Build Amazing Habits: Simple Steps to Break Bad Habits & Make Good Ones Stick
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Hey, each friend male and welcome to the mall Robin's podcast. Alright, today we have one of the most important topics ever. No matter what your goals are, you need habits to help you achieve them. And you're lucky because you've got a friend named ml who happens to be one of the leading experts in the world on behavior change and the strategies that you can use to break bad habits and replace them with new habits.

And so I wanted tell you something right now, if you've had a hard time changing your habits, are trying to achieve your goals, I want you to hear something loud, clear before we jump into the foundational science. Okay, you're not the problem. I say that again, if you've had a hard time achieving in your goals or changing behavior, changing the way you think you are not the problem, you want to change me too.

You're frustrated that you can't break those old habits. Me too. Here's the problem.

You haven't had the simple science supported strategies and systems that help you create new habits and make them sick. That's IT. You know what IT comes to the science of habits.

This is one of those topics that when you have somebody break IT down for you, you have the epiphany really like, are you kidding me? This is all I needed to know. Why did I make this so hard on myself? That's how I felt when I learned everything that you're about to learn today. Because my gold day is very, very simple.

I am going to break down the complex, an overwhelming topic of habit formation, and i'm going to give you the simple tools take away and techniques that you need in order to break bad habits that hold you back and create the positive new habits that are going to help you achieve your goals. Looking for perfect gift for everyone on your list, egg, nike, belfort, dreams, cateau, e new york and more are north from rax stores now find everything on their wishes all in one place. Head to your nord stream rock store to score great brands, great Prices, the greatest gifts of all time.

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Hey, it's friend mall and welcome to a life changing science fact episode of the male Robin's podcast. No matter what your goals are, you need habits to help you achieve them. And we're going to cover a tremendous amount of material in today's episode.

And I also am going to unpack all of the foundational research for you. And here's the other thing that i've done for you. This topic is so important.

And while this might be like, is is gonna be boring male, i'm not really up for some sort of psychology university lecture. Don't you worry? This is not going to be boring.

I freak. Love this topic. This is the missing peace, so to speak.

You want to be happier, of course you do. You want to make more money, help you smell Robins. Want to get healthier? Absolutely great. You just need to use science and hack your habits, because the secret that you need to learn is that habits are neither good nor bad. Habits are just patterns of behavior.

And I believe that most of us are basically a middle school, are stuck in an adult body, that the habits that you have are habits that you've had for a very long time. They are in place. And here's the truth, everyone, habits repeat unless you replace them.

I'm going to say that again, one of the reasons why behavior change is so difficult is that when you're dealing with habits that you've been repeating for years, whether it's a habit in terms of how you think or it's a habit in terms of your behavior, those habits by design will repeat forever unless you find them and you replace those habits with something new. And so as we dig into this, i'm onna teach you how to do that. And behavior change is going to become very simple because again, you're not the problem.

The problem is that you have not created simple systems to help you replace old habits with new ones. That's IT. It's so exciting way, way you see what we're onna dig into.

So there are three mistakes that we've all made, and these mistakes are grounded in research. Mistake number one, you and I think we know how habits work. And the truth is this comes from dr.

Windy wood. dr. Windy wood is the mother genius, professor, doctor of habits.

I love that IT is a woman. He is a professor, U. S.

Doctor, when they would. I don't care what book or article you have read about habits. I promise you, absolutely everybody is basically spinning off of her work. Atomic habits is all about doctor Wendy wood, the power of habits, Charles duke, doctor Wendy wood and doctor windy woods.

Research says that even those of us that threw the word habit around, like can fetch, and we think we understand that we don't even those of us that are kind of confident enough to say that I know what habits are, a eighty percent of us think that we know what habits are. But the truth is, let me ask you this, can you easily change your behavior and make a stick? no.

In areas of our lives where we're struggling to change, we are not applying the science of habits. And that's where this gets really important for you to understand habits because half of your day, forty four percent of your waking actions are automatic. They're habitual.

You don't even think about IT. Now the second thing that I want to understand is that habits matter way more than you think. And this was really important for me to understand personally, not explain why in a minute.

See, there is a big myth that you and I see somebody that really successful, or they are like super ripped, or they have like a lot of discipline on the outside. And we think that people with success have more self control, not true. Doctor Angela duckworth, who's at u.

Pen SHE, wrote that new york times by selling book on grid. SHE is also a major study of human behavior and habits. He has proven that people that are successful on the outside, they don't have any more discipline than you and me.

You know what they have. They have Better habits. They have systems in place that support their habits, that people that are successful or that appear more discipline.

They're not White, nuckles their way through life, the way that I used to. In fact, you want to know who he is describing in my life. She's describing my husband, Chris.

So I love Chris, but there are parts of Chris that drive me absolutely crazy. And one of the parts about Chris that I am incredibly jealous of is he has this very steady, methodical way of just sticking to his habits. It's so annoying, like there's no drama.

He just roles out of bed. He just consumes his gun on the water a day. He gets in his workout.

Ter, too. He gets in the ice bath. He journals every morning. He meditate. I like, it's just, I like what? How is IT that I married to a .

human robot? Well.

what i've come to learn, and as i've looked more and more into the research of habits, and as I study human behavior, is that Chris is actually thinking about this stuff all day long. On the outside, he appears, is very discipline. On the outside, he is very successful.

But on the inside, what Chris is focused on are the systems that make them successful. So for example, that the goal of water, the guy fills up his water the night before. He puts IT on the kitchen island the night before, so that when he walks into the kitchen after getting up in meditating in journey, what's right there? Oh, the bottle that he needs to drink, he's made IT easy.

And so that's why we're going to keep coming back to systems and strategies. You don't have to use wheel power. In fact, you shouldn't.

You don't have to White muckle your way through behavior change. There is an easier way to do this. So this is why you're not the problem.

I personally think maybe we're just really smart, you and me, that's why we're overcomplicating everything. We don't believe that this could really be that simple, but you must start to embrace this notion that, oh, it's not me. It's that i'm not getting serious about systems and tools and tactics to make these new behaviours easy.

And you already have habits. And this is good news because when you start to recognize that you have tons and tons of habits that you don't think about, you realize, oh, i'm capable of doing this. So for example, let's let's think about a habit that most of a share, the moment that the alarm goes off in the morning, you think, uh, and so what do you do?

You'll look at your phone. why? Because the second you look at your phone, you feel a little Better. That's a little habit right there. You don't even think about IT.

What's another habit that you have that you don't think about? You get out of bed, you walk into the bathroom, you brush your teeth. And right after you brush your teeth, you feel little Better because the carpet that was on your teeth is now gone on, right? You just brushed IT off.

IT feels Better. What's another habit? Oh, you make a cup of coffee or a cup of tea.

You are even think about IT. And the second you sip that coffee, you feel little Better. You check your emails.

You don't think about IT now. You feel needed at the end of the day, as you feel tired, what do you do? You just kind of swatch down on the couch and you automatically turn on the TV.

These are all things that you don't think about. What's another thing you do? You zone out on the phone.

why? Because it's kind of fun to distract yourself by throwing through social media or laughing at videos on tiktok. Now the important thing here about habits is that you don't even think about those things.

You don't resist those behaviors. Like, let's just take the example of making a cup of coffee or making a cup tea. Do you stay at the coffee maker in the morning? And O, I don't really feel like having coffee today.

I don't know. This can be hard to push this button. Maybe i'll just do IT later.

It's raining outside. No, the power of a habit is IT is hardwired into your subconscious spring. You do IT automatically, which means that resistance to doing IT is gone. You have no resistance when you pick up your phone and you start schooling on social media.

Imagine if eye could teach you how to create system so that you could remove the resistance you feel before exercising or working on the book you're writing or picking up the phone and making a cold call so that you can grow your business. Imagine if we could use the three parts of habit formation and all the science of people have done, and apply IT to things that you want to be doing in your life. See, you're not the problem, the lack of systems and the lack of understanding about habit formation.

That's the only thing standing in your way. And so I wanna explain some more good news. okay. Another mistake that you and I make is that we have been told that IT takes twenty one days to form a new happened that is complete bull cocky. That is not true, kay.

And there's an important reason why you got to understand that this is not something that necessarily takes twenty days, either good or bad. And that's because we tend to hold ourselves to these impossible standards. And then when we don't end up acting like a robot, or when we're human and we miss a day, we beat ourselves up, we get impatient, we start to wonder, why is the resistance still there? I've been exercising and slip in myself to the gym for twenty one days.

Why do I still hate this? Or I ve been trying to drink more water now for thirty four days. Why do I still hate this? Well, I have the study right here.

Let me grab IT. I have the study. You know, we love our studies here.

This one is so important, and this is cited all over the place. So this is from the european journal of social psychology. The study is entitled how our habits formed. The lead researcher is a professor by the name of Philippa li from the university college of london.

And what he basically did in this study, and this is so important for you to hear, is they did this huge research study about the process of habit formation in everyday life, and they studied people who were trying to change your behavior for twelve weeks. And we're talking simple stuff on the surface OK. So things like, huh, i'd like to just drink a bottle of water with lunch.

I might do that every day for twelve weeks or I think i'm just gonna walk after dinner or i'm gna try to get a fifteen minute run in every day. So we're talking simple behavior changes that people wanted to make. And here's what's incredible.

Basically, what they found is IT doesn't take twenty one days to form a new habit. And what does that mean? That means your resistance to doing IT is gone because you have programmed your mind, body and nervous system.

To learn this new pattern that checked this out, IT took between eighteen and two hundred and fifty four days. That's how long IT took the study of people. And that's good news.

And you wanna why? Because IT means that every one of us is a little bit different. And the amount of resistance that you feel when you try a new behavior change is going to be dependent on you.

It's gonna be depended upon the thing that you pick. It's gonna be depended upon the systems that you have in place. And so all of this is in your control.

And I think that's really important to hear because I personally, I get down on myself when things don't feel easy, knowing that I might take me melroses ins, the stubbing learner, two hundred days of pushing through this. That's kind of empowering. And IT may surprise you to hear that, you know, even the lady that invented the five second rule, that is still not a habit.

I still do IT most days, but I still feel resistance. And it's been fourteen years now. There are other things that i've added into my life, like drinking more water than taking the dogs for a walk every day, that IT took me more like eighteen days to lose the resistance.

So I think it's important that you hear that the resistance that you feel and the automatic nature of the behavior change that you're trying to make IT depends on you IT depends on the systems. IT depends on the activity that you're trying to take on. And the average is basically sixty six days.

And so I hope that you don't hear that is like that bad news. I think it's good news. And here's the other thing that that doctor lyly discovered in the study that I think is also good news, that missing a day does not materially affect the habit formation process.

So let me say that again, if you miss a day, let's to say you are taking on walking fifteen minutes today and you're like, that's IT. This is the year i'm going to get healthy. I'm going to walk for fifteen minutes a day.

And you've got this stupid notion in your head that by twenty one days you're going to be an iron man. And this is going to be easy. That's mistake.

Number one, because of twenty one days hits and you're still haven't trouble getten out the door, you're gonna you're a loser. That's not the case at all OK. Second thing, if you miss two or three days, according to the research, you have not come .

back to zero IT does .

not materially affect the habit formation process. That's good news. That means if you are human being that has a Normal life and you cannot act like a robot, and you miss two or three days on something that you want to be changing, no problem with the repetition of the behavior, the automatically that's that's the scientific term that tired for me to say, increases.

What does that basically mean? IT basically means that once you start pushing the new pattern through your nervous system, in your neural pathways, even taking a couple days and not doing IT, you literally have not damaged. That process is still they're waiting for you when you pick IT back up.

What we're going to talk about today are the three parts because one of the other things that I think a lot about that has helped me become way Better at breaking old patterns and creating new ones is whenever something is taking longer, then I wanted to take, instead of beating myself up for being some loser with no discipline, or being weak, or, you know, being like not successful, or why is IT so easy for Chris? But it's oxy is I get curious about what, how could I make? This is here.

How could I make this new pattern easier? We're going to talk about the three parts of how a habit forms in your brain and how IT locks in as a new pattern neurologically and how doping plays a role in this in just a second. But I need to go through these mistakes for making because there's so much good news here.

And so how long the new habit takes to make is not the point, everyone. At some point, your resistance will lower. And even if IT takes you two hundred and fifty four days to remove all the resistance and make IT, automatic is automatic is making a cup of coffee, or automatic is brushing your teeth.

Imagine if going for a ten minute walk every single day was as automatic as brushing your teeth. That would be cool. IT doesn't matter if IT takes you two hundred and fifty four days to make that a reality, because you will never get to that automatic two hundred and fifty four day habit unless you commit today one.

And so getting started is critical. Let's stop talking about how long takes. And let's just say, okay, great.

I got IT. I'm making a mistake. I don't have the systems. I'm really excited.

IT might take me less than twenty one days, might take me more. I can hack this. This is fricking awesome. Now let's talk about mistake number three, that everybody makes. And when I heard this information, everyone, this was super relieving because I used to think, okay, there's something wrong with me.

How can all these other people get six spec gabs? How are all these other people finding all the time in the day and having so much discipline? And I am literally as weak as A A piece of wet spaghetti.

Can I become somebody that is like, I got boundaries. I I, that, well, this brings me to mistake. Number three, i'll be waiting for you after the sharper x stay with me.

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Welcome back at Robert male robbins. You and I are digging into habits, what they are, how to break them, how to make them and how to create new ones that realistic. Ck, and let me just summarize what we've covered, because these three mistakes are the mistakes that everybody makes.

A mistake number one is telling yourself that you're the problem. You're not the problem. The problem is your missing system and tools and strategies to hack habits using all the science.

And so everybody gets habits wrong. There's nothing wrong with you. This is completely Normal, and it's not gona happen to you anymore because you now understand the science.

The state number two is this notion that IT takes twenty one days for a new habit, and that is monarchy. This is deeply personal. You can expect that to be shorter or longer depending upon your resistance. You can also start to get really curious, like if it's taking longer, don't beat yourself up. There's nothing wrong with you.

But this is so important because the research, as you also learned, has made IT very clear that if you miss two or three days, if you miss a week, if you miss a month, whatever, it's not onna impact all the progress that you've made a mistake. Number three, what you are not going to do, you are not going to do this. I make this mistake.

You make this mistake. I guarantee you, as you focus on what you want to change in your life, you're only focused on the behaviours and the actions you need to take. We're all guilty of IT.

I'm are you healthy? See you focus on eating healthy. I'm an exercise so you focus on exercising.

I'm gonna make more money. And so you focus on the the income producing activities. That's not how you create your habit.

You are not gonna create new behaviour, new thinking patterns and make them stick. If you simply focus on what you need to do, there is science here. And this is where systems and strategies and tactics come into play.

And this is why you're not the problem. The science of habits shows us that the real problem is that there are three parts to every habit. And unless you get smart, which you are a smart cookie, you are capable of this.

Unless you get smart about all three parts and how they work together, and how to hack come to make habits easy and how to hack come to make habits stick, if you don't focus on the three parts, you are always going to have trouble changing your behavior. I did for almost forty five years. Seriously, I didn't know this stuff.

I didn't learn this in college. I didn't learn this in law school. I I this research is so exciting.

So there are three parts to every single habit that you have. There is a trigger, there's the behavior pattern and there's a reward. And i'm gona break this down, don't worry.

But I want to give you an example. How do you train a puppy? New behavior patterns?

How do you train them?

You don't just yet sit because the puppy has no clue what you're talking about. What we do is eraser hand up. That's the trigger signal behaviour. And you say sit.

And then when the dog a puppy finally does and you know, when you raise your hand up, they look up at you and they tend to set the right down when he does the behavior of sitting, what do you do? Get a treat. You're all the behavior.

We work the exact same way. See, most of us are screaming at ourselves. sit.

Why can't you sit? Are you stupid? You weak.

Just sit. Just don't drink that alcohol. Don't eat when you're sad. Get to the gym.

What's wrong with you? Why can't you do? Most of us are yelling and ourselves for not sitting. And we've forgotten two of the three parts of the habit that we need to focus on in order to make the pattern stick and the automatic. You're not the problem.

The problem has been that you and I do not have simple systems, tools and strategies in place in order to hack the trigger and the reward that helps you automate the behavior, pattern, habits, everybody, they're all about the trigger and the reward. And the reward is hugely important for making the behavior in code. So we're onna focus a lot of our time today on the role that rewarding yourself plays.

Because what research proves is that when you reward yourself, the reward trigger your brain to release opening. And when the dopamine kicks in, that that feel good motivation drive chemical in your brain. And here's what happens.

A habit loop is what is formed in your brain and your nervous system when the dopamine kicks in. And what's fascinating about the research was so cool is that when I or you or my puppy, when you hear the trigger sit, your brain doesn't even think about the physical action of sitting down. What does your brain think about? IT judge to the treat, and that's why the resistance is gone.

That's what happens when you create a habit loop. And so in any area of your life where you would love to create new behavior or you would love to see new habits stick, we either are missing a great trigger to signal the behavior, or more likely, you do not have a reward that is good enough to make you excited to do the damn thing. And so i'm going to give you two examples, uh, that are really, really important. And then i'm going to share a story for my own life about trying to change my own behavior and the power of a reward. So I want you right now, as you're listening to think about either a habit you want to break or a new behavior that you are so wanting to have IT just become some that that that some you do.

I mean, it's just one of those things you're like, why is IT so hard for me to eat healthy? Why is IT so hard for me to drink my water? Why is IT so hard for me to get out of the house once a week and go work on my business? Why is this so hard for me to not drink during the week? And so first, i'm gonna cover what IT looks like an a simple trick for stopping old behavior.

okay. And i'm going to use the example of, let's say that you had a goal wanting to either stop drinking during the week or another. Uh, one that's a very common one is you want to win yourself off caffeine and so you want to stop drinking coffee.

So this is something i'm working on right now. I'm not drinking at all. And one of the mistakes that I ve made in the past is using willpower like just being like i'm not drinking.

I'm not drinking. This week, I, I and i've tried to do IT with friends so that I feel the peer pressure and getting on the text change really. But let me tell you a really good hack that helps if you're trying to stop drinking, or stop caffeine or stop emotional snacking. something.

Are you stopping old behavior? So here is rule number one, do not go cold turkey. And this is not what you think i'm gonna say, okay, because let's talk about something you've always learned. Behavior patterns, repeat unless you replace them. So if you're trying to break a bad habit, Wilson wer alone is like torture.

An easier way to hack the science on this is to break up the bad habit into the trigger, the behavior and the reward you feel, and then figure out what is something that you can do to replace that behavior. And don't worry, this is covered in the worksheet that i'm gonna give you at the end of this episode so that you can unpack, call this for yourself and work through IT. Because when you see IT on paper, IT is so fascinating.

But let me just take making a drink night. So for me, the act of making myself a cocktail at night, or pouring a canna beer or whatever, let me tell you, the trigger, the trigger is the time a day. So there are five big triggers.

The triggers for everybody is time of day. Other people can trigger behavior patterns. Feelings are your emotional state, particularly negative ones. I feel tired and overwhelmed. I'm this, i'm that a place.

And you know the thing about places because think about when you go visit your parents, all your habits fall right out. You're in a new place or you go on vacation. And obviously I go i'm going to walk on the beach every day and yet you have not gotten out for a walk in a year in your own house.

So places can trigger. And finally, proceeding actions are a really good example of a proceeding action is when you get a notification, when you get a notification on your phone, IT triggers you to repeat a behaviour. What is IT? Check your phone and what's the reward? You get a released adoption because you feel needed.

That's a habit loop, everyone triggered by the action of a notification. Don't even think about IT. That's why so many people like you've got to turn your phone off if you want to work because you have a habit of getting distracted.

You're not the problem. You're not the problem at all. You just have a system and the trigger is the notification. And so we're going to use this to our advantage.

So let's go back to my example of of, i'm not drinking for two months, so the trigger is the time a day for me. So when i'm done working, I ve just had a very full day. My brain is text and exhausted, and I have a behaviour pattern of making a cocktail.

And what is the reward? Well, oddly enough, the reward is not the alcohol. The reward is the ritual. The reward is the doping release that I receive.

Because this act of modeling up a mint and and blackberries and then making a little cocktail with IT, it's it's an act that I do to signal it's time to stop working, it's time to relax. And so if I were to say, that said, cold turkey not drinking, I am just not drinking. I am going to feel so much agitation at the end of the day, because we know that patterns repeat.

And so the trigger is gonna there, right? It's six, thirty and nine. And I ve program myself to repeat this behavior.

And the reward is relaxing, celebratory, winding down the sort of ceremony of the whole thing. And so i'm gonna be yearning not for the alcohol. I'm GTA be yearning for that ceremonial ritual because it's a habit.

So one way that you can support yourself, because, remember, you're not the problem, it's the system, is when I break this habit down that I want to replace on a piece of paper, I go, oh, interesting time a day. I can't change time a day, but I can replace the behavior. So what i'm going to do, i'm going to remove the alcohol for those two months, and i'm going to make the world's greatest mock tail bar compute a, not alcohol, a beer, jose's sodas, shelters.

I'm going to keep my wine glasses there and i'm going to replace the old behavior, making the drink with a new behavior. But i'm going to get the same reward because the trigger stays the same, the behavior changes, and the reward and the dove mean is i'm doing the ceremony, i'm having the ritual, i'm unwinding and i'm making its special because that matters to me. And so when IT comes to coffee, make tea, make tea, care of coffee, make something else in the morning, make, you know, the switcher my grandmother drink that her whole life.

That's the farmers were the apple cider vinegar and the honey and the lemon hot water replace the behavior. Don't you just love that? I love that.

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here with me today.

I love the topic of habits. So let's pick up where we left off. Let's say you want to stop biting your nails.

IT did this huge study with people about biting their nails, and most people believe IT or not, who have a habit of biting their nails. Do you wanted know what the trigger is? If you really analyze IT, the trigger is emotional discomfort. You're either bored or lonely or nervous.

and the pattern .

of chewing on your nails distract you from that feeling. And the reward that you get is a little bit of doping because you no longer feel bored or lonely or scared. And so the only thing you need to do in that instance, as if you can identify the trigger, you basically just say yourself, what am I feeling right now? Oh, i'm feeling tired.

Instead of chewing my nails, what could I do? I could take a nap. I could do something else.

And so again, you're gna use this worksheet to identify the bad habit, the trigger and the reward and to replace IT. Okay, okay. So here's the most important take away, everyone.

And this is where most of us really employ because we don't have the systems and tools and strategies in place. Can we ever get rid of uncomfortable feelings? Of course not. There's always gonna moments in your life where you feel tired or lonely or scared. And as a little kid, you learn to cope by chewing your nails because I distracted you from those feelings and IT worked.

And what i'm saying is, as an adult, you can never get rid of the triggers, but you can replace the coping mechanism that you no longer want to be reaching for as an adult, whether that coping mechanism is eating a bag of chips or it's chewing on your nails or it's zoning out in front of netflix that when you break this down using science into what's the trigger. And for a lot of us, it's really negative. Emotions like my trigger with the grabble alcohol might also just be brain tired.

And so i'm reaching for this habit that feels celebratory, right? And so when you unpack this on the sheet, the this is super important because again, you know you hear that quote online all the time. You can control what's happening, but you can choose how you can respond, not unless you understand the trigger and not unless you understand the reward that you're receiving for continuing to repeat this pattern.

And when you really start to use the signs of habits to your advantage, trigger pattern reward, trigger pattern reward, sit physically said, get a treat when you start to understand and break apart behavior you no longer want, and you replace IT inside this loop, you're gona make changing super easy. Now let me explain an example a about creating whole new habit. So for me, um a great example.

This is where the power of the reward comes in. And again, the reward is something that is really important because the reward is what encodes the habit loop into your neural pathways. And so this is a story from my life about me trying to create a habit of exercising five days a week.

So this was a two thousand nineteen. I was a brand new talk show host I was living at in the week at a hotel in new york city. And I was really important to me because I was a super stressful job that I get exercise every day.

And the job required me to be at cbs broadcast center by seven o'clock in the morning. And I worked most nights until at least seven o'clock at night, and so I was not going to have the energy to exercise at night. I knew that about myself. And so what this meant, if I had to be at the studio already to go by seven A M, is I had to be exercising by five thirty in the morning. Now I know about you, but I am not the kind of person that, first of all, likes to get out of bed.

The thought of being out of bed with my exercise tight on and standing in an exercise class at five thirty in the morning, this was a whole new male rabbits, because I knew dam well, I knew myself well enough that there was no way I was gna get myself down to the gym at the hotel. I needed to be in a class, or somebody was yelling at me if I planned and actually being there. I also knew that I needed to sign up the night before, because if I had signed up, I would feel obligated to go.

And so here's where is is interesting. So I find this location, a couple walk from hotel, set the alarm I signed up the night before I go to the class. I suffer through the whole thing.

And if I hadn't got this next piece in place, I never, we've gone back. It's the reward because i'm not the kind of person who is motivated simply because I feel good after I exercise. It's just not enough for me.

For my husband, Chris, the sense of accomplishment is enough of a reward to lock in the habit of exercising every day. Not no robbins, no way, no how I know that when I wake up at five o'clock in the morning, i'm going to feel Better. If I exercise, I still don't want to go and i'm not going.

That's where the science of habits come in. I am not the problem. I am a Normal human being who does not want to to get up at five o'clock in the morning.

I am not the problem. The problem is the systems. Okay, now i've got the front and covered.

I've got the trigger, the alarms going off. The exercise clothes are on the floor. I've already signed up. I know we're, i'm going, i've triggered the behavior, but I was missing the reward until something happened. I walked past a coffee shop that was super cool.

You know, like those super cool coffee shops, IT almost looks like they don't really so much of anything. They are like super clean. And they've got a big a like italian express, so machine thing that literally is the size of a new york city bus.

And then they've got loads and loads and loads of payment. Ries, so I walk into this place and IT looks almost like, you know, high and a key with a coffee shop in IT. And the bera is is always somebody from brooklin beares.

There's leather on the April, you know, the kind of place that i'm talking about. The coffee smells amazing. But more importantly, they had breakfast OS and not just breakfast for eos. They had these delicious breakfast reads that have been dropped off by a woman that makes them probably in the apartment. They were soft.

And guy, and when you bit into IT like that, that the flower tortillas sort of moist and chee, and then the eggs were soft in their cheese and their sausage, there IT was an explosion of awesomeness in my mouth. My stomach just crowd thinking about IT. So I get a bread to, I get a great cup of coffee.

I go back to the hotel the next morning. My alarm goes off. Five am, what do you think was the first thing that popped into my mind? The breakfast bread to this is why the science of habits matters.

When you have a reward tied to the new behaviour, your mind, the second that the trigger hits. And for me, the trigger for the new behavior of of exercising at five thirty in the morning was the alarm going off and seeing my exercise closed, laid out on the floor. When you have a good reward, your mind skips over the behavior and focuses on the reward.

This is such powerful science that when I would be walking to that exercise class in order, is talking about the bread to, well, I was doing ABS and butt exercises and sweating like crazy. Yeah, I was hate in class, but, you know, I was thinking about the bardo. This is neuroscience. This is the power of breaking down the behavior into trigger behavior and reward.

And so if you want to try something new in terms of a new habit, whether IT is a water that you wanted drink at lunch, or a walk that you, anna take, or an exercise class that you want to go to, or spending more time working on your goals or your side hustle, please come up with a reward that really matters to you. And if we jump even deeper into science here, according to doctor wood, the reward needs to either happen or you need to be moving toward IT within two minutes of completing the behavior pattern. It's really important that that reward happened in close proximity with the behavior pattern because we want the doping in your brain to drop in a close relationship with the behavior pattern.

That's what creates the loop. That's what removes the resistance. Because when your brain starts to associate five o'clock in the morning and exercise types on the floor with a big s juicy burrito, there is zero resistance, too, exercising.

And you can use this science to hack habits by focusing on the reward. And look, I I wanna say something loud and clear, the intrinsic, oh, that makes me feel good. That's never been enough to motivate me.

Never I think if if they were enough of a reward, knowing that, oh, well, when i'm done with my masters program, i'll feel good about myself. That doesn't make me study oh, when i'm done with this, a class, a online streaming, a yoga class or a hit class, i'll feel much Better. That does not motivate me.

I need something else. And there is nothing wrong with you if simply knowing that it's gonna feel good when you're done doesn't motivate you to do IT. That's okay.

That's not enough of a reward for most of us. And so I want you to embrace who you are. This is why it's not a one size fits all.

This is why in the biggest study around habits and how long IT takes the form habits, it's between eighteen and two hundred and fifty four days. And it's also why I want to tell you that if you're getting frustrated or the behavior isn't sticking, let's look at the reward. Look at the reward first because you don't have a reward that matters to you.

My husband does not need a breakfast burrito to get to the gym. Male robbins does. Either that or ice. I need something immediately following the exercise because that's what makes the habit stick, is what makes the resistance go away. And IT just does what IT is.

Now this brings me to a question i'm sure you're thinking about, which is if you've got a really big goal and you should have big goals and big dreams, how do you use this science in order to keep your momentum up, to keep the small actions going? I just take A A very common goal, which is losing some weight and getting healthier. You cannot attach the reward to losing all the weight.

You have to figure out something that's awesome, that makes IT worth doing the exercise or sticking with the healthy eating, or staying positive or counting your steps or whatever IT is that the behavior change is you got ta come up with a daily reward. And so let me give you one um one of the things that at least works for me is that if I take on a goal with a friend, I love the reward of texting photos back and forth. There is nothing preventing you from reaching out to a friend or a family member or colleague and saying, hey, do you want to a buy to each other on every day like i'm going to take on this goal of walking, i'm going to take on this goal of drinking more water.

I'm going to take on this goal of writing and journal every morning and just writing three pages or writing five dreams down. How about you and I send a photo of ourselves each morning to one another doing IT just as a way to stay positive, connected and to cheery each other on? To me, that was a big enough reward, knowing that I was part of a bunching of people doing something, or just two of us doing some, to keep me feeling motivated and to remove the resistance to doing IT because I was looking forward to taking the sale of myself and putting IT in the tax chain.

And so IT doesn't have to be a breakfast bread to IT doesn't have to be uh, something huge. IT could be something that matters to you. And I think going back to the foundational research that we covered early on from doctor lily about how long does he take the form a habit eighteen to two hundred and fifty four days.

And if you're feeling like it's too much resistance, but I want you to focus on the reward because I guarantee you the resistance is still there because you haven't come up yet with a reward that's made IT worth IT. You're gna realize there's another wrong with me. I've been trying to wilt wer this stuff, and i'm still dealing with the triggers, and i've IT replaced the behavior.

No wonder, oh, I don't have a reward for this other than guilt. That's not a reward. That's a punishment. There's nothing wrong. This is amazing.

And when you stop beating yourself up for what you need and you start supporting yourself for where you are, you will change. And this is so I, I, I. It's almost hard to find the words to explain how important learning the science and hacking habits in your life is.

But let me just underscore IT this way. I want you to create a life that you just love. I want you to become the person that you know you want to be.

I want you to be happier and fulfilled because you deserve that. And I believe profoundly in an enormous body of research called behavioral activation therapy. Behavioral activation therapy is a very simple premise with decades of research behind IT.

And that is, if you want to change your life, act like the person you want to become now, when to say that again, if you want to change your life, act like the person you want to become in the future now. And i'll give you an example who doesn't love the rock? I love the rock.

So let's just say that the rock is my norstar. I want to to become more like the rock. If .

that's .

true. One way that you can hack improving your life is simply pick somebody who represents the kind of person you want to become, and then, as simple as that sounds, identify what are those person's habits. So I would imagine the rock exercises is every day.

I mean, I see him, my instagram, doing IT. So i'm assuming he's doing IT everyday. I would imagine that iraq practices very positive mindset habits. I would imagine that the rock has a pretty healthy diet. I would imagine that the rock like, like, you can just start to kind of list these things out.

Then what you're gonna do is you're gonna use the simple science of habits, triggers, behave, your pattern reward, to create systems to encode those new behaviors. And when you do that, you are paving a pathway to the future you envision for yourself. And i'm going to repeat one more thing.

Those folks that we all admire that are super successful or seem like crazy discipline, there are no different than you and me. They're not born with IT. They're not like they don't have some super power. They just have abbot that's IT.

They have systems and tools in place to remove the resistance and to encode new behaviour and the pathway to getting absolutely everything that you want is habits act like the person you want to become right now. Yeah, it's easier said than done. But my goal here is to empower you with the science so that you can crack the code and you can start thinking about systems that are gona help you hack the behavior change that you want and deserve in your life.

That's the secret to knocking a new habits of making him stick. alright. Oh, I cannot wait to hear what you think about this.

In case nobody else tells you. I'm tell ling you, I love you. I believe in you. You know the science, you got the pathway.

You know that between these trigger and these rewards, you got the hackable way to truly create a Better life using science. I love you. I'll see you in the next episode.

I love talking about how you can create Better habits. And most importantly, I love seeing okay, went okay, but thank you so much for still being here, not still buying here. When we're saying still being here, I just think that super cool. So let's keep going.

Would you do on little pick up?

God, I love that him. Oh, great. okay. great. Gotch, okay, great.

Oh, and one more thing I know, this is not a blue poer. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers, right? And what I need to read you.

This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licence therapies, and this pocket is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. Got IT good. I'll see in the .

next episode .

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Hey, i'm your shahid and i'm the host of the optimistic project. This is the podcast that asks what gives you hope. Each week I sit down with change makers you may or may not know from comedy, music, academia and more to uncover what inspires them to create a Better tomorrow.

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