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6 Ways To Build Good Habits _ Break Bad Ones · Motivation study

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  Speaker 1: Habits are absolutely critical because we have habits that we
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  Speaker 1: have planned out that we want to do, things that
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  Speaker 1: we were purposeful about. Unfortunately, most of our habits are
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  Speaker 1: done automatically. They're on autopilot. And the habits that we
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  Speaker 1: have are not serving us very well, but they've become
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  Speaker 1: so ingrained in what we do every single day that
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  Speaker 1: we tend to find it's very hard to break free
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  Speaker 1: of them. And when we do want to break free
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  Speaker 1: of them, even though we know it's not serving us,
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  Speaker 1: We don't want to do it. Why? Because it's a habit.
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  Speaker 1: It's an atomic habit. Atomic Habits is all about recognizing
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  Speaker 1: the bad habits in your life and helping you set
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  Speaker 1: up the right habits. Habits that serve you. Habits that
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  Speaker 1: will help you be more resilient. Habits that will help
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  Speaker 1: you get more done, be more productive. That's what I'm
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  Speaker 1: interested in. So any book that will help me understand
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  Speaker 1: habits a little bit more, I'm totally interested in it.
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  Speaker 1: So why don't we crack into this one? Atomic Habits.
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  Speaker 1: An easy and proven way to build good habits and
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  Speaker 1: break bad ones. Let's kick this off. Golden nugget number one.
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  Speaker 1: The smallest habits can have the most profound effect on
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  Speaker 1: your life. Imagine for a second a flight that's taking
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  Speaker 1: off from LA to New York. Okay, this flight's going up.
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  Speaker 1: It's cruising. Things are going well. but the pilot just
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  Speaker 1: decides to shift things. Maybe it's like a foot and
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  Speaker 1: a half, not much. What do you think happens by
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  Speaker 1: the time you want to hit your destination in New York? Well,
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  Speaker 1: when you get off that plane, you're going to be
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  Speaker 1: very surprised to find that you're not in New York,
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  Speaker 1: but instead you're in Washington, DC. And you say, well, Ryan,
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  Speaker 1: how is that possible? He moved it maybe just like
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  Speaker 1: two feet. How is that possible? Because what happens is
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  Speaker 1: when you make small changes and, Over the long haul,
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  Speaker 1: it creates big impact. You might not even notice it.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody in that plane will notice the change. You made
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  Speaker 1: that small change and you saw it through. It changed
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  Speaker 1: where you ended up. So why do I tell you
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  Speaker 1: that story? I tell you this story because it's the
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  Speaker 1: small habits that you create today that will drive lasting change.
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  Speaker 1: You might not notice it. And because we don't notice it,
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  Speaker 1: that's often why we stop. And why we say this
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  Speaker 1: new habit doesn't serve me well. No, remember the flight
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  Speaker 1: from LA to New York. It's going to throw you
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  Speaker 1: in Washington, DC because you just made a small little shift.
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  Speaker 1: You're trying to save up money, but $ 5 away every
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  Speaker 1: single week. You put away $ 10 a week, whatever. You
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  Speaker 1: put a small amount of money down every single week
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  Speaker 1: and you look at it at the end of the
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  Speaker 1: year and you're like, wow, that was not a whole
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  Speaker 1: heck of a lot of money. I got maybe like
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  Speaker 1: $ 500 here. Big deal. I'm like, what's $ 500? Keep that
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  Speaker 1: going and you'll see how that serves you well. The
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  Speaker 1: most important thing here is persistence and consistency. When you're
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  Speaker 1: creating a new habit, persistence and consistency. That goes for anything.
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  Speaker 1: Running a business, trying to lose weight, trying to pay
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  Speaker 1: the bills, whatever it is, persistence and consistency are so
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  Speaker 1: important when you're trying to develop a new habit. And
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  Speaker 1: so the big takeaway here is that the tiniest of
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  Speaker 1: changes have a dramatic impact, but we're not patient enough.
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  Speaker 1: Be confident in the direction you're going and just keep moving.
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  Speaker 1: Golden nugget number two, habits are automated behaviors that are
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  Speaker 1: learned from experience. When you come home late at night,
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  Speaker 1: your house is dark. What do you do when you
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  Speaker 1: first walk in the door? You look for the light
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  Speaker 1: switch and you turn it on. That is an automated behavior.
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  Speaker 1: That's a habit. Why do we do that? What are
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  Speaker 1: the intricacies that make us do that? You might say, well, Ryan,
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  Speaker 1: it just makes sense. I can't see. I want to
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  Speaker 1: turn on the light. Exactly. And understanding why we do that,
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  Speaker 1: understanding the mechanics of that is how you are going
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  Speaker 1: to understand habits more. Behaviors that give satisfying consequences tend
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  Speaker 1: to be repeated until they become automatic. Now that is
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  Speaker 1: incredibly important for us to know because it helps us
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  Speaker 1: understand habits more. It helps us understand that if there's
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  Speaker 1: a reward and if we recognize the reward, our habit
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  Speaker 1: has a greater chance of sticking. And so now let's
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  Speaker 1: understand the mechanics of the habit. When we talk about habits,
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  Speaker 1: habits begin with a cue. Walking into a dark room,
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  Speaker 1: it cues you to perform an action that's going to
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  Speaker 1: enable you to see inside the room. Because you have
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  Speaker 1: this craving for change, this change in state, you want
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  Speaker 1: to be able to see. So now you have to
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  Speaker 1: have your response. Your response is action. I flipped the
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  Speaker 1: switch so I can see. Next comes the reward. And
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  Speaker 1: the reward is the comfort of safety, the ability to see.
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  Speaker 1: That's your reward. So your reward doesn't necessarily have to
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  Speaker 1: be this big thing. It's sometimes just the simplest things.
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  Speaker 1: So it's your cue, your response, and your reward. Golden
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  Speaker 1: nugget number three. When creating a new habit, make sure
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  Speaker 1: you have hard to miss cues and a plan of action.
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  Speaker 1: So your phone goes off. What do you do? You
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  Speaker 1: pick up the phone. Obviously it's your response. You go ahead,
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  Speaker 1: you look at it. There you go. You got rid
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  Speaker 1: of your fear of missing out. That cue is hard
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  Speaker 1: to miss. It's always there. That's why we form habits.
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  Speaker 1: So now that we know that hard to miss cues
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  Speaker 1: are important, what hard to miss cues are you setting
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  Speaker 1: up in your life to help support healthy habits or
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  Speaker 1: to get you away from bad habits? One of the
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  Speaker 1: easiest things you can do is change your surroundings. Change
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  Speaker 1: the environment you're in to encourage a more healthy habit.
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  Speaker 1: So if you want to learn guitar, put the guitar
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of your room. It's going to be
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  Speaker 1: hard to miss that. If you're trying to eat better,
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  Speaker 1: trying to eat more salads or more vegetables, then put
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  Speaker 1: that big bowl of vegetables or fruit in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of your kitchen. You're going to be more likely to
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  Speaker 1: snack on that than you will be looking for a
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  Speaker 1: bag of chips. So change your surroundings, change your environment
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  Speaker 1: to support your good habits. Your implementation intention is what's
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  Speaker 1: going to make the difference between you talking about it
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  Speaker 1: and you actually doing it. An implementation intention, it introduces
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  Speaker 1: a clear plan of action, setting out when and where
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  Speaker 1: you'll carry out the habit that you want to cultivate.
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  Speaker 1: And research shows this works. So research was done by
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  Speaker 1: the United States, but they found this study with voters.
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  Speaker 1: where when people are asked, are you going to vote?
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  Speaker 1: People would say, yes, of course I'm going to go vote.
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  Speaker 1: But they didn't vote. So when asked another question, two questions,
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  Speaker 1: what time are you going to vote? And at what
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  Speaker 1: station are you going to vote at? When asked those
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  Speaker 1: two questions, people were more likely to vote because they
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  Speaker 1: had a more specific plan of action in place. So
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  Speaker 1: for yourself, when you say, instead of saying, I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to go out and jog more, I'm going to eat better,
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  Speaker 1: more specific, I'm going to go out and I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to jog at 8 a.m. as soon as I wake
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  Speaker 1: up on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And hold yourself accountable
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  Speaker 1: to that. Get rid of the vagueness. That's not serving you.
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  Speaker 1: It's not helping you create a new habit. Golden nugget
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  Speaker 1: number four. Humans are motivated by the anticipation of reward.
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  Speaker 1: So use that to create new habits. In 1954, neuroscientists
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  Speaker 1: James Olds and Peter Milner, they ran an experiment called
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  Speaker 1: they attach these electrodes to these rats' brains and that
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  Speaker 1: essentially blocked the neurotransmitter dopamine from being released in the brain.
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  Speaker 1: What did they find? They found that in a very
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  Speaker 1: short period of time, these rats lost the will to live.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't eat, they didn't drink, they didn't have sex.
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  Speaker 1: In a few days, they just died. And so it
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  Speaker 1: really shined the light on the importance of dopamine to
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  Speaker 1: drive us to take action and to The cool thing
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  Speaker 1: here is that dopamine can be released in your brain
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  Speaker 1: by doing certain actions, such as eating food, listening to
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  Speaker 1: good music. Not only is it by doing the action,
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  Speaker 1: but by thinking about the action, that also releases dopamine.
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  Speaker 1: So by thinking about getting that piece of food, by
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  Speaker 1: thinking about listening to good music, your brain is automatically
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  Speaker 1: releasing dopamine as well. That is the brain's way of
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  Speaker 1: trying to drive you to action. And we can use
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  Speaker 1: that to our advantage when forming new habits. A great
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  Speaker 1: technique that is shared in the book is called temptation bundling.
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  Speaker 1: And that's when you take a behavior that you know
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  Speaker 1: is important, but you're not really looking forward to it,
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  Speaker 1: but you link it to a behavior that you're drawn to,
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  Speaker 1: one that generates that motivating dopamine hit. Take, for example,
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  Speaker 1: the gym, right? You don't want to go to the gym.
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  Speaker 1: How do we use this technique of temptation bundling to
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  Speaker 1: help form a new habit? What about the music you
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  Speaker 1: listen to? What if you only allowed yourself to listen
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  Speaker 1: to a certain album, certain music when you went to
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  Speaker 1: the gym? You couldn't wait to go to the gym
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  Speaker 1: because you can't wait to listen to that music. What
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  Speaker 1: if you had certain podcasts that you wanted to listen to?
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  Speaker 1: You love listening to these podcasts, but you only allow
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  Speaker 1: yourself to listen to them when you go to the gym.
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  Speaker 1: Temptation bundling. Find a pleasurable activity, something that supports you
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  Speaker 1: and tie that to something that maybe isn't so fun
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  Speaker 1: to do. The gym. Temptation bundling is a very important
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  Speaker 1: technique that we need to make use of. All right,
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  Speaker 1: golden nugget number five. If you want to create a
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  Speaker 1: new habit, make the habit as easy as possible to adopt.
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  Speaker 1: Forming new habits that are easy, sometimes it just takes
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  Speaker 1: no effort. Pick up the phone and scrolling through and
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  Speaker 1: creating that habit of every time it goes ding and
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  Speaker 1: I go ahead and I look at my notifications, it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't take any effort for me to do. And yet
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  Speaker 1: I spend hours upon hours on my phone every day.
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  Speaker 1: single week. So do you. But do the hard stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Go to the gym. Learn a new language. Do business development.
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  Speaker 1: Do your accounting. All that stuff is very hard. And
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  Speaker 1: you don't necessarily want to do it. So we've kind
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  Speaker 1: of already started to talk about different things that we
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  Speaker 1: could do, different techniques. Here's a new technique. Reduce friction.
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  Speaker 1: If you're trying to form a new habit, reduce the
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  Speaker 1: friction that prevents you from doing it. So the question
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  Speaker 1: you ask yourself is what friction do you have that
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  Speaker 1: prevents you from working out? What friction do you have
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  Speaker 1: that prevents you from eating right? If you're not eating
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  Speaker 1: right and you're sitting there eating garbage or you're thinking
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  Speaker 1: about junk food, maybe you have too much friction. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: you don't have the right food there. Maybe you didn't
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  Speaker 1: do your meal prep. That's why meal prep is so important.
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  Speaker 1: There's no friction. You've done the meal prep. It's sitting
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  Speaker 1: in the fridge. You're hungry. Instead of going for that
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  Speaker 1: bag of chips or ordering something online, ordering a pizza,
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  Speaker 1: you have food in the fridge. It reduces friction. The
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  Speaker 1: second trick for making habits easier to stick and make
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  Speaker 1: them long-term is something that the author calls the two-minute rule.
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  Speaker 1: It's a way to make any new activity feel manageable.
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  Speaker 1: The two-minute drill says, listen, if you're trying to go
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  Speaker 1: to the gym or you're trying to just read more,
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  Speaker 1: go and put on your gym shoes. Commit to reading
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  Speaker 1: two pages. That's it. Just commit to the bare bones.
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  Speaker 1: Once you've pulled on your running shoes, you'll probably head
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  Speaker 1: out for a run. Once you've read two pages, you'll
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  Speaker 1: likely continue. The rule recognizes that simply getting started is
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  Speaker 1: the first and most important step towards doing something. All right.
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  Speaker 1: And last but not least, goal the nugget number six.
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  Speaker 1: To make your habit long-term, it needs to be immediately satisfying.
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  Speaker 1: This is an interesting one because I've always looked at
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  Speaker 1: habits not to be immediately satisfying, but I looked at
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  Speaker 1: the long term. I looked at where I was going,
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  Speaker 1: why I was doing it. And that vision, that direction
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  Speaker 1: I was going in, that's what fueled my habits. If
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  Speaker 1: we want to form a new habit, it needs to
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  Speaker 1: be immediately satisfying. So what are you doing to make
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  Speaker 1: your new habit immediately satisfying? We live in this world
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  Speaker 1: today that academics call a delayed return environment where you
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  Speaker 1: go to work today, but you don't get compensated for
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  Speaker 1: the work today. You get compensated two weeks time. You
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  Speaker 1: go to the gym today, but you don't lose weight overnight.
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  Speaker 1: It takes time. And our brains evolved to cope with
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  Speaker 1: the immediate return environment of earlier humans who weren't thinking
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  Speaker 1: about long-term things like we are, like savings or losing weight.
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  Speaker 1: For them, it was going out, killing that animal, bringing
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  Speaker 1: that boar back and feeding the family. So when you're
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  Speaker 1: pursuing habits with a delayed return, try to attach some
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  Speaker 1: immediate gratification to them. Use immediate gratification to your advantage.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for watching.