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It Takes Only A Few Days To Change Your Habits | James Clear | Motivational Speech for Bad Habits


so give me the let’s let’s bust the myth
of how many days it takes to set a habit
if you do something every single day and
maybe it changes for each person but
what’s the science or the the statistics
say about how long it takes to form a
positive or negative habit so 21 days is
the thing you hear all the time 30 days
hundred days there right now 66 days is
making the rounds there was one study
done that found that 66 days was the
average for how long it takes and as a
rule of thumb I don’t think it’s
terrible like you should remind yourself
yeah this is gonna be months of work
it’s not just going something quick but
even within that study the range is
quite wide so if you did something
simple like drink a glass of water at
lunch each day it would take like three
weeks if you did something more
difficult like go for a run after work
every day that would be like seven or
eight months well the honest answer to
how long it takes to build a new habit
is forever because of you to stop then
it’s no longer a habit it’s a constant
choice in a decision right sometimes
people ask like oh how can I double my
productivity or something like that and
you’ll see articles like that all the
time like follow this one five-minute
trick to double your activity but the
real answer to most of that stuff is
like get eight hours of sleep a night
exercise don’t eat like crap and then
instantly you have this boost of energy
the fundamentals are covered 90% of them
yeah exactly what are the five
non-negotiable habits for you on a daily
base for me specifically I think there
are a few core habits that are gonna
serve everybody and certainly serve me
well so exercise is a huge one I don’t
do it daily but I exercise Train four
times a week yeah and I feel like if I
didn’t exercise I don’t know that I
would be an entrepreneur like I don’t
know if I could handle the psychological
rollercoaster without the physical
outlet the other the ultimate meta habit
is reading because if you build a habit
of reading you can solve pretty much any
other problem you know you won’t learn
how to be a better podcaster you can
read about that you want to write how to
meditate you can read about that you
want to learn how to make more money you
can read about that and so what you need
is to develop a habit of reading and
then whatever problem you’re facing at
the time you can you have a method for
solving writing for me is huge I don’t
actually know what I think about
something until I write about huh I find
that if there are ideas that you get
if you ask me something right now that I
haven’t written about before what is
really happening is I’m just talking my
emotions so what I mean is that you’ll
ask me something and I’ll get an
implicit feeling about what what that
topic is I’ll have some intuition a gut
feeling about it and I’ll say whatever
that feeling is driving me to say but I
don’t actually know if that’s what I
really think what I deeply think until I
have the time to sit down the really
logically go through it because a lot of
the time you know if you would ask me
the same question next week I might have
a different feeling at that time so I’m
talking different emotions so I think I
actually need to have time to sit with
it a little bit and write write it
through your body is moving it’s very
hard for you one to not be active
mentally like if you think about someone
who’s shut down mentally what does their
body language look like they’re usually
closed off their arms like they’re
sitting there not moving very much try
to be closed off mentally and be dancing
physically it’s very hard to do if your
body is moving there like that it’s
really hard for your mind to be shut now
so that’s one thing that kind of gets
like the juices flowing I wonder about
your non conscious mind being like a
bottleneck sometimes and so if you’re if
you’re moving if you’re walking it gives
your non conscious mind something to do
so you’re like it gets out of the way
and now you can actually like have this
stuff arise or think in a different way
than if you’re sitting the winners and
losers in a particular domain often have
the same goals like every Olympian wants
to win a gold medal sure every job
candidate wants to get the job so if the
winners and the losers have the same the
same goal then the goal cannot be the
thing that distinguishes the two and the
thing that distinguishes them is the
process the system behind the goal
achieving a goal often only changes your
life for the moment it’s like you know
say you’re do just take like a simple
example so you have a messy room you
know and you set you get motivated you
set the goal to clean your room well you
can do that an hour and
you have a cleaner room but if you don’t
change the sloppy habits that led to a
messy room in the first place then you
just end up with a dirty room again yeah
so it’s like treating a symptom without
treating the cause and habits are a
better solution in that case because if
you fix the inputs the outputs fix
themselves automatically right you don’t
have to fight to have a clean room if
you have clean habits and I think that
that’s true in a larger sense as well
right people want outcomes they want to
earn more money or lose weight or be
more productive or reduce stress but the
outcome is not the thing that needs to
change it’s the system that person you
want to be I think that your habits are
the way that you embody and identity
right so like each time you make your
bed you embody the identity of someone
who is clean and organized each time you
go to the gym you embody the identity of
someone who’s fit each time you sit down
to write you embody the identity of a
writer so you can sort of think of it as
like each behavior casts a vote for the
type of person that you want to become
and if you cast enough votes for that
type of identity and you start to
believe that about yourself right like
if you you go to church for 20 years you
believe that you’re religious you study
Spanish every Tuesday for 30 minutes you
believe that you were studious so in
that way your habits provide evidence of
your desired identity and I think that
that is probably the ultimate reason
that habits are so important you could
practice something once in 30 days or
you could practice it a thousand times
what actually leads to a habit becoming
automatic and becoming learned and
ingrained is repetition so the phrase
that I like to use is not 21 days or 30
days but put in your reps I mean that’s
the real thing is you need to you need
to practice and if you put in your reps
then your brain starts aw and maybe how
that process works yeah
interesting okay so that’s the second
part the cue and then the desire habits
yeah right the craving cue craving
response reward
okay what’s the response so this is
mostly about making it easy so this is
the habit itself and the easier habit is
the less friction there’s associated
with a habit the more likely are going
to be to do it so the way that I like to
describe this imagine you have like a
hose right and there’s a bend in the
middle there’s a little bit of water
trickling out if you want to increase
the amount of water going through the
hose you have two options you can either
crank up the valve and force more water
through or you could just remove the
bend and let it flow through naturally
and a lot of the time advice is centered
on cranking of the valve it’s like you
need to try harder any grit any
perseverance see any motivation you need
to overcome the obstacles in your life
and all those things are fine but I
think they’re all short-term solutions
you might be able to do that for a day
or week but I’ve never consistently seen
someone stick to positive habits and
negative environment it’s really hard to
fight that day in and day out
so the solution I think is to reduce
friction there are ton of ways you can
do this one way is just a scale to have
it down make it as easy as possible
after the art of showing up like I had a
had a reader who ended up losing over a
hundred pounds and one of the things
that he did was he went to the gym but
he wasn’t allowed to stay for longer
than five minutes so he would show up be
there do like half an exercise five
minutes ago he’d leave he did this for
like six weeks Wow now it sounds
ridiculous it sounds silly because it’s
the opposite workout for a half hour
yeah yeah but what he was doing was
mastering the art of showing up and a
habit must be established before it can
be improved right if you don’t establish
that but there’s nothing to optimize if
you’re not showing up at the gym every
day you don’t even who cares about what
workout you’re doing you’re not even
there don’t start running an hour a day
if you’ve never run in a long time
be the person who shows up and puts
their running shoes on every day before
you worry about how far you’re running
what kind of workout you’re doing and
all that type of stuff I think that the
more sustainable strategy the more
reliable strategy is to scale it down to
the first two minutes focus on that
establish it master the art of showing
up and
and go from there usually when people
think about building better habits they
optimized for the finish line right it’s
like how much weight do I need to lose
how much money do I need to make you
know how when can I finish this book
it’s all focused on the result but I
think instead if you optimized for the
starting line make it as easy as
possible to start scale it down organize
your environments all that stuff is set
up this is another strategy for making
it easy which is that you can prime your
environment to make the future action
easier right like if you chop up a bunch
of vegetables and fruit on Sunday it’s
now easier to have a healthy snack
during the week if you set your workout
clothes that help the night before it’s
now easier to get into the workout the
next day but doing all that stuff to
make it easy to show up that is probably
the more important piece early on it’s
true like how this can help you earn
more money or be more productive or lose
weight and all that stuff is great
but in addition to the external results
that habits provide they also shape your
sense of self they like are the Act the
engine or the Avenue through which you
learn to believe things about yourself
like sometimes people will say stuff
like fake it till you make it but fake
it till you make it is asking yourself
to believe something without evidence
for it and you can do that for a little
while you can do it for a day or week
but eventually I mean there’s a word for
beliefs that don’t have evidence by the
delusion right and if you’re deluding
yourself then eventually you give up on
that but the power of doing a better
habit each day or casting what a little
vote for that type of person is that now
you have evidence to root your belief
every day I try to leave my phone in
another room outside of my office at
least until lunch because then I got
like a four-hour block of time in the
room where I can just work without any
distraction yeah and it’s funny how
quickly you don’t like if my phone is on
me in the morning I would check it like
you know every five minutes or Never but
when it’s out of the room
I don’t even find myself wanting to I
never walk up the stairs to go check it
even though it’s only 30 seconds away so
it’s it’s interesting how little we
actually want to do these things
but we just do them all the time because
they’re obvious and easy and I think the
key is to invert that take the things
that are the bad habits the distractions
the procrastinations
the unproductive uses of time
and make them more invisible reduce
exposure unless less easy to do and take
the things that are good habits and make
it the equivalent of having your phone
on you all the time and make it right in
front of you make it obvious make it easy make it you know frictionless
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