I wish I could stick to it more, but I ju- this gym doesn't have a water fountain. And so when I go there, I'm like, 'Ugh. I always forget to bring my water bottle.' And that's enough to make me be like, 'I'm not gonna go 'cause they, I, they don't have a water fountain there.'" And little points of friction like that kind- sound kind of silly when you say it, but you're like, yeah, that's a, that's a potential point of failure, and you need to have a plan for getting a water bottle full and make sure that you bring that each day.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
And so you start to check off these boxes of what are the things that could hold you back from this plan working.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
And then you switch back to optimism, because what you don't want is to go into this process feeling like you're doubting yourself to begin with.
- MRMel Robbins
Right. I'm screwed. I-
- JCJames Clear
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
Why am I even doing this?
- JCJames Clear
That's not... That attitude's just gonna make it harder.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
So you start with optimism, you switch to pessimism, try to poke the holes in your argument, and then you're back, we're back to optimism again. We want everybody on board and feel like we've got the right attitude going into it.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay. I love this because one of the things that I immediately thought as you were using the gym example is I immediately could pop into the pessimism mindset.
- JCJames Clear
Mm.
- MRMel Robbins
And I think I'm a good problem-solver, but I was like, "Okay. Well, I don't know what to do at a gym." And so I walk around and then feel overwhelmed and intimidated-
- JCJames Clear
Sure.
- 42:05 – 47:57
The Mindset Shift to Make Habits Stick
- MRMel Robbins
Ah. Um, one of the things that I love about the way that you think about habits and behavior change is you talk about the connection between identity and behavior. And you write, you know, "Who do I wanna become?" is a way better question to ask yourself than, "What do I wanna achieve?" Why?
- JCJames Clear
I think it's very natural to start with results and outcomes. But the results are not the thing that you really need to change, you know? What you need is to be consistent, to stick with it, and you need to show up consistently, and you need to follow through on, you know, the actions that are gonna lead to that outcome. So-I kind of think of it almost like the layers of an onion.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
So, the outermost layer of the onion are the results that you want, the outcome. So, let's say lose 40 pounds.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
Okay? The next layer in is the action, the plan that you have, the, the actions that you take. Most of the time when people want to make a change, they're like, "Yeah, I, you know, I want this result, so I need to do, follow through on this plan. I need to go to the gym four days a week and eat on this diet or whatever." And the implicit assumption is, "If I do those things and get that result, then I'll be who I want to be."
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
"I'll, I'll be happy with who I am. I'll be more like the person that I hope to be." But the innermost layer of the onion, the core, is who you are, your identity, who, who you become. And so it's like what, how, and who! And instead of starting with what you want and figuring out how to do it and assuming that I will then be the person I want to be, I think it is better to invert that process and start by saying, "Who do I wish to become?" Or, in this example, who is the type of person that could lose 40 pounds? Well, maybe it's the type of person who doesn't miss workouts, and then you're focused on that, not on the weight. And so what it does is by focusing on the identity, it kind of inverts how you think about the habit.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
Rather than it being about hitting a certain number on the scale, it becomes about becoming a certain type of person, being the type of person who doesn't miss workouts, in this example. Your habits are how you embody a particular identity. So, every day that you make your bed, you embody the identity of someone who's clean and organized.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
If you study biology for 20 minutes on Tuesday night, you embody the identity of someone who is studious. Your habits provide evidence of who you are. This is the real reason, the deeper reason that habits matter. We often talk about habits as mattering because of the external results that they get you. "Hey, habits will help you be more productive or make more money or reduce stress." And, like, look, habits can do all that stuff and that's great, but the real reason, the true reason that habits matter is that every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become. So, no, doing one pushup does not transform your body, but it does cast a vote for, "I'm the type of person that doesn't miss workouts."
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
And, no, giving one bit of positive feedback to somebody on your team does not make you the world's best leader, but it does cast a vote for, "I'm the type of team member who cares about the people around them." And I think this is a little bit different than what you often hear. You'll often hear something like, "Fake it till you make it."
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
And I don't necessarily have anything wrong with fake it till you make it. It's asking you to believe something positive about yourself. However, it's asking you to believe something positive without having evidence for it. And we have a word for beliefs that don't have evidence. We call that delusion, right? Like, (laughs) we have this mismatch between what you say you are and what you're actually doing. And so my encouragement is to let the behavior lead the way, to let sending one email or writing one sentence or meditating for five minutes, to let that small action be evidence that in that moment, you were that kind of person. And then as you start to cast votes for that identity, you have every reason in the world to believe it. And so I think this is what really gets habits to stick. It is the reinforcement of your story.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
It's the reinforcement of how you see yourself and the identity that you're trying to build. And that's why I say I think we should often start by asking not, "What do I wish to achieve?" but, "Who do I wish to become? And how are my actions reinforcing that?" And if you can get those two things aligned, now you have a really deep through line from your daily actions to this bigger, larger identity that you want to build. And if you can connect the things that you do each day, the small choices, with the person that you want to be in the long run, you can see how important they are even when they're little.
- MRMel Robbins
I want to make sure that as you're listening or watching, you really got that question. Who do I want to become? If you start there and you start with a vision for the kind of person you want to become, and then we invert that onion that you were talking about, so you know who you want to become, then you ask yourself, "Well, how do I become that kind of person and what do I need to do?" Now we have a roadmap that leads you to the small daily habits that cast the vote to get you there.
- JCJames Clear
I think what we're ultimately trying to get to is a place where you take pride in being that kind of person.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, this brings us to one of my absolute favorite parts of Atomic Habits and your research. This changed my entire mindset, and honestly, changed the type of person I am. And it's the difference between setting goals versus focusing on systems. And so I want to read to you from this section titled Forget About Goals, Focus on Systems Instead. And you write, "For many years," uh, "this was how I approached my habits. Each one was a goal to be reached. I set goals for the grades I wanted to get in school, for the weights I wanted to lift in the gym, for the profits I wanted to earn in business. I succeeded at a few, but I failed at a lot of them. The results had very little to do with the goals I set and nearly everything to do with the systems I followed. What's the difference between systems and goals? It's a distinction I first learned from Scott Adams, a cartoonist behind
- 47:57 – 55:42
Goals vs. Systems: What Actually Works
- MRMel Robbins
the Dilbert comic. Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results." And you write about this, just one example that made so much sense. "If you're a coach, your goal might be to win a championship, but your system is the way you recruit players, manage your assistant coaches, and conduct practice." And you pose this interesting question. "What if you completely ignored your goals and you focused on your system?" And I'd love to unpack this because I do think that this is where I got things wrong for so long.
- JCJames Clear
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
I was very focused on defining goals.... and I spent little to no time really looking at the systems that create progress toward those goals. Can you unpack this for us?
- JCJames Clear
I was like that too. I think that my nature is I'm naturally very goal-oriented and outcome-oriented-
- MRMel Robbins
Uh-huh.
- JCJames Clear
... and, you know, we all want better results, right?
- MRMel Robbins
Uh-huh.
- JCJames Clear
Um, so I don't think goals are ever going to be like a zero in your life and you're never going to think about them, it's just so natural to focus on them.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
What I'm trying to encourage here is to focus on the other side of the equation, which is the daily habits that you are following. If I was going to put a little finer point on the language there-
- MRMel Robbins
Please.
- JCJames Clear
... what do I mean by goal and system?
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
Your goal is your desired outcome, the target, the thing you're shooting for. What is your system? It's the collection of daily habits that you follow. And if there is ever a gap between your goal and your system, if there's ever a gap between your desired outcome and your daily habits, your daily habits will always win. I mean, almost by definition, your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results. Whatever habits you've been following for the last six months or year, two years, it's carried you almost inevitably to the outcomes that you have right now. So, where I've kind of come down on this after thinking about it for a little while is goals are good for clarity, they're good for setting a sense of direction, get everybody rowing the boat in the same, same direction. They can be good for filtering, so if somebody comes to you with an opportunity and they say, "Hey, do you want to do this?" You can run it through your list of goals and say, "Well, does this get me closer to what I want or not?" Maybe it makes it easier to say yes or no to that. But the vast majority of your time should be spent focused on building a better system. Goals are good for people who care about winning once, systems are best for people who care about winning repeatedly.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- JCJames Clear
You know, if you really want to make progress and make it again and again, if you want to get high performance and keep the performance high, you need some set of systems, some collection of daily habits to keep you up there. The other interesting thing that I realized is that the winners and the losers often have the same goals. You know, if you have a job opening and 100 people apply, presumably every candidate has the goal of getting the job. The goal is not the thing that determines the outcome, it's presentation skills in the interview, who they know at the company, education, experience, like all sorts of things, right? Or, um, you know, th- at the Olympics, presumably every athlete who's competing has the goal of winning the gold medal. You know, the goal is not the thing that determines the outcome. Again, it's genetic ability, talent, coaching, strategy, how much sleep they got the night before, like all sorts of factors. And so, if the winners and the losers have the same goals, the goal cannot be the thing that makes a difference in their performance. It has to be something else, and that something else is the system, it's their daily habits.
- MRMel Robbins
So you've talked a lot about this word systems. I would love to have you just break down some, for some of the habits that people tend to take on a lot. What about for saving money, what might be a system just to jog the person who's listening's-
- JCJames Clear
So here's an interesting one that one of my readers uses. Saving money is an interesting, and there's an interesting category of habits, which are things that you basically don't do, and then you need to feel good about it. Like saving money is basically when I don't spend is when I'm achieving this goal, and, you know, it's like not playing video games or don't drink wine. Like things-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
... like that are, uh, tricky to feel good about because you're just resisting doing something. So, I thought this was a clever solution, I have, I have this one reader, he and his wife wanted to eat out less, spend less money eating out at restaurants and-
- MRMel Robbins
Yep.
- JCJames Clear
... cook at home more. But again, if you just, "Well we're not going to go out to eat tonight," that doesn't really feel great. So what they came up with was they opened a separate savings account, and they labeled it trip to Europe, and then anytime that they stayed home, they would move $20 or $50 bucks, or whatever over that they were going to spend that night, they'd move that over to the account. And what they get in the moment is the feeling of, "Oh, we're building toward this vacation that we want to go on." Um, and then at the end of the year, they took the money and put it toward the trip. Um, and so they found a way to take something that usually doesn't have much of a benefit, and give it a positive association, a positive feeling. And so that was part of their system for saving money or for not eating out was, "Well, first we're going to move the money over, and then we're going to choose what recipe, recipe are we making tonight, and then we go into the kitchen and prep it, whatever." And so it's just a simple couple pro- steps, but it makes it a lot more enjoyable.
- MRMel Robbins
What about a system for eating healthier?
- JCJames Clear
Eating healthier is interesting and it's a tricky one. Um, I think it provides a good example of people will say something that they think is simple, but it's actually not that simple.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- JCJames Clear
They think they're making it easy and simple but they need to scale it down even more.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
So like let's say somebody says, "All right, I'm just going to focus on one habit, I'm just going to try to eat healthy." Well, you know, what is involved in that, right? Like if you're, if you're currently eating a lot of meals out or ordering a lot of meals, well, first you need to decide what you're going to make, you need a grocery shopping habit, so you got to get the stuff. You need some meal prep habits, maybe you even need new skills, like do you need knife skills or like learn how to do some stuff that maybe you didn't know how to do before? After you make the meal, you have a bunch of dishes that need to be cleaned, so now you need to develop like a cleaning habit of washing those. So there's actually like six or seven things that are all separate habits. So I would say you can try to scale this down-
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
... and start easy on yourself, and maybe, you know, for like let's take doing the dishes for example, maybe for the first week, you just eat off of paper plates. And no, it's not super sustainable and it's not the thing that you want to do forever, but you're trying to take one element out of the equation so that you make it easier for yourself to do it. Um, another example that I thought was interesting, I talked to one woman who she took this idea of, we talked about it earlier, of what would this look like if it was fun?
- 55:42 – 59:56
How to Break Bad Habits
- MRMel Robbins
How do you think, or what have some of your readers said about the systems and habits related to cutting back on something like drinking or vaping or one of those things?
- JCJames Clear
Yes. Let's talk a little bit about breaking bad habits. There's kind of, there's- if- if you wanna break a bad habit-
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
... there are three different things you could do.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
So, first thing is you could eliminate it entirely, so cut it out cold turkey, right? Second way to break a bad habit is you could reduce it. So you don't necessarily stop it, you just reduce it to your desired degree. I would say m- a lot of people probably feel this way about their phones.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
Uh, "It's not that I never wanna use my phone, I just wanna use it a little bit less or scroll a little bit less," or whatever.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
Um, and then the third category is you could replace it. So you can eliminate, you can reduce, or you can replace. Those are really your three options, if you wanna break a bad habit. And if you replace it, then you're substituting a new habit in its place. Um, hopefully, one that's more healthy or more productive. Um, let me kind of answer these in reverse order, all right? So, replace it. Habits an- we talked a little bit early on about some ways to define a habit. Here's another way to define it. A habit is a solution to a recurring problem in your environment, right? So it's a solution to a recurring problem that you face. Let's say, for example, you come home from work and it's 5:30 and you're feeling s- exhausted and tired from a long day, right? That is a recurring problem that is gonna happen throughout the weeks and months that your brain has to figure out how to solve. And for one person, maybe they solve it by scrolling on Instagram for 30 minutes.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
For another person, the way that they solve it is maybe they smoke a cigarette. For a third person, maybe the way they solve it is they go for a run. And you can see that some of these solutions are healthier than others-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
... but they're all sa- solving the same root problem, which is, "I feel stressed and exhausted and tired after a long day, and I wanna find a way to reset and kind of change my energy." Um, and early in your life, I think particularly in your 20s, you may have this realization where the solutions that you have to the problems that you face are kind of things that you inherited or you picked up from your parents. Uh, you know, what are the odds that the first way that you learn to solve this problem is the best way? Uh, mathematically speaking, it's very unlikely that the way that your current solutions to the problems that you face are the best solutions.
- MRMel Robbins
So let me just give you an example. So if you, uh, grew up in a household where you saw mom or dad come home from a long day at work and they poured themselves a glass of wine as a way to unwind, turn off their brain-
- JCJames Clear
Right.
- MRMel Robbins
... step into the evening, if you inherited that habit as the way you solve the problem of, "I've had a long day at work, I'm totally stressed, I want a quick way to de-stress," and the habit is pour a glass of wine or pour a drink, that's an example of the type of thing you're talking about.
- JCJames Clear
Yeah. And I think the first step is not to judge yourself for it or to feel guilty about it. You don't- you don't need to feel bad about it. It's just- it's almost like, sometimes I try to look at my habits almost like I'm going to the zoo. You know how you, like, go and look at an animal, you're like, "Oh, how interesting that they would do that"?
- MRMel Robbins
(laughs)
- JCJames Clear
You know, like, "Oh, oh, isn't that silly that they behave in that way?" Like, you kind of look at yourself with that lens. You're like, "Oh, okay, interesting that I'm doing this."
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
Um, and you just wanna see things clearly. And then once you see how you're actually behaving, well then, there are adjustments that you can make.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
And I think at that point, you realize, "All right, it's not my fault necessarily that I'm doing these things or that I learned this way to do it, but now it is my responsibility-"
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
"... to make the change." The next level is you say, "All right, I'm gonna try to reduce the amount of time that I do this." One way that I try to practice this, so I have a home office, and I have this little rule where I try to keep my phone in another room until lunch each day. Um, usually it ends up being, like, 9:00 to 11:00, 9:00 to noon, something like that. And I can't do it all the time, but I can do it maybe 70% of the time. And whenever I do it, I think it's interesting, 'cause it's like, the phone is just down the hallway, it's only 30 seconds away, but I never go get it. And so I'm like, "Did I want it or not?" You know? On the one hand, I wanted it so bad that when it was next to me I would check it every three minutes. And on the other hand, I never wanted it badly enough that I would be willing to work 30 seconds and go down the hall and get it. And a lot of your habits are like that. They will curtail themselves to the desired degree if you just introduce a little bit of distance or a little bit of friction. The more that, um, you increase friction between you and the behavior, the more likely it is to reduce itself.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- 59:56 – 1:05:10
Change Your Environment to Make New Habits Easy
- JCJames Clear
So, there are a lot of environmental changes that could potentially work there.
- MRMel Robbins
Talk to us about the environment and the role that environment plays in terms of sticking to habits.
- JCJames Clear
There's a chapter in Atomic Habits that's called The Secret to Self-Control.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
And there's a story that w- many of us tell ourselves, which is, "Oh, you know, if I was just more disciplined-"
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- JCJames Clear
"... if I just had more self-control, then I would be able to do these things."
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
But the big takeaway from the research in that chapter, the surprising insight, is that when you look at people who exhibit high levels of self-control, the common pattern across them is not that they have higher discipline than the average person. The common pattern is that they are in situations where they're tempted less frequently.
- MRMel Robbins
Tempted. Tempted less frequently, okay.
- JCJames Clear
... so that tempted less frequently. Fewer temptations is the single biggest driver of exhibiting high self-control. And so, the, the lesson is, you don't need to try to be more disciplined. You don't need to wish that you were a person with more willpower. You need to s- take a little bit of time to design an environment where you're not tempted as frequently. So, that could mean simple things, like not having chips in the house, or not having cigarettes in the house, or things like that. Um, it can mean more complicated things, like looking at your relationships and saying, "Who are the people that have the behaviors that I wanna have? You know, what, what are the common habits of my friend group or my peer group?" And that's not necessarily saying I never see these people again-
- MRMel Robbins
Yep.
- JCJames Clear
... but maybe I only see them in pockets, or you know, or in certain situations. And then other people, I'm trying to expose myself to more and hang out with more. And, um, so those are all ways that you can start to think about, where are the temptations in my life? Or where am I having to... Where do I need to go against the grain of the situation to have the habits that I want to have? And where am I working with the gradient of the situation?
- MRMel Robbins
And working with, because it's actually taking me in the direction of the kind of person I want to become. And working against is, you recognize you're in an environment that is taking you away from the kind of person you want to become. Let's stay for a second on people. What are the systems or changes or ways that, that you think about being surrounded by people-
- JCJames Clear
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... that are supporting who you want to become?
- JCJames Clear
It's a huge driver of our habits. There, there's a chapter in Atomic Habits, um, about the influence of friends and family on our behaviors.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
And I think if I could write it again, I would even expand it, because it's, it's even bigger than I think I realized. So, humans are very social creatures. We, we all have a deep desire to bond and connect, to, to be part of something. And if people have to choose between, you know, "I have habits that I don't really love, but I fit in, I belong, I'm part of something, I'm supported," or, "I have the habits that I want to have, but I'm cast out, I'm ostracized, I'm criticized," a lot of the time, the desire to belong will overpower the desire to improve. And so as best as possible, you need to get those two things aligned. Um, and I think the way to do it is you want to join groups where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. Because if your desired behavior is normal, as you make friendships and build relationships in that group, you're gonna soak up so many big and little habits from the people that are part of that group. We all belong to multiple groups or multiple tribes. Some of them are large, like what it means to be American or what it means to be French. Some of them are small, like what it means to be a neighbor on your street, or a member of the local CrossFit gym, or a volunteer at the elementary school. But all of those groups, large and small, have a set of expectations for how you act. You know, like take the neighbor on the street example. If I walk outside and look at my neighbor's house and they're mowing the lawn, I might think, "Oh, I need to cut the grass too." And you might stick to that habit for 5 years or 10 years, h- however long you live in the house. Like, we wish we had that level of consistency with our other habits. And why do you do it? Partially you do it because it feels good to have a clean lawn, but mostly you do it because you don't want to be the sloppy one who's, like, ruining how the neighborhood looks.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
So, you want to join groups where your desired habits align with the expectations of the group so that you don't have to run against that friction. One of the best things that I ever did in my entrepreneurial career... So I have no authors in my family, no entrepreneurs in my family. But I, um, looked around and I said, "Who are some other people that are doing the thing that I want to do?"
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- JCJames Clear
You know, they're like two or three years ahead of me.
- MRMel Robbins
Yep.
- JCJames Clear
This was like maybe 10 years ago. And I started hosting these retreats where I would get other authors together, six or eight people, and I'd say, "Let's just split the cost of an Airbnb, get together for like two days, and we'll talk about how to build an audience and how to write a book and how to launch a book." Um, so anyway, the point being, that requires a little bit of courage. You know, like I, I reached out to people. I was always worried that I was gonna look like a dummy and, you know, be like, "You want to go hang out for two days?" And everybody would be like, "No." You know? But, um, but everybody says yes, because they're waiting for the same thing, which is people want like-minded people to get together. They're waiting for somebody to gather people together.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- JCJames Clear
So, um, sometimes the spaces are ready for you. Sometimes it requires a little bit of courage to create it. But the outcome is the same, which is you're trying to put yourself in a room with people who have your desired behaviors.
- 1:05:10 – 1:26:18
The 4 Stages of Habit Formation
- MRMel Robbins
James, what are the four stages of building habits?
- JCJames Clear
Well, all habits go through this kind of four-step loop here. I can draw it out.
- MRMel Robbins
Great. So he's grabbing a quick whiteboard, if you're listening.
- JCJames Clear
So you have these four stages, al- almost like a, a quadrant, but-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- JCJames Clear
... you, you start, and the beginning of it is there's some kind of cue. Okay? So I'll just put a C there for cue.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
Right? So you have the cue, and that leads to a craving, which then drives a response, and then ultimately you get a reward. And so you kind of go around the loop like this, right?
- MRMel Robbins
Cue-
- JCJames Clear
Cue, craving, response, reward.
- MRMel Robbins
Craving, response, reward.
- JCJames Clear
Cue, craving, response, reward.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
And it's true for little things, like let's say that you, um, walk into a room. The room is dark. And y- the cue is, "Oh, the room's dark, I want to be able to see." The craving is, "I want to be able to see." The response is, "I flip the light switch," and then the reward is, "Oh, now the lights are on, I can see." Um, but it's true for other stuff too. Like the cue might be, um, you're driving down the road and you hear an ambulance come up from behind you. The siren is an auditory cue.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- JCJames Clear
Or your phone buzzes in your pocket. That's a physical cue that starts the habit of checking your phone. Or, um, you see a plate of cookies on the counter in the kitchen. That's a visual cue that starts the habit of you needing a cookie. So you have the cue that leads to the craving. Um, you hear the sa- the siren, uh, from the ambulance. "Oh, now I need to pull to the side of the road." Or-
- MRMel Robbins
Oh, and the craving is just the impulse to do something.
- JCJames Clear
The desire.
- MRMel Robbins
Got it. Okay.
- JCJames Clear
The mo- the desire to do something. So, cue, craving, response, reward. Um-
- MRMel Robbins
And you know what's interesting is, now I'm understanding as you're explaining a habit...... is that you're not even really thinking about those things. They're just all kind of sandwiched together-
- JCJames Clear
Right.
- MRMel Robbins
... in that loop you just drew.
- JCJames Clear
It can happen almost instantaneously, like, all inside of a whole second, you know? Like, it's ... But it, it, it's very rapid, and it's, um ... Once a habit is established, it's almost entirely non-conscious.
- MRMel Robbins
How does that connect to the four laws that you created around behavior change?
- JCJames Clear
So we have this scientific backbone, these four stages: cue, craving, response, reward. And we know that our behaviors are going through that cycle each day. And what I care about is, how do I operationalize that?
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- JCJames Clear
How do I translate this into something actionable for daily life and work? And so that's why I came up with what I call the Four Laws of Behavior Change.
- MRMel Robbins
All right. Well, let's go into the four laws.
- JCJames Clear
So the first law is to make it obvious. You want the cues of your habits to be obvious, available, visible, easy to see. The easier it is for a habit to be noticed and for it to get your attention, the more likely you are to act on it. The second law is to make it attractive. So this comes back to that question we asked earlier about, "What would this look like if it was fun?"
Episode duration: 1:26:19
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