The Ultimate Toolkit for CREATING New Habits: The Science Made Easy | The Mel Robbins Podcast

(ticking clock) (upbeat music) Yes, there is a way to unlock sudden change, and it's called habits, and that's what we're all going to talk about today. If you're somebody who's struggling to change, like maybe you're trying to become a better student, or you want to be better with your money, or more organized, or you'd love a rock solid morning routine, you're gonna love this episode and everything you're about to learn, because habits are the evidence that you see that you're becoming a different person. There are only three steps to making a habit stick. That's it. Number one... (upbeat music) Hey, I'm Mel Robbins, and if you're new to the podcast, I want to welcome you. I'm a New York Times best-selling author and one of the most trusted experts on behavior change and mindset in the world. I'm really glad that you're here with me, especially today, because today, we're talking about a topic that I'm getting a ton of questions about, like this one from Sarah.

Hey, Mel. This is Sarah, and I have a question. Are there actually ways to unlock sudden, rapid steps to big change in a short period of time, or is this a dangerous misconception?

Yes, Sarah, there is a way to unlock sudden change, and it's called habits. And that's what we're all gonna talk about today. You and I are gonna talk about the science of habits. I want to repeat Sarah's question because I want to make sure that we unpack a couple elements in it, and then we're gonna jump into the science of habits. So c- Sarah's question was this. Are there ways to unlock sudden, rapid steps to big change in a short period of time, or is this a dangerous misconception? Now, I said yes. There is a way for you to experience big change in a short period of time if you change how you view yourself. I mean, that's the biggest kind of change that you can experience. When you change your identity, when you change what you believe is possible, that's transformational. Now, one other thing that Sarah said, though, is she asked, "Is it a dangerous misconception to think that big change happens immediately?" And that brings me to the topic of habits. See, change doesn't happen overnight, but when you understand the science of habits, what you realize is that change, little change, it compounds daily. And the massive change that you experience in a short period of time when you focus on habit formation is how you relate to yourself. So I'm gonna give you an example. Let's say that you set a goal that this is the year that you are going to run your first marathon. You're gonna train for it. You're gonna finish the race. Now, it will take time. It's gonna take you time to achieve that goal. But if you make it a habit to wake up every day and get out the door and go for that training run, within a matter of days, something kind of crazy happens. You experience this massive change because you start to see yourself differently. You start to see yourself as a runner. Now, have you achieved that goal yet? No. That's gonna take time, but the power of habits is that as you practice them, they start to change your identity. They become evidence that you're the kind of person that goes for a run. So in the beginning, habits are just something that you and I do, but over, but over time, habits change who you are. So, I'm excited for this because if you're somebody who's struggling to change, like maybe you're trying to become a better student, or you want to be better with your money, or more organized, or you'd love a rock solid morning routine, or how about carving out the time to put yourself first? That'd be a great habit. Or this is the year that you're gonna become better at sleeping. You're gonna make it a habit to go to bed earlier. Or I'm seeing a lot of you writing in with questions about launching a new business. You want to make it a habit to work on it. I see that. That's awesome. You're gonna love this episode and everything you're about to learn because habits are the evidence that you see that you're becoming a different person, and that shows up before you achieve the goal that you set. And this is why the science is so powerful. One of the other things I want to remind you is that this episode on the science of habits, it's part of a month-long series that I'm doing where you and I are covering the foundational topics that you need to understand and apply to your life so that you can create a better life. And just a few days ago, I released an episode on goal setting. And if you've listened to it, fantastic. If you haven't listened to it, no problem. It's there. You can listen to it at any time. Listen to it right after you finish this one. In fact, all the episodes this month work together. They stand alone. Listen to them in any order. It's totally cool. And you're gonna also see that there's a big connection between setting goals the right way, according to research, and how habits are an integral part of that. Today, what we're going to cover is you're gonna learn what a habit is. And even if you think you know what a habit is, I want you to listen, because research shows that most of us think we know, but we don't actually know what a habit is or how to apply what we know to making a habit stick. The other thing that we're gonna cover is the three parts of a habit. These three parts are required. This is all grounded in decades and decades of research, and you need these three parts present in order to encode that habit into your brain as a brand new automatic behavior. And that's where the, that's where really, like, the secret sauce comes in. We're also gonna talk about how these three parts and understanding them, it's essential not only to forming new habits, but you need to understand these three parts because they help you break the bad or old habits that you're tired of in your life. And here's one more thing I want to say upfront.I promise this is going to be really eye-opening, and it's going to be somewhat of a relief, because the science of habits, everybody gets all fancy and researchy and neuroscience and psychology and biology, but the truth is, habits are pretty simple. The research on habits has not changed in years and years and years and years and years. Decades, really. And the way that I explain the science of habits is so simple that even your puppy could understand it. I'm not kidding. There are only three steps to making a habit stick. That's it. And so even if you've listened to a bazillion episodes about habits, even if you've read a ton of books out there, I want you to stick around and stay with me on this, because according to the two women that created all the research that absolutely everybody cites, you may have heard that there are three parts to the habit. Well, you can thank Dr. Anne Grabiel at MIT and Dr. Wendy Wood at USC for creating the fact that there are three essential parts to every habit. These two researchers, they are the founders, the grandmothers of habit research. Every book that you've read is working on their research. Every podcast interview, they're talking about their research. Nothing has changed about habit research in decades. But here's the issue. Those two women will tell you, even if you think you know habits, you still struggle with making behavior stick. And so my mission today is to make this so simple that you don't have a problem implementing the research anymore, because I think there's a reason why none of us implement these three essential parts of a habit, even if we know about 'em, and there are two reasons why. Number one, we get all emotional about what we need to do. We know the three things that make up a habit, and yet we have, like, feelings and opinions and all that stuff about it. That's number one. And number two, we human beings over-complicate everything. We talk about habits. We think we're so fancy and educated. We can fly to the moon. We can drive in electric cars. We can do all these amazing things, and I think we forget that when it comes to habits, it's just these three things. It has nothing to do with your feelings. It has nothing to do with how smart you are. In fact, Dr. Wendy Wood says almost nobody understands what habits are. And so you may know the definition, you may know the three things that you're about to learn, but when you are put to the test, are you actually able to make changes and get them to stick? No, not really. So Dr. Wendy Wood has determined that almost everybody gets this wrong, which is why we're going to simplify this. So let's just start with the basics. What is a habit? A habit is something that you do so often that it's automatic. That's it. That's all that a habit is. There's no drama. There's no resistance. There's no feelings involved in it. I like to think about it like a habit is something that you do that you don't even think about, and you certainly don't put up a fight about it, right? Here are some examples of habits in your life. Brushing your teeth. Looking over your right shoulder when you're backing up in the car, or if you're in the US, that's what you do. For our fans of the podcast over in the UK, you're probably looking over the left shoulder. You don't even think about that, do you? You got to back up, you just turn and look. Uh, you get something to eat when you're hungry. That's a habit. You check email first thing in the morning. That's a habit. When you hear your name, don't you turn your head and look in the direction of it? That's a habit. Why are habits awesome? I'll tell you why habits are awesome, because when a behavior becomes automatic, there's zero drama in your life. It's just so much easier. Like, I'll give you my husband. The man is Mr. Habit. He just rolls out of bed like nothing's happened. He gets up. He gets dressed. He meditates. He goes to the gym. He walks the dog. He journals. He does it automatically. No drama. There are certainly areas of my life where I would love to be less dramatic, less emotional, less resistant to the things that I want to do. I'd love to just sort of roll through it like my husband does. And so, let's you and I, let's not just make this like a conversation. Let's move from listening to doing. If I could take a science-backed magic wand and I could remove all the resistance that you feel in your body, what is one behavior change that you would like to make? One new habit, or you know, sometimes it's easier to say, what's a bad habit you'd like to break? Do you chew your nails? Do you hit the snooze button five times? Said in the positive, what's a new habit you'd like to create? Would you like to exercise every day? Do you want to get your finances in order and be more responsible with money? I'm going to give you a few examples, okay? Would you love to be the kind of person where part of your routine is to get outside and exercise every day? Or how about the kind of person who keeps your room or your desk clean, or you have a zero inbox? That'd be pretty awesome. Would you like to be the kind of person that gets up 30 minutes earlier than you do right now? Just rolls right out of bed like my husband does? Or how about the kind of person who feels comfortable in social settings? You push yourself out there a little bit more. You, uh, you know, push through that discomfort. You feel a little bit more outgoing.Maybe you want to make it a habit to meditate and feel like you're the kind of person that's more mindful. That's where the science of habits is so important. And so now that you've kind of stopped to think, "Hmm, what's a habit I want to break or what's a behavior change I want to make, the kind of person I want to become?" I have a free worksheet that's a companion to this episode that you can download. You can go to melrobbins.com/habits, and it will serve as a guide to this episode. It's going to help you apply everything that we talk about in this episode. Now, why do habits matter so much? I'll tell you why habits matter. You've learned one reason, and that has to do with identity, right? But the real reason why habits matter is because learning new habits are the only way to go from what your day-to-day life looks like right now to something different. It's the only way. It's the bricks on the pathway to changing your life. That's what habits are. And habits are evidence. Every time that you get out that door and you go for the run, it's evidence that you are becoming a particular type of person. The other reason why habits are so imporse- habits are so important is because they make your life easier. I mean, I want you to just stop and consider something. Think about how hard it is to be the kind of person who has a habit of hitting the snooze button four or five times every morning, and then you drag yourself out of bed, that's a habit, and you start your day chronically late, that's a habit. I used to do this. I used to do this. This was the Mel Robbins that you did not know. I was a chronic snooze button hitter, I would drag myself out of bed. By the time I got out of bed, the kids had missed the bus, I started the day behind. It was a nightmare. It was so hard to have that bad habit, and in order to change, I needed to become a different person. I needed to become a person that got up when the alarm rang, that had a morning routine, and that organized my morning so that I would begin the day with a sense of accomplishment. That's what I wanted. Instead of beginning the day like I was behind and I was already failing before I got out of bed. And the gateway to making that change is changing your habits in the morning. When you have habits that support you and your goals and the kind of person you want to become, your life gets easier, and that's why habits truly matter. Sure, you could muscle your way out of bed every morning, you could drag yourself to the gym, you could berate yourself endlessly until you got more motivated and aggressive and vocal at work, but that change is never gonna stick, it's never gonna become automatic, it's never gonna become who you are. Why? Because you're forcing yourself. You're relying on willpower and brute force to push through the bad habits that you have of sleeping in or staying silent or blowing things off or procrastinating, and that's where these three steps come in. What I'm going to teach you today doesn't require willpower. You're going to learn how to use science to make new behavior a part of your wiring. This resistance thing, it is so important, and I think we underestimate how much bad habits are in our life and running our lives and how it's making your life harder. So I'm going to give you an, a simple example of a habit that I currently have so that I can really unpack this resistance thing, okay? So I have a habit of making a cup of coffee every single morning. I love my morning coffee. I do. And I can... And it is so automatic, I don't have to think about it. I know how to work the coffee machine, I know how to work the milk foamer, I know exactly where the coffee pods are. I can literally be doing 15 other things while I make a cup of coffee. That's how automatic of a habit it is. It is easy. I don't even think about it. What if I told you that you could make any change in behavior feel as effortless as making a cup of coffee? Wouldn't that be cool? I mean, I don't stand in front of the coffee maker and go, "Oh, it's raining outside, I don't want any coffee. I don't feel like it today. I'm too tired. I don't want to." No. It's a habit, so I just do it. And I'm saying this because this is what the research says. The research says when you apply the three things that you're about to learn to every behavior change, whether it's breaking an old habit or learning a new one, you will make your life easier. Another thing that's important for you to hear is that successful people, based on the research from UPenn, they're not smarter than you. They don't have more willpower than you. You know what they have? They have what Chris has, my husband. They just put in the work to create better habits that make them feel successful and make their life easier. And the more you apply what you're about to learn, the more behavior change you can stack along the way. You can create a chain of behavior change. It's so cool. Just like Chris rolls out of bed and walks into the bathroom and brushes his teeth and doesn't even think about it and then gets on his exercise clothes, then goes and medi- like, that's a chain of behavior, that's a chain of habits. He doesn't even think about it. Because every new habit that you want to create, it's the exact same three-step process. I am telling you, do not overcomplicate this. Do not think you're fancy. Whether you want to break a bad habit or you want to encode new ones, let's not overcomplicate this. And I know what you're thinking, "Mel, if this is so simple, why is it so hard to get to the gym? Why can I not stop emotional eating? Why am I chewing my nails? Why is it easy to talk about it but hard to make it stick?" Just accept at face value what you're about to learn. You and I learn new behavior the exact same way a new puppy does.... and I'm gonna prove it to you. Not everything in life needs to be so hard or so complicated, so let's all just take a deep breath because we're about to make habits easy. And this is why, by the way, the research shows that nobody understands how to apply the research, because we read, "Oh, it's just these three steps," and we're like, "No, no, no, no, it can't be." We wanna think that, that we're special, but no, we're not. You are like a puppy, and this is why it's so hard to accept the truth. And you wanna know something crazy? So right before I came up here to talk to you about habits, honest to goodness, you know what I was doing? I was standing in my kitchen with my family of five, and we were in the middle of a dog training session. I'm not making this up. We have a three-year-old Australian shepherd named Yolo and a five-month-old puppy named Homie, and Homie needs new habits. Homie is not gonna go from being a puppy to a beautifully trained dog without us training him. You're the same way as Homie. Right now, there are areas of your life where you're doing whatever the hell you wanna do, just like my puppy is, and you and I are gonna go back to obedience school, back to the basics. That's what habits are about. And as I was sitting there watching this training session with our two dogs, I'm thinking, "Holy smokes, it really is this simple." So I had this epiphany and I just turned to Caroline Edger from Grateful Dogs and I said, "Would you be willing to come upstairs with me? Because I'm about to do something about habits, and you training these dogs is making me realize everything I was about to say to the humans is the exact same thing that you do to the dogs." And so she came up here. So here I am talking with Caroline. So I am so blown away right now that I kidnapped Caroline-