Jay:  Today’s guest is James Clear. James is an author and speaker focused on habits, decision making, and continuous improvement. He’s a regular speaker at Fortune 500 companies, and his work is used by teams in the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball. His website, JamesClear.com receives millions of visitors each month, and nearly half a million people subscribe to his popular email newsletter. James is also the author of Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, which is a New York Times bestselling book. James, welcome to the show.

James:  Hi, great to talk to you.

Jay:  I’m really glad to have you on. We’re entering a new year, 2019, and so I think this is a perfect time to have you on and to share some of your deep work and your findings. Before we get into that, maybe you could give a little bit of background of yourself and how you became an expert in habits and this sort of thing.

James:  Sure. I’ve been writing about habits, behavior change, and continuous improvement for the last six years now. The first three years, I wrote a new article every Monday and Thursday at JamesClear.com, and it was really that writing habit that fashioned my knowledge and expertise on the topic. I remember early on I was thinking, “Who am I to write about this stuff?”

I had a friend who told me, “Well, the way you become an expert is by writing about it every week.” So I internalized that idea.

After a few years, the site had grown to a pretty significant degree, and I was able to leverage that to get introduced to agents and publishers. I spent the last three years researching and writing Atomic Habits, which is the book that I came out with in 2018. It’s sort of the culmination of all the thinking and work that I’ve put into the topic.

Prior to all of that, I had a background as an athlete and as someone who had majored in the sciences. So I took mostly chemistry and physics classes in undergrad and played baseball. Both of those were areas where I was able to learn, through practice, how to build better habits. So, of course, as an athlete, there are all kinds of habits that you’re building on the field or in the gym. And as a student and as a scientist, I had all sorts of things that I needed to learn about what makes an idea true, what makes an idea valid, how do we stress test those. And that’s all kinds of stuff that I use now when I’m thinking about a topic or writing about it.

Jay:  That’s a great introduction. I think it’s very clear, if you were to read the book, or any of your articles, the scientific way that you present the argument and how you walk through the analysis. So I think it’s helpful because you articulate in a clear and concise way.

As someone who has written in the past myself — and I’ve done blogging before and that sort of thing — first of all, it’s impressive. Your site, you put out really good content. I feel like there’s only a handful of people in the somewhat recent years after Web 2.0 emerged that have successfully built such large followings. Obviously, that’s a testament to the quality of your work and also, writing a book is no simple feat, let alone a New York Times bestselling book. So congratulations on that. All well deserved. I’m excited to get into the content of the book and share it with the audience today. For those listening that aren’t aware of how that whole process works, you could probably google it and find out, but it’s definitely something to be proud of.

Let’s get right into the book. You begin with a graphic, intimate story from your earlier years in high school. Maybe you could start with that, because it really kind of drew me in when I read it, and talk about how that experience led you down this path of personal habit forming.

James:  My sophomore year of high school, I was hit in the face with a baseball bat. It ended up being a very serious injury. I shattered both eye sockets, broke my nose, broke the bone behind my nose. I couldn’t breathe on my own, had trouble swallowing, and doing other basic functions, suffered multiple seizures. I ended up being air carried to the hospital in a helicopter. I was placed into a medically induced coma overnight. Thankfully, the next day I was stabilized to the point where I could be released from the coma. And this very long process of healing began. I was doing basic things like practicing walking in a straight line at my first physical therapy session. I was unable to drive for eight of the next nine months. It was a long road.

Baseball was not only the cause of my injury but also a major part of my life at that time, and so I wanted to get back on the field. But I was not in a position where I could make a radical transformation or go right back to the level of performance that I had before. Basically, my hand was forced. I had to start small. So I just started by doing my physical therapy stuff. I would do just little habits, things that I could actually manage. Like I would prepare for class, or I would go to the gym a couple of times each week and started working out consistently. I would make sure that I got in bed at a reasonable time each night.

None of those habits, by themselves, were really compelling or amazing. There was nothing earth-shattering about that. But I continued to stick with that philosophy of trying to find these little ways to improve. I didn’t really have the language for it at the time. I wouldn’t have said, “Oh, I’m just trying to get 1% better,” but effectively that’s what I was doing. So this was the period in my life where I kind of had to practice a lot of the ideas that a few years later I would write about in Atomic Habits.

So the next year, I was cut from the baseball team. The year after that, I was on the team but barely got to play. I did end up making a college team. First year, I just came off the bench. The second year, I was a starter. The third year, I was the captain, and then the fourth season, I ended up being an Academic All-American. So although I never played professionally, and I don’t think there’s anything magical about my story or legendary — we all have challenges we face — this injury just happened to be one of mine.

But what I do think is true is that I was able to fulfill my potential. I was able to make the most of that opportunity. This is one of the reasons why I believe so strongly in small habits and why they matter, which is that if you can master your habits, then I think you can fulfill your potential as well, regardless of what life happens to throw your way.

So the quest of Atomic Habits is to distill that, to talk about how habits work and understand why we make the actions that we do — whether it’s a slightly positive habit or a slightly negative one — and how to shape those. So the book discusses not only the science of habits but also the practical action steps to take. I wanted it to be a highly actionable framework for how to implement a good habit or how the change a bad one. So my story played a big role in that discover process.

Jay:  I imagine it’s a bit like… So your accident kind of actually, it almost wiped the slate clean so you could actually focus on the micro, as opposed to just living life. I think most of us, we just live life. And maybe around New Years’ time, you try to make resolutions and follow that for at least a month. But you never actually are focused on the micro to the point where, in your case, you had to focus on these micro habits just because that was affecting your life directly — like get early to bed or going to the gym — and I think a lot of people take that for granted. I don’t wish an accident on anyone, but I think that it’s helpful to remind ourselves that the little things that we do during the day, we kind of overlook, and we don’t see how they fall into the big picture.

Can you explain…the title of your book is Atomic Habits. Obviously there’s a science reference to that. Maybe you could start there and explain why you named it Atomic Habits.

James:  Sure. I chose the phrase Atomic Habits for three reasons. The first meaning of the word “atomic” is the one that you might guess or think about, small or tiny, like an atom. And that is a big part of my philosophy. We’ve already mentioned it a little bit, that I think habits should be small and easy to do.

The second meaning of the word “atomic” is the one that’s often overlooked. And that is that it’s the fundamental unit in a larger system. So atoms build into molecules. Molecules build into compounds and so on. In a sense, habits are kind of like the atoms of our lives. They’re kind of like these little routines or patterns that you do each day. And when you put them altogether, you end up with the system that is your daily routine.

And then the third and final meaning of the word “atomic” is the source of immense energy or power. I think that if you combine all three of those meanings, you understand the narrative arc of the book, which is you make changes that are small and easy to do, and you layer them on top of each other like units in a larger system. Then you can end up with some really powerful or remarkable results in the long run.

Jay:  Right. It’s a great name. It’s very apt. In touching on what you just went over, you discussed how you had a good sports career in school playing baseball. And while you didn’t end up playing professionally, you made a comment. You said you fulfilled your potential or something like that. In the book, the quote you used was, “Forget about goals. Focus on systems.” I find this pretty interesting, especially in this day and age where everyone… There’s a lot of stuff on the internet out there talking about goals and goal setting, especially, like I said, New Year’s resolutions. People like to get goals, and they think that is the most important thing. You have to have your goal. You have to figure out where you’re going in life.

Let’s put that part aside, and let’s talk about what you specifically said. Forget about your goals. Focus on the systems. Let’s assume that the listener of this podcast today knows what he or she wants to do or accomplish. In that context, how do you unpack that phrase that you wrote: “Forget about goals; focus on systems”?

James:  The basic idea here is not that goals are totally useless. This is coming from someone who has set a lot of goals. I set goals for all kinds of stuff, like the weights I wanted to lift in the gym or the grades I wanted to get in school, how well I wanted my business to do over the next quarter — many different areas. But at some point, what I realized was that some of these goals I achieve, but a lot of them I don’t. So clearly having the goal is not the thing that leads to the result happening. And so the natural next question is, what is it then? What actually drives the results?

The phrase that I like that I think encapsulates this idea is “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” So the point here is that having a goal can be useful for setting a sense of direction, for developing some clarity around what you’re going to work on or where you’re going to allocate your attention and energy. But as soon as you’ve done that, almost all of the effort should be going into the system. I would define the system as the habits and processes that you follow each day. So the collection of habits that you have, that’s the system of behaviors that you follow. In many ways, the outcomes that we set these goals for, that we think so badly that we want, are just a natural consequence of the systems that we follow. Your outcomes are just a lagging measure of your habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your bank account is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your reading and learning habits. So, in a sense, you get what you repeat. If you can change what you’re repeating, if you can change the habits that make up your system, then different outcomes will result naturally.

Jay:  Yeah. You give a few very good examples in the book. You talk about this concept called the Plateau of Latent Potential, which is sort of the longer-term, greedy-type mentality or lower time preference mentality. I find that fascinating because my background is from finance. I’m an investor. These are things that run very parallel with investing and market and how most market participants have a very short-term timeframe and a very high time preference, whereas the investors that are successful — and this has been brought up in many studies like the marshmallow test and these sort of thing — that people that have lower time preference are able to be much more successful.

So I was delighted when I read in your book that this also comes into play when you talk about habits. Maybe you can talk about little bit about the Plateau of Latent Potential. You have a really nice graph in one of the pages of your book at examples exactly how that works. Maybe you can give a couple of examples as well.

James:  First, just talking about this idea of time preference… A different phrase that we could use that gets at the same idea is delayed gratification versus immediate gratification. Basically, people who are wanting to delay their gratification tend to get better results in the long run. There are all sorts of nuances here, but that’s just the general thing we’re talking about.

The question then is, how does this tie back into this Plateau of Latent Potential idea that you just mentioned, and why is that important for habits. So the reason that I would say it’s important is because habits don’t really add up. They sort of compound. So the same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them across time. And that’s why I like to say habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. It’s not exactly like it, but, man, it feels a lot like that. The same that you might save $100 this month for retirement, and it doesn’t feel like anything. Like, “Why do I bother? I can’t retire on $100.” But if you can stick to that habit for months and years, and then you turn around a decade or two or three later, you get to that hockey stick portion of the curve where all of sudden, it starts to take off.

And habits are kind of like that too. This is like a hallmark of any compounding process where all the greatest returns are delayed. In the beginning, it kind of feels like you’re not making much progress at all. And that’s where we get to that Plateau of Latent Potential idea, which is that we feel, we often think that “If I put in a little bit of work, I should get a little bit of a result.” So we think that it should be kind of like this linear progression where you’re going up and to the right at a 45-degree angle. So put in a little bit of work, get a little bit of result. Put in a little more work, get a little more results.

But the process of building habits is often different than that. You’ll hear people say things like “I’ve been running for a month. How come I can’t see any change to my body?” Or, “I’m studying Spanish every night, but I still don’t know the language.” So early on, there’s this period of needing to bank work and put in the reps and just kind of repeat things without having the outcome, similar to saving for retirement for a few years, even though you can’t retire yet, and all the rewards are delayed.

And so I like to equate it to the process of heating up an ice cube. Perhaps a better example, a quicker quote to share would be, there’s this quote that’s in the San Antonio Spurs, the basketball team, their locker room, that says, “When I feel like giving up, I look at the stonecutter who keeps hammering away at a stone more than 100 times without it cracking in two. And then on the 101st blow, it splits in half, and I know that it wasn’t the 101st that did it but the hundred that came before.” That’s the same idea with habits. You’re banging away on this stone, and you don’t have anything to show for it, and then, all of sudden, it releases that latent potential.

And so the idea here is that when you’re working on your habits and you feel like you haven’t made progress or it’s been a month and you don’t have anything to show for it, that work is not being wasted. It’s just being stored, and you need to keep at it until you do it long enough for it to release. So that’s kind of the core idea behind this Plateau of Latent Potential.

Jay:  Yeah. I think it’s a difficult concept for a lot of people to grasp, because I think it’s human nature that we want things now. And, you know, people get impatient. And part of the problem, I feel, is this whole life hacking and the hacking movement where you try to have shortcuts. And you know, look, that sells on the internet. And people buy that because they want to find shortcuts, and they don’t want to have to put in the reps or pound away at the stone for what could be an indefinite amount of time before they kind of hit that plateau.

And so I think it’s important to realize that, hey, what you see, and what you’re being sold is not always what’s true. You mentioned going running for a month, or jogging, or trying to lose weight, and anyone that’s tried to cut or lean out into a very low body fat will know that it’s the same sort of thing. It’s just patience. You just have to keep putting in the work, keep putting in the work, and keep working towards the goal. And there’s no magic spot reduction or how-to stubborn body fat, all that stuff, so it’s a real thing. And I think the sooner people kind of realize that you have to compound that work before you see the potential, the easier it becomes for them. So that’s a great concept that you bring up in the book.

Let’s talk directly about how to build better habits, or how to break bad habits, because there’s that side too. And so you cover both, which I think is important, because I think everyone out there has something that they wish they could stop doing just as much as something they wish they could start doing.

James:  For sure. So in the book, I like to break a habit into four different stages, and I think that if you can understand these four stages you have a better, or more clear, view of what a habit is, and how it works. And then I offer a framework for adjusting those four stages and changing it. So just real quickly from a high level, the four stages that pretty much every habit goes through are what I call cue, craving, response, and reward.

So the cue is the first stage. It’s something that catches your attention, so like your phone buzzes in your pocket. And that might be like a physical cue. You feel it buzzing. That gets your attention. Or you walk into a kitchen, and you see a plate of cookies on the counter, and so in that case it’s like a visual cue. And it could be any of the five sense, but something grabbed your attention.

Now the second stage, and this is an important one that separates my model from some of the others that are out there, is what I call the craving. And basically this idea, the second stage, is about how you interpret the cue. And the reason it’s important is it describes what motivates us to take action, and it describes why two people might have different habits in the same context. So for example, you might walk into a room, and you see a pack of cigarettes on a table, and to one person who has been a smoker for years, they interpret that visual cue as, oh, I have a craving to smoke. I should pick one up. And so their response is they grab a cigarette.

But to the second person who has never smoked a day in their life, they see it, and to them it doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just neutral. And so it’s really about the meaning that you assign to the cues and experiences in your life that determines how you respond. So the craving is the second stage.

The third stage is the response itself, the actual habit of smoking a cigarette, or doing a push up, or eating a donut, or whatever.

And then the final stage is the reward, and this is the outcome that follows your behavior. And so, of course, we could have a behavior followed by a consequence by something that’s not enjoyable, but in that case it rarely forms into a habit. Because when you have a reward that follows an experience, it’s like a positive emotional signal to your brain that says, “Hey, this felt good. You should do this again next time.” And so it’s really the experiences that are rewarding to us that get us to the come back to them again and again and repeat it that become habitual.

So you kind of need all four of those for a habit to form. You need a cue, something that grabs your attention. You need a craving. That’s some kind of interpretation or prediction about that cue that says, hey, I should I act on this. You need to take the action, do the response. And then, finally, some kind of reward or outcome, some type of positive benefit. Every habit, even the bad ones, they serve you in some way.

Jay:  Okay, so let’s take the smoking example and just run through one real quick. Let’s say I’m a smoker, and, like you said, there’s a pack of cigarettes that I’m walking by. And I see a pack of cigarettes on the table. The craving for me, obviously, is I want to have a smoke. How do I hardwire my response to make sure that I don’t fall for that craving at that point?

James:  Yeah. Good question. So generally speaking, I think that there are… Well, first of all, I’m going to back up just real quick and give a little bit more of an explanation, and then I’ll come back to the smoking example. So those four stages describe a habit. From those four stages, we can have what I call the four laws of behavior change, and basically these are ways to adjust your habits or the environment that you’re in to make it easier to do good habits and tougher to do bad ones.

So the first law of behavior change is to make it obvious, so you want the cues of your good habits to be obvious, available, visible. The second law is to make it attractive, so the more attractive a habit is the more likely you are to perform it. The third law is to make it easy. So the more convenient, frictionless, easy a habit is, the more like it is to occur. And then the fourth law is make it satisfying, so the more satisfying and enjoyable an experience is the more likely you are to repeat it.

Now for your question about breaking a bad habit like smoking, to break a bad habit, you just invert each of the four laws. So rather than make it obvious, you want to make it invisible. Rather than make it attractive, you want to make it unattractive. Rather than make it easy, make it difficult, and then make it unsatisfying. So when it comes to breaking a habit, I think the first and the third stages are the most effective places to intervene.

So in the case of smoking, first stage, make it invisible. You want to make the cues invisible. There are lots of things you could do there. You could not keep cigarettes in the household. You could hide them inside a drawer or on the highest shelf. Make sure they’re not visible. If you have a friend, for example, who you often smoke with, and they stand outside of your window at work, you could be asked to be moved to a different desk so that you don’t see them outside smoking as often, and that doesn’t trigger it. So the point here is to reduce the physical cues, the visual cues that prompt that habit.

Now the second stage, the one that you asked about, is I see a pack of cigarettes, but I automatically have this craving to smoke. How do I change that? And that’s a tough one, and one of the reasons why I recommend starting with the first stage or the third stage. Because what you’re basically asking yourself to do there is to rewire your craving. You’re asking yourself to make the cue mean something new.

So previously, smoking meant I get to — and we have all these narratives that you go through in your mind. It could mean I get to hang out with my friend who’s smoking outside. It could mean I get to reduce stress, because whenever I smoke, I calm my nerves. It could mean I get to resolve this nicotine craving that I have right now, this biological urge.

Now, I mentioned this in the book. There’s a book called Allen Carr’s The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. And I have never smoked, but I’ve talked to quite a few smokers in my audience and friends of mine who have said that this book has helped them do what we’re talking about right here — rewire these cravings. And so I looked at it to see what exactly does it do? What does it recommend?

And it’s kind of interesting. It basically is just a big conditioning exercise. So he says over and over again in the book things like “You think that you need to smoke to be social, but that’s not true at all, because you’ve gone to social gatherings without a cigarette before. So clearly, you don’t need to smoke to be social.” Or, “You think you need to smoke to calm your nerves, but smoking does not calm your nerves. It destroys the nervous system.” And over and over again, he just says things like this. And basically by the time you get to the end of that book, you have tried to recondition yourself to make that cue mean something new, and ultimately that’s the way to resolve the stage that you’re talking about, which is the second stage.

And then we have the third and fourth stage, which, you know, the third stage could be something like increasing the friction or the difficulty of smoking. So sometimes this is done by the government when they raise prices. So now it’s harder to get a cigarette, because it’s more expensive. Sometimes it could be done on your part. So again, not keeping cigarettes in the household not only makes them invisible, but it also makes it harder to smoke one because you don’t have one around.

And then you have the fourth stage, which is make it unsatisfying. This one, at this point it’s like imagine if every time you smoked a cigarette you were wearing a bracelet that shocked you. Or every time you smoked a cigarette, you had a friend who slapped you in the face or something like that. And so those are ways to make the experience less satisfying and hopefully make it less likely that you fall into it.

But you can already see, as I talk through these — and this is true for any habit — some strategies are more reasonable for a particular habit, and others are less. And so it’s kind of like you have a set of tools in the tool box, and you’re looking to pick the one that best fits the circumstance.

Jay:  Yeah. It’s important, because I think, yeah, for sure, every situation is different, so you have to be careful. And people have different cravings and responses and trigger points that will help them to be successful or cause them to stumble.

Part of rewiring your framework– you went over it the book, and you said that the goal is not to read a book; it’s to become a reader. Or it’s not to run a marathon; it’s to become a runner.

And so it’s changing your sort of personality and how you define yourself. And I think that’s pretty powerful. Along those lines, how important do you think self-discipline and self-control and that sort of thing…? Because different people have different levels of this, right? And some people are very regimented, and they have a lot of self-control and very disciplined. Others are  just not wired that way. So how important do you think that is in success, in seeing someone be successful in building new habits?

James:  Well, it’s probably very important, but I think the state of the science right now, it’s on the cusp but not quite there yet for us to know exactly how it works or where to intervene. So one of the later chapters in Atomic Habits is called “The Truth about Talent,” and it’s about how genes impact your habits and behaviors. And a couple of the takeaways are, first, understanding your genes, understanding how your personality is shaped, can help inform your strategy about building better habits.

So a lot of the time, people don’t like to talk about genes and natural talents, you know, because they think, oh, if everything’s genetic, then maybe it’s all fixed. And there’s nothing we can do, or something like that. But I think actually that’s the wrong lesson to take away. The correct lesson to take away is if you understand your predisposition more, if you understand what type of person you are, then you can better inform you strategy for getting the result that you’re looking for.

And let’s talk about personality for a second. So there are a variety of ways to measure personality. One of the most scientifically robust is called the Big Five, and it basically maps personality under five spectrums. So one of the most common ones is introversion on one end, extroversion on another. And there are other ones like your levels of agreeableness or conscientiousness, which is like how orderly you are, and so on. And basically all five of these traits, these spectrums, have been linked to your underlying genetic code.

And there are quite a few interesting studies that have shown kind of the genetic predisposition to certain ones over another. So for example, one study found that you have babies in the nursing ward, and you play a harsh noise on one side of the room, some of the babies will turn toward the noise, and some of them will turn away. And when researchers track those children as they grow up, they find that the ones that turn toward the noise are more likely to become extroverts, and the ones who turn away are more likely to become introverts.

Similarly, people who are high in agreeableness, which is another of the spectrums, they tend to have higher natural levels of oxytocin, so there’s like a hormonal change there.

So my point is there are definitely some biological underpinnings to what we call your personality, and you can imagine that, say, someone who’s high in agreeableness, that tends to be the kind of person who is warm and considerate and kind. And if that’s your natural predisposition, it might be easier for you to get in the habit of writing thank you notes or organizing friends for social gatherings, and thinks like that.

And so if you understand that, then you might be able to better select the type of habit that fits your personality. Like, let’s say that someone who is high in agreeableness is trying to build an exercise habit. Well, they might really like a group class, because they get to know better the people there. The same way with someone’s who high in extraversion. Meanwhile, somebody who’s low in extroversion or is more of an introvert, they may enjoy a class where they’re not in public as much, where it’s a home workout program or something like that.

And both people are building exercise habits. It’s just allowing you to alter your strategy to better fit who you are. And so I think there’s a lot of opportunity there, but we’re still in the early stages of understanding the genetic underpinnings of personality, and how that might translate into actual habits, and behaviors, and approaches.

Jay:  Right. So it could be actually very valuable in helping you set up your program and have it more targeted if you know what your predetermined, or genetic, disposition is.

I wanted to ask you, James, there have been a number of books written in the past about habits and the sort of thing. There’s many studies that say it takes X amount of days — 21, 30, 60 days — to form a new habit. Is there actually science behind that, and what are your views on them?

James:  Yeah. So this is a very common question I get. How long does it take to build a new habit — that kind of thing? As you mentioned, it’s all kind of stuff, 21 days, 30 days, whatever. There was one study that showed that, on average, it took about 66 days, but even within that study the range was quite wide. So even something simple like drinking a glass of water at lunch each day, that might have just been three weeks. Something more complicated like going for a run after work each day, that might have been seven or eight months. But I think that there are kind of two lessons to take away.

So the first is asking how long does it take is sort of the wrong question. It should be like “how many does it take?” Because habits don’t form based on time. They form based on frequency.

How long did it take for you to get in the habit of checking your smartphone? I mean, for most of us, it happened almost immediately. It was only a couple of days. And you know, the average person now — the number keeps going up each year — we check our phones more than 150 times a day. And so my point there is there is a lot of repetition. And 30 days could pass, and you could do something once, or you could do something 1,000 times. And it’s the actions that you repeat that are the ones that your brain learns to automate. So it’s more about putting your reps in and less about worrying about how much time has elapsed.

But then the second, and I think perhaps the more important and more meaningful answer to this, is that the implicit assumption behind the question “How long does it take to build a habit?” is, “Well, how long till it’s easy?” Or, “How long till I don’t have to work that hard anymore?” And I think that it’s important to realize that the honest answer to that question is, “How long does it take to build a habit? Well, forever. Because if you stop doing it, it’s no longer a habit.”

Habits are not a finish line to be crossed. They’re a lifestyle to be lived. And so rather than looking at it as, “Oh, maybe I can work hard for 30 days, and then I’ll be done,” it’s probably more effective to look at it as, “What is a sustainable, small change I could make that could become my new normal? How could it become a part of my lifestyle?” And I think that that helps illuminate why small habits, atomic habits, are so important. Because what you’re really looking for is not to just do this sprint, and then cross the finish line, and be done. What you’re really looking for is to become a new type of person – to live a new kind of, you know, upgraded or improved lifestyle. And so I think that focus on long-term change is an important one that’s often missed with that question.

Jay:  Yeah. That’s absolutely right. I guess the easiest parallel is fitness. When people go on these 30-day or 60-day or 90-day programs, it’s not like you can just, “Okay, I’m going back to my old lifestyle after that, and everything’s going to maintain itself.” It’s like you said, habits never end. It’s just you want to change the type of person you are. You want to make a lifestyle change. And so what are the small micro habits, atomic habits, that you can form to be successful?

And so, myself, I consider myself to be fairly disciplined. I can understand how discipline, over the course of even a day, you can kind of get fatigued towards the end of the day, and you have less willpower and that sort of thing. So I’m a morning person. I get my stuff done in the morning. How do you, as someone who is a high achiever, I imagine, how do you, personally, or how do you suggest people deal with burnout? Look, we’ve all been to the gym, where you’re doing it, and you’re forcing the reps, but sometimes you just aren’t feeling it, right? Or as you’re going through this habit-building process, there’ll be times where you are just completely burned out. How do you suggest someone deal with that?

James:  Yeah. For sure. It’s a great question. So I think certainly we all — I have felt this, as well. You know, you like to do something for a while, and then you start to feel bored or tired of it, and you start to feel fatigued. So I think there are two things. So the first one is maybe more useful in the beginning, but every now and then it could be helpful to mix it up. And that is choose the form of a habit that brings you the most joy or that feels the best in the moment.

Like a lot of time, people — you just mentioned exercise — they’ll choose to go to the gym and workout, because they think, “I need to suffer to do this to get the outcome that I want,” or whatever. But it doesn’t make them feel good in the moment, and so then it’s really hard to stick with something if you don’t enjoy it. But there are many different forms of exercise. You could rock climbing or kayaking or hiking, a daily walk, do yoga, Pilates. Not everybody has to lift weights like a bodybuilder. So choose the form of the habit that is most enjoyable to you.

Similarly with reading habits, sure, reading non-fiction books like Atomic Habits is great. I really enjoy it, and I think a lot of people get a lot of it. But if you want to read romance novels or young adult fiction or whatever, that’s great. Go ahead and read that stuff if that’s what excites you. The more important thing is to read. So the point is there are different styles, so focus on the one that feels good, that gives you some kind of intrinsic motivation.

And then the second thing though is that even for the one that feels good — like for me, I enjoy lifting weights — there are going to be some days where it just feels like a slog. You don’t feel like going, or you don’t feel like doing an extra rep or whatever. And on those days, I think that it’s helpful to use basically what could be called a habit tracker, although, it could take many different forms, because the larger principle here is that one of the most motivating feelings is the feeling of progress.

If you feel like you’re making progress, then you have a reason to continue. And this is one of the reasons why video games are so addictive or why people get hooked on them so much, because there all kinds of signals of progress in video games. In the top corner, there’s a little counter that shows your score there. If you grab weapons or rubies or power-ups or resources or whatever, there’s some kind of music or chime or noise. And that’s a signal that, hey, you got it. You picked it up. Even the little pitter-patter of steps as you run through a level is a signal that you’re making progress and advancing through the level.

And in real life, it’s a little bit different than a video game. You don’t always have those immediate signals of progress, and so a habit tracker can be helpful for generating that. So for example, for my workouts, I track them in two ways. The first way is I just write down each set and rep that I do. And so I have this little notebook, and as I go through the workout, it feels like I’m making progress. I can see it right there, as I write the next set or each step.

Then at the end, not only does it feel good to close the book on another workout, I also have an actual habit tracker where I can see the whole month at a glance. And I just put an X on each day that I do the workout, or a little dot or something like that. And my dad does this as well. He likes to swim, and so each day that he goes to the pool he’ll put a little X on his calendar. And then at the end of each month, he counts up how many he has. And it’s a small thing, but it can count for more than what you might imagine. Because there are going to be some of those days, like the days that you’ve just described, where you just don’t feel like you have it, or you don’t feel like showing up. And on the bad days, it’s really easy to forget all the progress you’ve made. And so if you have a tracker like that, something visual to look at, it’s just a nice reminder of “okay, today’s not going well, but look, you’ve had 12 workouts in the last three weeks,” or something like that. And so it gives you a reason to show up again. It gives you a visual proof of the progress that you’re making. So ultimately, I think you can sustain motivation by selecting the right habit and having some visual markers of the progress that you’re making.

Jay:  Yeah. It’s quite interesting what you brought up, and you talk about this in the book — the video game and the positive feedback that the game actually gives, that a lot of people don’t even know. I mean, I actually didn’t know. I didn’t recognize that until I read it in your book, and then I was like, oh yeah. That’s what that is. And you know what? It does feel good — even the pitter patter of the guy running around with his gun. So that’s quite interesting.

And I think that on the habit stuff, I lift too. I enjoy lifting, but there are days where I’m just not feeling it. But you know, I started working out in the morning a long time ago, over a decade ago, and the reason that I did it, personally, was because I knew that if I accomplished nothing else that day, at least I got my workout in. So it’s the same sort of thing, If you have an X on your calendar or whatever, at least you get some sort of positive feedback there.

James, thanks so much for coming on and sharing all your findings from your book. It’s been really good hearing some of the things that you cover. Last couple of questions, as we look to wrap up, my audience is a lot of entrepreneurs, startup founders, investors, and this sort of thing. I’m just curious. Are there any core habits, if you will, maybe a handful that you would suggest are somewhat applicable to every entrepreneur that — you’re an entrepreneur, as well — based on your experience, are there a handful that you would strongly suggest that everyone try to at least consider implementing in their lives?

James:  For sure. I think you could lump them into two buckets. I would call them habits of energy and habits of focus. So habits of energy are basically just address this fact that your body is the home that you live in every moment of your life, and so if your body is not running well, it’s really hard to show up and work on your startup or your project with the best energy. And so you need good habits of energy, good habits that deliver energy. And so this is basic stuff that pretty much everybody’s aware of. But sleep habits, making sure that you get probably eight hours or so. If I’m training heavy, I try to go for nine — not always possible. So good sleep habits.

Good exercise habits. Again it could take many different forms. We talked about that already.

And then nutrition is the third one. Personally, that’s the one that I probably need to dial in the most, but I’ve done an okay job of it. I would say I do a good job about 50% of the time.

And so those three, if you can get those handled, then you’re going to have pretty good energy to show up each day.

Then you have what I would call habits of focus. And so this is basically making sure that you either focus on the right thing, or that you’re thinking clearly. So some simple ones… Prioritizing your to-do list each morning, but we all have things that we need to get done. On some days, I work on the most important thing first, but on a lot of days I don’t. And I would say that almost all of us could benefit from working on the task of the greatest priority. And so this is just a simple habit. It’s like, after I make my morning cup of coffee, I write my to-do list. After I write my to-do list, I prioritize the items on that list and work on the first one. And again, a small thing, but it could end up making a big difference because you know that you won’t have an unproductive day, because at least you’re working on the right thing.

Another habit of focus that I’ve been implementing the last couple years — really, just the last year. I leave my phone in another room until lunch each day. It doesn’t work for every job. Some jobs revolve around the phone, but man, if you can do it, it really helps, because I get a block of three to four hours each morning where I get to work on the things that are on my agenda and not to respond to everybody else’s agenda, which is funny that a lot of entrepreneurs and founders feel like they got to keep the ship running. So that’s another example to have it a focus.

And then the third that I’ll throw in there is writing. Of course, I’m biased towards writing, because part of my actual job is being an author. But I think it doesn’t matter if you publish it or share it with anybody. Writing, everybody has to write on their job. At a minimum, you’re writing emails and memos to, you know, other people in your company or clients or whatever. And if you can express yourself well clearly, then that not only helps you sell better and also interact with those people better, but I also find that, for me, writing is thinking. In many cases, I don’t know what I think about something until I have written about it.

And so the daily practice of writing, even if it’s just one paragraph on some topic that’s important for you and your business, I think, can clarify your thoughts on the matter. So I’ll offer those buckets as good habits that could probably serve nearly any entrepreneur.

Jay:  Those are great. I think that the cell phone is pretty fascinating, not having that for the morning. How do you do deal with this on the sleep side? Because I’m guessing that you, like many higher achievers, have a hard time switching the brain off. I know I certainly do at night. And do you not bring your phone in also to the bedroom? Is that another thing that you follow?

James:  Yeah. This one’s a really hard one, because I should tell you that this is probably the one I struggle with the most — not sleep; sleep itself is fine — but what I would call a power-down routine. I’ll often hit a window around like 9:00 or 10:00 PM where I feel like maybe  I get another hour of work in or something — answer emails or work on a project or whatever. And so I think, “Oh, I’ll just do a little bit.” And then I turn around, and it’s like midnight or 1:00 AM.

Jay:  Yeah. That’s right.

James:  And I think that happens to a lot of founders. And so my solution is I don’t have any meetings in the morning, and I just sleep in. And so if I’m up till midnight or 1:00, then I’m sleeping in till 8:00 or 9:00. And it’s not ideal, but it at least ensures that I don’t cheat myself on sleep, which I know that I do better work if I get up earlier. That window of the morning is a period when I think really well and work well. So my preference would be, go to bed at 10:00 or 11:00 PM and wake up at 7:00 or 8:00 or something like that. But it doesn’t always work that way. And when it doesn’t, I don’t have meetings, and I sleep in, so that I can at least be refreshed for the next day.

Jay:  Yeah. That’s a tricky one. I’ve been struggling with that for a number of years, and I think the easiest solution –

James:  It’s even harder if you have kids. I mean, you might want to sleep in, but your four-year-old doesn’t care.

Jay:  That’s right.

James:  There are additional complicating factors.

Jay:  Yeah. There’s some life factors there. But all good stuff, James.

So last two questions… The second to last one is… I mean, you literally are just coming off of a book launch, so I’m just curious to hear if you have anything else exciting in the pipeline. What do you got lined up for 2019? Anyone that’s written anything remotely close to a book, let alone a New York Times bestseller would know just how daunting… I have a newfound respect for authors. I wrote a fitness book a couple years ago, and it was hell, and it was nothing. It was just a couple hundred pages of my thoughts. But anyone that’s written anything real, like yourself, knows that it’s a really, really big mountain that you have to climb. So anything exciting for 2019?

James:  Yeah. We actually do have a few things in the pipeline. So I’m coming out with a habit journal. And I have the prototype, the first one from production, sitting in front of you right now.

Jay:  Yeah. Great.

James:  And I’m actually really excited about it. It comes out…January 8 is when I start shipping, and it’s just called The Clear Habit Journal. And it’s basically a dot grid notebook, so it’s got 190 pages or so. If you do bullet journaling or things like that, you can use it for that. But at the beginning, there is a section that I specifically designed to make it easy to build a journaling habit. So you basically journal one line per day.

And at the back, there is a section with habit trackers, 12 habit trackers – one for each month. So what we talked about earlier like tracking your workouts or things like that, you can use it for that. And then in the very back, there’s a little appendix that shows you different ways to use the journal. So like, if you wanted to use it as a decision journal, which is something a lot of traders and investors do, it has like a format for that, and some questions to ask yourself. And it shows you how to lay it out. Or if you want to use it as a productivity journal for, like, organizing your tasks, there is some examples and exercises you can use there and so on.

But anyway, so I’m really excited about that. So that comes out in January. And then we have a Habits Boot Camp course that will be coming out March, and the rest of the time will be focused on talking about Atomic Habits and sharing that. I usually do about one speaking event per month in companies and things like that, so I’ll be on the road a little bit. And then, yeah, otherwise, I’m just really excited to see what 2019 brings.

I think we should have a really… My hope is to have the most effective suite of tools for building better habits by the end of next year and none of the fluff. You know, like, we’re not going to build anything that isn’t necessary just because we could.  And so yeah, I’m excited. I’m excited to see how well it goes.

Jay:  Awesome. And so habit journal is out January 8, and we’ll get that linked up to the show notes. Where is the best place people can find you, follow you, and pick up a copy of Atomic Habits today, if they wanted to? And I know that you have a lot of bonuses that you’ve thrown in, which is awesome. Where can people pick up a copy or just find you and follow you?

James:  Sure. So if you just want to check out some of my work, you can just go to JamesClear.com. Feel free to click on articles, and, you know, just kind of poke around. I have them organized by topic, so you can see what interests you. Social media links are also JamesClear.com, so that’s just a good starting place. And then if you’d like to get a copy of the book, you can either click on Books when you’re on JamesClear.com, or go to AtomicHabits.com, and that’ll take you straight to the book page.

And as you mentioned, on that page there are a variety of downloads and resources. So there’s a guide on how to apply the ideas in the book to parenting, a guide on how to apply the ideas in the book to business. There is a template for tracking your habits and a set of downloads that come with the book, like the images in the book, and some additional resources, and things like that. But anyway, all of that is at AtomicHabits.com.

Jay:  Fantastic. This is so great. Thank you so much again, James, for your time. I think that this is a perfect way to start 2019. And I’m excited to dig in and form some of my own habits, and I’m excited to see how your business moves along, as far as some of the new sort of products around habits that you come up with. So thanks again, and best of luck in 2019.

James:  Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Jay:  All right. Take care. Bye.