How to develop the habits you want – and get rid of the ones you don’t (w/ James Clear) (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Chris Duffy:
You are listening to How to Be A Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. You know, we tend to think a lot about habits at the beginning of the year. I'm gonna read a book a week, or I'm gonna work out every day, or I'm gonna finally get into woodworking or whatever. You know, what lies you told yourself back in January. 


But, then if you're anything like me, this time of the year rolls around and hmm, I'm looking around and I'm not seeing a big pile of books that I've read, and I'm also not seeing literally any handmade furniture.

So, why is that? Well, today's guest wrote the book about it. If you are trying to figure out how to change your habits, how to shift your behavior, or simply to understand what is going on in your brain when it comes to motivation, James Clear is the guy you want to talk to. 


And, today we're gonna be talking to him all about his book, Atomic Habits, what he's learned in years of hearing from readers about it, and how to change what we do. 


Here’s a clip.

[00:01:00] James Clear:
We could probably say that I have a pretty good writing habit. Certainly, I've gotten good results from my writing habit, but for the first three years that I had the business, I wrote a new article every Monday and Thursday, so I did that for three years. 


Those were like longer form pieces that were like two or 3000 words. Then, I signed the book deal. So, for the next three years, my writing habit was totally different. I was like fully focused on writing the book. And, then for the last four years I've been running this newsletter, it's called 3-2-1. But, it's just three short ideas from me, two quotes from other people, and one question to think about that week. And, I published that, or once a week.
So, was my original writing habit, like is that a failure now 'cause I only did it for three years and I haven't done it in seven years since then? The habit changes shape is my point, and you need to be totally fine with that. That's a very normal part of the process. 

[00:01:48] Chris Duffy:
We're gonna hear a ton more from James in just a minute, but first, a very normal part of the podcast process. 
Here are some ads. Don't go anywhere.
Today, we're talking with James Clear about habits and behavior change.

[00:03:37] James Clear:
Hi, I am James Clear. I'm the author of Atomic Habits.

[00:03:39] Chris Duffy:
So, this show we, we almost always end with these two questions, but I, actually, thought because of you and your experience and your work, it might be really interesting to start with them instead. 


So, the show is called How to Be A Better Human. What is one thing, it can be a book, a movie, a piece of music, an idea, what's something that has helped you to be a better human? 


[00:03:59] James Clear:
There are two things that come to mind. So, the first thing is, it's impossible to be a human that's outside of a body. And, if you want to be functioning well, your body needs to be functioning well. 


And, so I would say that in a lot of ways my workout habit is actually the thing that has allowed me to be an entrepreneur, the, particularly, the early years of entrepreneurship are such a rollercoaster ride of emotions, and there have been so many days when I feel like that day was a total waste, but at least I got a good workout in. 


And, so my, my workout habit has rescued me a lot and it can take many different shapes. It could just be going for a walk or a run. It could be yoga. It could be strength training, but having something like that to reset your biology so that you can think a little more clearly.

And, then the second thing that comes to mind is some form of reflection and review. 
In my case, I, kinda, have two things that I do most frequently. I, I have a weekly review that I do, which is more business related. That's on Fridays. I kinda sit down for, it really only takes like 20 minutes. But, I look at some of the key metrics in my business, but then I also have an annual review that I do at the end of each year, and that one's more values focused. 


It's more like who is the type of person I hope to become? Sometimes, I'll write out my actual core values, you know, so I'll list out five or seven things that I say are really important to me, and then I'll look back on, the how I spent time the previous year. I'll check my calendar, see how many times I traveled, how many nights I spent away from home. 


I'll look at my workout journal. How many workouts did I get in? I'll look at how many articles I published, how many things did I write? How long were they? How many words did I publish? And, a variety of other things like that. And, the point is to see if my actual behavior over the last year has matched up with what I say my values are.

Pretty much everyone, if you went up to them and asked, do you have integrity? Are, are you living by your values? Do you know? You know, most people are probably gonna say, yeah, I'm a person of integrity. Like, nobody's really walking around saying, oh no, I don't really have any. 


Um, but, you, sort of, find yourself sliding, uh, without realizing it sometimes, and it's easy for three months or six months or even a year or two to pass and find yourself in a different position than maybe what you thought you were doing. And, so I really feel like those periods of reflection, review, whether it's a more daily or weekly cadence, or an annual one, are really critical. 


It's so unlikely that you'll be stumbling into the optimal way to live. You have to take time to sit and think about it. So, that you can come across a better strategy or realize when you're a little bit off course and, and course correct over time. 


[00:06:43] Chris Duffy:
I love those answers. It also ties into two of the big themes I know you've been talking about in the book and, and since the book in, in all of the interviews that you've done about how, really, we have like a, an often a very misguided focus on a goal, like a, an outcome rather than changing the kind of person that we are, changing our identity. 


Who am I? And, who do I wanna be and what's the gap between those and how do I close that gap? And, then another thing that I think was really what, what struck me the most when I, when I first read your book, is the idea that a habit becomes more and more powerful with time. The, the more that you do it cumulatively, the more it builds on itself. 


Almost like compound interest, but for your life. 


[00:07:26] James Clear:
They're important reminders I try to give myself. I mean, at some level, pretty much everything that I wrote at Atomic Habits is a reminder to me. Do I procrastinate on things? Yeah, sure. All the time. You know, am I too focused on the goal and not enough on the system? 


Am I too focused on the result, not enough on the process? Yeah. I've caught myself in that trap, you know, more times than I can count. And, so I'm trying to, as someone who is pretty results oriented and goal oriented, course correct or like just pull myself back to center. And, as you mentioned, a big part of that I think is a focus on systems and process and habits and not on the outcome. 


So, you know, the line that I like to share from the book is “We don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.” And, so often in life, you know, we're told, Hey, you need to be more ambitious. 10 x your vision, think bigger, or want it more. And, the truth is setting the goal, like kind of the easy part. 


You know, like I, I'm an author, right? So, I can set a goal to sell a hundred million books. Goal took me like three seconds. You know, the goal's, not the hard part.

[00:08:24] Chris Duffy:
Yeah.

[00:08:25] James Clear:
It's building this collection of habits, this system of behaviors that will carry you toward that outcome. And, I think, if I was gonna put like a little finer point on the language, what do I mean by goal and system, your goal is your desired outcome, the thing you're optimizing for or shooting for? What is your system? It's the collection of daily habits that you follow, and if there's 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. 


Almost by definition, your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results. So, whatever system you've been running, whatever collection of habits you've been following for the last six months or year or two years, it's carried you almost inevitably to the outcomes that you have right now.
And, it's not that goals don't matter, you know, they can be helpful for setting a sense of direction. They can be helpful for getting you started. They can be helpful for having clarity around what you're gonna focus on, but goals are good for people who care about winning once, systems are best for people who care about winning repeatedly. 

And, if you, if you really wanna make long-term progress, you're gonna need some collection of habits, some system to get you there and to keep things moving forward. 


[00:09:37] Chris Duffy:
It's interesting, like the hearing you talk about it in that way, I had a, a moment of several years ago where I was dealing with a lot of professional jealousy. 


Right? Like especially in comedy, people's successes are so public, right? Like, I'll drive down the street and I'll see someone who I started at open mics with and they have a billboard, and I was really struggling with that. Like, oh, that person has a Netflix special, and I don't, and then what I started to do is instead of thinking, like, they've gotten that thing and I didn't get it, I started to kind of think, well, what are they doing differently than me?
Like, for example, someone who is getting a lot of late-night sets is outperforming many, many more times each week than I am. And, when I looked at it that way, I started to see, oh, that's a sacrifice that I'm not willing to make, right? 


Like, I care about spending time with my family and friends more than I care about doing three or four standup sets every night. So, once I started to see it as like a choice that I was making and that was leading to a different outcome, it helped me to accept that maybe that outcome isn't as important to me because it would require changing all these systems in my life that I, actually, care about. 


[00:10:40] James Clear:
There's so much to unpack there, and I feel like we all have some, kind of, conversation like that with ourselves that we need to have about what we're truly optimizing for. I always feel like, especially with, you know, a lot of the examples for me are, like, entrepreneurial related or business related, and it's kind of like the natural, cultural discussion about what you should want as an entrepreneur is to have the biggest business possible, to keep growing, to keep driving revenue, to keep building the business.

But, I always think the first place we should start is by asking yourself, how do I wanna spend my days? And, then inside of that answer, you can figure out how to build a great business, but it shouldn't be outside of that. And, it is shocking. It's surprising how often people will choose to do something that they already are living a decent life, but they choose to live a worse life and, have some, to optimize for some other metric.

They take the promotion and the job because they're like, well, of course I wanna get promoted and have a higher status role and to make more money, but it leads to a worse daily life. And, I'm always like, I kind of feel like that's a bad trade. I mean, there's, there's a certain amount of money that you need to make just to get through life and to function well and to have, you know, the lifestyle that you want. 


But, if you already have that, why make a trade to live a worse life, just so that you can have more status or more money. And, yet you see people do that sort of thing all the time. It's all similar versions of the same kind of root questioning, which is what kind of days do I wanna live? What type of person do I wanna be? 


How do I wanna be spending my time and showing up in the world? And, you need to have an honest conversation with yourself about that. And, then once you figure that out, there's a couple things that kind of naturally cascade from that, that are interesting to wrestle with. I feel like in your example that you gave, where you've got some friends who are comedians who now they have a billboard and you guys started out together, it'd be easy for you to, kind of, get defensive in that moment and be like, oh, you know, like I'm doing my best. 


You know, like I'm trying, and, and often that phrase, oh, you know, like, look, I'm trying my best is kind of used in a defensive way. And, I think instead you could ask, did I do what is required? And, that's kind of what you're getting at with like, well, look, they did three or four sets a night, and so maybe that's what was required to get that outcome. 


And, so the first is just this honest question, did I do what was required? The second part is, once you say, that's not what I want to do, I wanna spend time with family or friends, I wanna have a different type of lifestyle balance, you need to be okay with making that trade-off. What's a natural recipe for disaster is to make that choice, but then to not be okay with the trade-off to be at home with your family, but then to be regretting that you don't have the billboard and you're not doing three or four standup sessions a night. 


We often do that kind of thing to ourselves where we're like, choose one thing, but then our mind is somewhere else. And, you know, if you're gonna make that choice, you need to actually be there and to be cool with the fact that that's, that's not a likely outcome given the path that you're on. And, ultimately, I think this all comes back to the trajectory that your habits are putting you on. 


And, this is a big emphasis that I have in Atomic Habits, which is there's so much discussion in life about position and I think not enough discussion about trajectory or path. You know, we're so focused on analyzing our current position. Do I have the face on the billboard? How much money's in the bank account? 


What's the current stock price? What are the quarterly earnings? What's the number on the scale? We have all these ways of measuring our current position, and then if the position's not what we wanted it to be, if it, if we haven't achieved what we set out to achieve, we start judging ourselves or feeling guilty or feeling bad about it. 


And, what I'm encouraging is to say, listen, just for a minute, like let's set the measurements to the side and not worry so much about our current position, and instead focus a little bit more on our current trajectory. Am I getting 1% better or 1% worse? Is the arrow pointed up and to the right or have we flatlined? 


And, if you're on a good trajectory, if you're improving, all you need is time. But, if you're on a bad trajectory, even if you're in a good position right now, it's not gonna end well. And, so I think the concepts I talk about in the book, like getting 1% better or focusing on the system rather than the goal, it's more about trying to get you to shift this from being an external comparison. 


What did my peers have that I don't have and make it an internal comparison. Am I on a good path? Am I improving a little bit? And if so, maybe all I need is patience.

[00:14:55] Chris Duffy:
You know, something that I think is so special about you and your work is that you do think about it in this holistic sense that accounts for all the pieces of your life. 


I think there's often in like the space of how to improve your habits or how you spend your time, these almost like monomaniacal visions of every single second should be rung out for like productivity and for economic value rather than, as you put it, right, like, the type of person you wanna be, the type of traje-trajectory you wanna be.
That is part of, a big part of, of why this book is connected with so many people, right? The, the realistic, practical ways that you can put these into place, but also the, the broader philosophical understanding that like maximizing the amount of income you can make isn't, actually, the best outcome for life. 


Here's a question that I have for you, and I swear that the intention of this question is, uh, not in any way confrontational. I can't think of a way to word it so that it doesn't seem a little confrontational, but that's not how I mean it. I mean it in a…

[00:15:56] James Clear:
Yeah.

[00:15:56] Chris Duffy:
…the most complimentary, admiring way possible, which is…

[00:15:58] James Clear:
Sure, let it rip. 


[00:15:59] Chris Duffy:
..you have sold so many copies of this book, you have built a, a economic success for yourself and for your family. So, why do you still do this? Like, why are you doing this interview? Why do you still take interview requests? Why do you still talk about habits even though it's so many years after the book came out? 


[00:16:17] James Clear:
Yeah, it's a good question. Well, I think, first of all, it's very rare in life that you do one, uh, do something for only one reason. Certainly, one of the reasons that I build a business and wrote the book and so on is because it gives a way to make a living, and we all have to figure out how to make a living in the world. 


But, it's definitely not the only reason, and it might not even be the primary reason. I mean, I think the primary reason I got started as an entrepreneur was so that I could have control of my time and spend my days focused on projects that were interesting to me. And, it just so happened that one of those projects over the last decade of being an entrepreneur was writing this book and the book did really well. 


And, I think I sometimes I think about Atomic Habits in that way where I'm like, look, it can just be a project that went well. You know, it doesn't have to be more than that. A lot of the time people ask me follow up questions now, like, oh, you know what, if your second book doesn't do as well, or whatever, and it's like, I don't even think that needs to be a problem. 


You know? Like, you're gonna have a range of projects you produce throughout your creative career and one of them is going to be your bestseller. So, all of the others are not going to be as good as that. And, that's fine. That doesn't mean I wanna stop creating. The other part of it is I've gotten a lot of feedback from readers that the ideas have been really useful for them. 


To whatever degree that Atomic Habits in this work is making a meaningful difference in people's lives, it is happening and people are saying that, and I think, ultimately, all humans want to feel useful.

You know, you wanna feel like you're contributing your little bit to society, your little, you know, corner of the universe that you're making an impact there. 


And, so that feels good, you know, to do that. I also think there is an element of inertia that's involved when this, you know, for the first, let's call it at least seven years of the business. I didn't have kids and the work burner was cranked on high, and I was just trying to like figure out a way to make it all work. 


I was saying yes to every opportunity I could. I was trying to capitalize on every opportunity I had. I was trying to make the best thing I could and grow it as big as possible. And, when the switch has been flipped on in that position for that long, it's kinda hard to learn how to flip it off, and that has been a big part of my personal growth over the last couple years is now I do have kids and I have about 40% of the working hours that I had before, and I kept trying to force fit a lot of my old habits into my new life. 


And, it probably took me, I'm a pretty slow learner, it probably took me like 18 months to two years before I figured out, hey, you need to like stop being a dummy about this and change your habits a little bit. I think all of those things are part of the answer. Partially, it feels good to be useful and contribute something.

Partially, it helps make money and provide for my family. Partially, it's how I wanna be spending my days and partially it's inertia and I'm just used to doing it for seven years or 10 years, and I haven't quite fully learned, hey, maybe your lifestyle needs to look a little bit different now. 


[00:19:01] Chris Duffy:
We're gonna take a quick break for some ads and then we will be right back. 


And, we are back. We've had a really fascinating discussion all starting with that one question that we normally ask, and I didn't even ask the second typical question that we end with, which is, what is one thing that you personally are working on in your own life to be a better human right now? 


[00:20:02] James Clear:
There's this strange thing that happens when people pick a habit to follow. In this case, I'm using exercise as an example, but it can be anything. You start to do the habit and maybe you stick with it for a month or three months or some period of time where you're kind of energized about it and you do a good job with it, and then something happens and you fall off course. 


And, I've noticed that there's a certain group of people that the narrative in their mind at that point is, oh, well of course I fell off track. I always fail with exercise habits. Or, oh, you know, like I knew I wasn't gonna be able to stick with it. Why did I think it was gonna be different this time? And, I don't think it has to be like that at all. 


Like, we don't need to turn it into this bigger thing where we're assigning our self-worth to this or whatever. And, I also think that it's a little bit strange that we do this to ourselves. Nobody says this explicitly, but the assumption when you pick a habit to build is kind of like, well, what it would be to be successful with this is if I just did it forever for the rest of my life. 


[00:20:59] Chris Duffy:
Yeah.

[00:21:00] James Clear:
But, but, that obviously that doesn't make sense because you go through many different stages of life. Habits need to change shape. So, these check-ins, these reflections and review, it's a chance to notice like when something falls off course and isn't working and maybe the habit needs to change shape and that's totally fine. 


Um, you don't need to, like, berate yourself for it. Uh, the other big thing that I'm struggling with or dealing with right now is the fact that a lot of things are going really well in the business. There's a lot of opportunity because the book is selling so well, but I suddenly have, like, half the time that I had before as a new parent, and so my kids are young, they're toddlers, but I like spending time with them. 


I want to spend time with them, but I'm dealing with that problem, that issue that I just mentioned to you a couple minutes ago where it's like, what's not okay is to be spending time with them, but then in your head wishing that you were working on something else or regretting that you like can't finish the next creative project. 


Like, you either need to be all in or not on those things. And, I find that that's a difficult space for me to be, to occupy, is like I need to be with them when I'm with them and not like feeling bad about the fact that I'm behind on work, whatever that might mean, or that I'm not producing as much as I did before.

[00:22:08] Chris Duffy:
It resonates so much with me. I, I'm in this moment just personally where I have a, a book deal. I have my first book. It's like I'm working on it. It seems so exciting. It feels like this, really moment of like extreme possibility where like my career could take a shift in a way that I'm really excited about. 


And, also by the time this episode comes out, my wife will have given birth to our first kid. So, like both of these things are happening simultaneously, and it's really clear to me that I've built a bunch of habits that have worked up till now and that I kind of have no idea what will work in four weeks and much less in four months. 


[00:22:44] James Clear:
Congratulations, by the way. That's awesome. You're kind of birthing two babies in a, a sense. You've got these like two big things growing, but that's great. Who knows what will, what your lifestyle will require over the next year and, and the years to follow. But, sometimes I feel like the ultimate form of mental toughness is the ability to handle uncertainty. 


It's not, it's not like preparing for every event. You can't, you're never gonna be able to predict what exactly you're gonna need. But, if you have a mindset where you're comfortable with the fact that, hey, I'll be able to handle that whenever it looks like, then you know you're gonna be pretty mentally tough when dealing with it. 


[00:23:16] Chris Duffy:
Hmm. As we were talking before about the idea that like habits can change over time, it makes me think that, you know, some habits are a lot easier for us to accept that in because there's not really like a moral judgment around them. For example, like, I'm thinking specifically of learning a language. 


I think that if you got, like for, I'm trying to learn Spanish, whereas especially when it comes to, you know, body, diet, exercise, you get to a place and then you fall off a little bit. People really put some, some harsh self judgements on themselves around that and, and obviously part of that is, a big part of that is the culture in society. 


But, I think some of it too is that mental framing that you said of like, it's only a success if I do this forever and if the results stay exactly the same for the entire time that I'm doing it. 


[00:23:58] James Clear:
Yeah. I agree with you, and it is interesting to see how different the societal expectations are for certain habits and which ones are high status and which ones are low status. 


And, like learning a language is just kind of a net positive. It's like the expectation, at least in the U.S., maybe in other places, the world's different where people are more multilingual, but you're not expected to have a-another language anyway. So, if you did, it was just a bonus and that, and maybe that's easier to feel good about that. 


Sometimes, I think these big picture questions about habits, we kind of get ahead of ourselves a little bit. We're so focused on like the overall thing and how we feel and like we turn it into this bigger judgment and I'm, kind of, like, maybe we can just scale it down and try to have five good minutes. 


Can we do that? You know? And, you can do a lot with five good minutes, like five good minutes of pushups, we will be a good workout and reset your mood for the day. Five good minutes of conversation can restore a relationship. Five good minutes of writing can make you feel like the manuscript's back on track. 


I think that's one of the lessons of my work is that it doesn't actually take that much to feel good about yourself again. And, if you can just make it about that, about trying to have one good day, then maybe you can worry a little bit less about the overall judgements, about what it means and about what other people think about you and all that kind of stuff. 


It can just be, can I just be here in this moment and try to make good use of it, and then you can go to sleep and wake up tomorrow and try to do the same thing and trust that if you keep accumulating and stacking good days on top of each other, you're gonna end up in a pretty good place. 


[00:25:21] Chris Duffy:
You know, we've been talking a lot about, um, good habits, forming good habits, but something that I was pleasantly surprised by is the level of empathy and lack of judgment that you have when you talk about people breaking bad habits.

You say that people with great self-control are not all that different from people who are struggling. It's mostly that they just have an environment that lets them spend less time being tempted. And, you, you give the example of people who are struggling with addiction, whether it is to cigarettes, to alcohol, to drugs, and, and how much the system actually plays a part rather than this like individual moral strength, which I think sometimes there's this cultural understanding of it of, that that can be really damaging, that that's the idea. 


[00:26:08] James Clear:
Thanks for saying that. I don't know, this isn't something I talk about on the surface or like, say explicitly in the book, but it might be, kind of, surprising to, once you realize, I actually never say in atomic habits, like, I never tell you what habits you should build. And, I'm not actually that interested in that. 


Like I, I don't even really think it's my role, you know, like you would know for your personal life better than I would, what, what you wanna focus on. I just view it as like there is no one way to build better habits. There are many ways and I'm just sharing the best way that I've come across so far, and I, kind of, view it as my job to like lay all the tools out on the table and give you a more full tool belt. 


And, your job is to say, you know what? I think for my situation, I need a wrench, or I need the hammer, or I need the screwdriver. That feels like that's what's gonna work best for me here. And, I feel like if I can give you a more fully equipped tool belt, you'll be in a better position to make the changes you wanna make. 


Specifically, with breaking bad habits, a lot of it does have to it, a lot of it involves the environment. If you were to go to an academic or a researcher and ask them to define what a habit is to you, they're probably gonna say something like, oh, habit, you know, habits are automatic behaviors that are done more or less mindlessly, like brushing your teeth or tying your shoes, or, you know, something like that. 


But, another way to define what a habit is, is that it is a behavior that's tied to a particular context. So, your habit of watching Netflix is tied to the context of your couch at 8:00 PM or your habit of meditating is tied to your kitchen table at 7:00 AM or you know, where wherever you do these kind of things. 


And, what you find is that many of your bad habits and your good habits are a product of those spaces, of those contexts, those environments that they're in. And, when you change the environment in a meaningful way, the behavior often changes in a meaningful way. Now, I hesitate, you know, I didn't write Atomic Habits as a book about addiction, and I don't claim to be an expert on addiction.

So, I do think for true addictions, there's kind of some other factors that are at play, but just leaving that aside for a second and just talking about just general bad habits that we all have, you would be surprised how often a change in the environment can reduce or curtail the habit to the desired degree. 


So, for example, a lot of people feel like they look at their phones too much or that they spent, you know, their phone is a distraction. They're always checking their screen, so on. I have this thing, I, I don't do it every day, but I do it probably 75 or 80% of days where I leave my phone in another room until lunch each day. 


Whenever I do that, I almost always have a better day. I have a home office, so my phone is only 30 seconds down the hallway, but I never go get it. And, I'm like, well, did I want it or not? You know, like in one sense I wanted it so bad that I would check it every three minutes when it was next to me. 


But, in another sense, I never wanted it badly enough that I would walk 30 seconds down the hall and get it. And, a lot of habits are like that. For many of your bad habit, they're just a response to the things that are around you, and they're available and obvious.

I talk about this in the book, but they're basically, if you want to build a good habit, they're basically four things that you want working for you. 
And, I call 'em the four Laws of behavior change. And the first one is what we just talked about. The first law is to make it obvious. You want the cues of your good habits to be obvious, available, visible, easy to see. The easier it is to see or get your attention, the more likely you're to act on it. The second law is to make it attractive. 


The more attractive or appealing a habit is, the more likely you're to feel motivated to do it. The third law is to make it easy. The easier, more convenient, frictionless, simple a habit is the more likely you are to feel compelled to take action. And, the fourth and final law is to make it satisfying. 


The more enjoyable a habit is, the more fun or engaging or rewarding it is, the more likely you're to repeat it in the future. I would say just go through these four laws and ask yourself, how can I make the behavior more obvious? How can I make it more attractive? How can I make it easier? How can I make it more satisfying? 


And, the answers to those questions will naturally call forth some simple adjustments you can make that increase the odds that the behavior's going to occur. 


[00:30:04] Chris Duffy:
A thing that we have touched on as well is the fact that often really powerful behavior change doesn't happen in isolation, that it happens with the power of the group, whether that's, you know, the most intimate level of the group friends and family, or whether it's kind of like a broader community that you're part of or even societal level.

And, I think that's something that, um, you talk about in the book, but that we don't often think about when we think about success is the way in which it's part of a, a social and collaborative scene. 


[00:30:34] James Clear:
It is so pervasive, the social environment and the social impact on your habits that we almost don't even think about it or realize it. 


Like, if I walk outside my house and I look across the street and I see my neighbor mowing their lawn, I might think, oh, I need to cut the grass. And, you'll stick to that habit of mowing your lawn for five or 10 or 20, like however long you live in that house. You know, you do it for 30 years and we wish that we had that level of consistency with a lot of our other habits.

And, it's kinda like, well, why do you do it? Partially, you do it because it feels good to have a clean lawn, but mostly it feels good to have a clean lawn because you don't wanna be judged by the other people in the neighborhood for being the sloppy one. And, so it's actually that scene that ne, what it means to be a neighbor on this street and the social pressure and environment that you're in that drives that behavior.
And, that is true in so many other ways in life. Um, and so I think the punchline is you want to join groups where your desired behavior is normal because if your, your desired behavior is normal there and you're hanging out with people, you're building friendships and relationships with people who have that behavior as part of their life, it's gonna become so much easier for you to soak it up, too. 


Ultimately, this ties back into one of the deepest human needs that we all have. Every human has, we're very social creatures. We all have this desire to bond and connect, even if it's just part of like your little family unit. We all wanna be part of something. And, so when 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, 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 you want to try as best you can to get those two things aligned.
[00:32:38] Chris Duffy:
I wonder how does humor and laughter and having fun, how do those play a role in, in habits?

[00:32:36] James Clear:
Oh, great question. I think they have a, they play a huge role. I mean, my, one of my little rules for life is the person who has the most fun wins. And, I feel like you should apply that to your, to your habits as well. There's this little, again, one of these, kind of, unspoken things that happens when people choose their habits a lot of the time, which is, I think they choose the habits they feel like they're supposed to have or that society expects them to have or that somehow their peers or others want them to have, but not the habits that they actually want.

The most common example is like, the single most popular New Year's resolution is some form of exercise, go to the gym, whatever, get in shape.

And, I kind of feel like a lot of people are going to the gym and lifting weights in January just 'cause they think they should be going to the gym. And, my reply is always like, look, most things in life, there may not be a thousand ways to do it, but there is almost always more than one way. 


And, if that's true, then you should step back and think about what would this look like if it was fun? You know, what would it look like if meditating was fun for me? What would it look like if an exercise habit was enjoyable? What would it look like if I was excited to sit down and write each day? 


Whatever habit that you're trying to build, you should try to find the most fun version of that for you if you're genuinely interested or excited or curious about it. There'll be almost endless opportunities to improve and optimize it. But, if you're not actually excited about it, if you're just kind of forcing it, you're not even really curious about how to make it work, even the obvious improvements are gonna feel like a hassle.

[00:34:04] Chris Duffy:
You get asked nonstop about habits, right, in your, your book, Atomic Habits, I'm curious if over the course of all the discussions that you've had about this book, if you've also ended up learning more about atoms. 


[00:34:16] James Clear:
I learned quite a bit. I, I don't feel like my knowledge of chemistry is any better, but my knowledge of the chemistry metaphors is better. 


So, I talk about like habits have an activation energy, just like a chemical reaction or that one of the reasons I chose atomic is that small habits can add into accumulating into something more like atoms building into molecules and molecules building into compounds. So, I've got my own, I got my own like kind of chemistry lingo now, even if I'm not much wiser about the science itself. 


[00:34:47] Chris Duffy:
I love that. Well, James, it has been, like, such a pleasure talking to you. I, I love the book, I love the way you think about these things, but also just hearing it in person has been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for making the time to be on the show. 


[00:34:58] James Clear:
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. 
Pleasure to chat and, uh, glad you enjoyed the book. 


[00:35:06] Chris Duffy:
Thank you so much to today's guest, James Clear. His book is called Atomic Habits. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and other projects at chrisduffycomedy.com.

How to Be A Better Human is brought to you on the TED side by atomic particles named Daniella Balarezo, Banban Cheng, Cloe Shasha Brooks, and Joseph DeBrine.

This episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and Matheus Salles, whose habits include making a list and checking it twice. That's right. They are the Santa Claus of facts. On the PRX side, our show is put together by a team who habitually make this show possible, Morgan Flannery, Noor Gill, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez.

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