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it's not that luck and Randomness and uncertainty don't play a role in life they do you know luck
luck is a part of all of our Lives to a certain degree both good fortune and bad but by definition
you don't have control over luck and your habits also matter and I think that the reason they're
so worthwhile uh to focus on and understand is that they are the portion of your life that you
can influence that also determines your outcomes it's not just luck it's not just habits but one
of those you have control over and so it makes sense the only reasonable strategy is to focus on
what you can control if you spend all of your time focusing on things you can't control then you're
just going to end up frustrated and so I think habits are maybe the best lever for that talent
and genes uh they play a role and it's important you know people have natural predispositions to
things that make them better but what you find is that nearly always when someone is a great
performer in a particular domain they are both Well Suited so naturally talented or have some
kind of predisposition to that area and well trained and so even if you are talented you
can't succeed without having great habits to to execute and to fully realize the potential
that you have your outcomes in life are often a lagging measure of your habits you know like
a lot of the time people talk about you know I want to have more money or I want to lose weight
or I want some kind of result but the truth is your bank account is a lagging measure of your
financial habits your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits your knowledge is a lagging
measure of your learning and reading habits and so it's actually we think the thing that needs
to change is the bank account or the test score or the number on the scale but actually the thing
that needs to change are the habits that precede those outcomes every action you take is kind of
like a vote for the type of person you want to become and if you can Master the right actions
if you can Master the right habits then you can start to cast votes for this new identity
this desired person that you want to be and I think that's one of the reasons why small habits
matter so much they don't necessarily transform your life overnight right right away like doing
one push-up does not transform your body but it does cast a vote for being the type of person
who doesn't miss workouts or meditating for one minute might got not give you an immediate sense
of calm in your life but it does cast a vote for being a meditator the real goal is not to run a
marathon the goal is to become a runner goal is not to write a book the goal is to become a writer
because once you've adopted that identity you're really not even pursuing Behavior change anymore
you're just kind of acting in alignment with the type of person you already see yourself to
be it's kind of like true Behavior changes really identity change because once you've changed that
internal story it's way easier to show up each day you're not even really motivating yourself
that much to do it you're just like this is who I am now there's a sort of an a misalignment of
rewards that often happens with habits so there's an immediate outcome an immediate reward and then
an ultimate reward and for your bad habits one reason bad habits stick so readily that they they
form so easily is because bad habits often the immediate reward is favorable right like what's
the immediate reward of eating a donut it's kind of great it's sweet it's sugary it tastes good
it's only the ultimate reward if you repeat that habit for six months or a year or two years that
is unfavorable meanwhile good habits are often the exact opposite the immediate reward of going to
the gym or going to the gym for like a week isn't really that great your body's probably sore you
don't have much to show for it your body looks the same your weight hasn't really changed but it's if
you stick to that for six months or a year or two years then the ultimate reward is favorable and
so a lot of the balance or a lot of the challenge of building good habits and Breaking Bad Ones is
figuring out how to pull the long-term costs of your bad habit habits into the present moment so
you feel a little bit of that pain right now and have a reason to avoid it and pull the long-term
rewards of your good habits into the present moment so it feels good and you have a reason to
kind of make it through that like valley of death in the beginning and stick with it while you're
waiting for those delayed rewards to accumulate I think we could just summarize that whole uh
cognitive bias or mismatch uh misalignment of rewards by saying the cost of your good habits
is in the present and the cost of your bad habits is in the future and the fact that we prioritize
the present over the future ends up making a lot of habit change difficult for that reason
if I was going to give some practical takeaways uh I would say first thing that you can do is
probably optimize your environment because sometimes that's all you need to do so might
as well start there and then maybe it'll take care of itself you know like I mentioned putting
the apples in a bowl on the counter that was all I need to do and then the habit
of eating apples every day was done uh or maybe uh you know putting your TV inside a
wall unit or something maybe that'll be enough to reduce it or curb the The Habit unsubscribe
from the food blogs and now you're not tempted to eat as many cookies or something like that
um mobile phone super important yes right things like that removing the the applications or like
you deleting Instagram off your phone well that was enough now your Instagram habit is roughly
where you want it to be and you just look on the desktop instead of on your phone and that
that was enough and now you're you're fixed so environment design good place to start next
thing that I would recommend is the two minute Rule and scaling your habits down making them
as easy as possible basically just down scale it to a point where you can answer the question
can I stick to this habit 98 of the time without fail no matter what the conditions and if you have
to say no to that then it's probably too big to start so you know pretty much every habit has
an entry point uh or the first thing that you try to do just focus on mastering that and uh I think
that's a good place to focus and then building off of that the the last one that I recommend is
um there's this great story that I mentioned in the book about Twyla Tharp the famous dance
choreographer and instructor and she trains for still even now she trains for two hours
a day she's you know 50s 60s she's been training for a long time dancing her whole
career but she doesn't actually focus on the exercise habit The Habit that she focuses on
building is I put on my workout clothes and my sweatshirt and I hail the cab on the side
of the street and if I've done that then I've completed the habit and I think the the Insight
that she realized is that habits are often the entry point not the end point they're
the cab not the gym they're like an entrance ramp to the bigger routines in your life and
if you can master that habit that like little decisive moment that determines what happens
in the next chunk of time then the rest of it kind of Falls in line like I have this moment
each morning where either I open up Evernote and I start writing the next article I'm going
to work on or I go to ESPN to check the latest sports news and what happens in the next hour
is really determined by what happens in the first like 30 seconds because if I go to ESPN
then the next hour is kind of shot but if I start writing the article if I master that entry point
then I'm kind of speeding in the right direction and the momentum carries me into the rest of the
task and I think that for me that's a little bit inspiring when it comes to building habits because
what you realize is that there's actually not that much to change there may be five or ten of
those little decisive moments those little entry points throughout your day that determine whether
the next chunk of time is productive or not and if you can organize your environment or join
a community or restructure your habits so that those entry points are mastered then you're much
more likely to live a good productive day and so I think that those three things environment design
scale your habits down and master the entry points those are some really good places to start foreign
[Music] the information in this video comes from the Fantastic book Atomic Habits by James Clear
this book is jam-packed with simple tools that you can apply to change your habits and
dramatically improve your life right now you can listen to Atomic habits on Audible which has the
world's largest library of audiobooks and makes it incredibly easy to digest the material while you
are working exercising gardening or on the go I use it all the time while drawing these animations
let audible help you discover new ways to laugh Be Inspired or be entertained new members can try
it free for 30 days visit audible.com after skool or text after skool to 500-500 that's
audible.com after skool or text after skool to 500 500 to try audible free for 30 days [Music]