The Four Laws of Behaviour Change for Better Health
Jul 30, 2024SHOW NOTES
Ever wondered why some habits seem effortless to adopt while others are a struggle?
On this episode of Man in the Arena with Craig Spear, I explore James Clear’s Four Laws of Behaviour Change including several strategies you can use to easily create and solidify your next healthy habit.
Imagine stretching while brewing your morning coffee or committing to a post-lunch walk; these small adjustments can set the stage for monumental gains in your health journey.
Get ready to transform your routines and achieve your health goals with actionable insights.
CHAPTERS
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to man in the Arena. This podcast is for men over 40 who want to master their health and weight loss goals once and for all. With innovative strategies, practical tools and insightful interviews. My goal is to help you overcome your limiting beliefs and achieve your optimal health. It's time to look good, feel good and do better.
Hello and welcome back to man in the Arena. Thank you so much for stopping by and tuning in. I'm your host, craig Spear, if we haven't met, I'm a men's health and weight loss coach. I help guys over 40 lose weight, get in better shape and really improve all areas of their lives, whether it's their careers, their finances, their relationships you name it. Now, today, I'm going to talk about the four laws of behavior change, which is a concept that author James Clear came up with in his book Atomic Habits. But before I dive into that, I just want to share with you.
I turned 44 on the weekend, on Sunday, and every year my wife and I we go to a new city, we tour around, we check it out, and this is something we just do over the course of the weekend, just her and I that go. And this past weekend we went. The weather was amazing, it was not too hot, it was sunny every day, and it was great just to kind of get out and walk around and see a new place. One of the things we love to do is we love to see stand-up comics, and over the years we've seen some really great ones Bill Burr, we've seen David Tell, gary Goldman, lots of great comics out there. One of the things I really admire about comics is the process that they go through to get better. It's the ultimate in feeling discomfort and being willing to experience those emotions, and I think it's really powerful when you witness that and you see that these guys kind of develop through their careers and the level of emotional intelligence that they get to is really impressive. So, anyways, I just want to share that with you. It was a great weekend. I hope, wherever you are, you're enjoying your summer and you're doing things that bring you joy and happiness and really help you. You live a great life.
So, as I mentioned, today I'm going to be talking about James Clear's Four Laws of Habit Change, and if you haven't read Atomic Habits by James Clear, it's a fantastic book and it's going to have a profound impact to you, especially if you're looking to improve your health and develop better habits. I've read it twice now and it's going to have a profound impact to you, especially if you're looking to improve your health and develop better habits. I've read it twice now and it's one of those books that has so much great information that some of it gets buried and lost, and so today. I wanted to share some of that with you, kind of pare it down, really, just give it to you in a way that can help you change a behavior in your life that's going to take you to the next level. So here we go. These are the four laws of behavior change by James Clear.
Now, the first law that he talks about is make the behavior obvious. In order to build a new habit, you have to make sure that there's cues in your environment that trigger it, that habit and that behavior, to take place, and you want to make sure that those cues are obvious and visible. Now in his book, the Atomic Habits, he talks about three strategies that you can implement to make sure that the behavior is obvious, and the first one I really love it's called implementation intentions and this is where you define when and where you're going to perform the behavior. So, for example, let's say you want to start to exercise more, you want to move more, you want to move every day and work out. So an implementation intention would say that I will run at 6 am in the park. So you're defining when and where. You're also defining the behavior. So I will run at 6 am in the park or I will lift weights in my basement at 5 am. Okay, that's an implementation intention and it's really powerful because it just it kind of primes your brain to know that at this time and in this place, this is what I'm going to do.
The next strategy that he talks about, when it comes to making the behavior obvious, it's what's called habit stacking. This is where you pair your new behavior, your new habit, with a current habit, and I've kind of created or identified three that I want to share with you. These are just examples, right, but let's say, in the morning you have an existing habit of drinking a cup of coffee in the morning. So that's something that you probably do every day. Now what you want to do is you want to stack that or pair that with a new habit. So let's say you want to again, you want to become more flexible. You're feeling quite stiff and you want to get more limber every day and every morning. So what you would do while the coffee is brewing is create this new habit of doing a five minute stretch routine and then, of course, over this can be extended to include maybe a short workout or a meditation session. So it just kind of triggers your brain and cues your brain that this new habit is taking place. Coffee's brewing I get in my stretch.
Another one that I really love is, let's say, at lunchtime every day, you sit at your desk in your office or in the cafeteria at work, right? Well, what you want to do is stack this with the new habit of finishing lunch and then taking a five or a 10 minute walk outside, okay. Or if you have a big building that you work in, maybe you walk around the building right Now. Of course, it's going to aid in digestion and managing your blood sugar levels, but it's also going to provide you with that mental break that you need throughout your day and give you more energy. So, again, we're habit stacking here, and the last one is in the evening. Okay, let's say that you have this habit, this existing habit, of watching TV after dinner, and so what you want to do is now you want to pair that with a new habit of winding down. So, before you turn on the TV, you spend 10 minutes doing a relaxation exercise or some deep breathing exercises, right? This again, now you're pairing an existing habit with a new one. So we're not trying to get rid of, you know bad old habits. We're just trying to pair them with new ones so that they encourage new, healthful behavior. Okay Now, so we talked about implementation intentions, habit stacking.
The third strategy of making the behavior obvious is what's called changing your environmental design. Right, and again it goes back to making sure that those cues are obvious, and so one of the things that really stuck out with me, you know, one of the things I wanted to do is read more. I wanted to read more every day. I just wasn't getting enough reading. I was listening to podcasts and audio books, but I wanted to read more. So one of the things James Clear talks about in his book is put your pillow or sorry, put your book on your pillow at night, and again, this is just going to cue you to read each night. If you want to drink more water, then maybe you have water bottles filled up and on counters and on your desk, and that way you see it, and you tend to drink more. Okay, if you want to work out more and that way you see it, and you tend to drink more If you want to work out more, then you have your workout clothes put out every day so that you can see them and again, that's a cue, making it obvious to then go and do that behavior. So that's the first law of behavior change, according to James Clear.
The second law is you want to make the behavior attractive. So to increase the likelihood of adopting a new habit, you need to make sure that that habit is appealing. Right, we're not going to do things we don't like to do, so what you can do is you associate the habit with something you already enjoy, and it's kind of similar to making it obvious. But what you want to do is create a positive experience around the habit, and this involves two strategies. The first one, what's called temptation bundling. So this is where, let's say, you wanted to exercise more, you'd pair your exercise routine with an enjoyable activity. So maybe you like listening to podcasts, you like listening to certain music, so pair those together. Okay, that's called temptation bundling. Another strategy that James Clear talks about is what's called social influence. So this is where you surround yourself with people who are already doing the habit that you want to do. So that's what I love about communities and one of the main reasons why I created my own community in the arena, so that guys could surround themselves with other people who were doing this work. And again, this just makes it more attractive. It makes you realize you're not alone in this challenge, in this struggle, and so you're more likely to adopt the new habit that you want to create.
The third law of behavior change is making it easy, and this is where you reduce the friction involved in performing the habit right. So you want to simplify. The process requires as minimal effort as possible to get started and keep going right. So the goal is to make the habit as possible to get started and keep going right. So the goal is to make the habit you know easy to adopt, especially in the beginning. And then there's three strategies here that I want you to consider. The first one is what's called reducing friction right.
So if usually there's 10 steps that you normally have to do to perform the ultimate behavior, like you know, you go to a gym and you work out. You have to obviously get changed, you have to get in your car, you have to drive to the gym, you have to get to the gym and warm up. So there's lots of steps in that. How can you reduce that friction? Maybe you get a few pieces of exercise equipment and you put out your workout clothes the night before you get up. You get changed, you go downstairs, right? Something I do is I just sleep in my gym clothes. I've reduced all the friction right there. I just get up, go downstairs and start working out. Okay, fill up my water bottle beforehand. So I'm not taking that step in the morning, I'm just doing that at night. So there's lots of things that you can do to reduce the friction and perform the behavior.
Next, one, next strategy in terms of making it easy is what's called the two-minute rule, and I love this one. So a lot of times when we're creating a new habit exercise or meditation we think we have to do all or nothing right. So we have to exercise five days a week and an hour every time. We have to meditate for 20, 30 minutes to get the full benefit. What James Clear talks about is the two-minute rule. So just start with two minutes of exercise, start with two minutes of meditation, start with two minutes of learning a new language, because once you begin, once you show up, it's so much easier to continue doing more. But just set the bar low and start with that two minute rule.
The last one and I also love this one as well is it's all about automation. So how can you automate your new habit? So, if you want to have more money, you want to save more money, then make that automatic right. Set up a automatic withdrawal from your account that goes into a savings account or an investment. So that's a very simple example. But another one is just setting reminders on your phone around water. Maybe you want to drink five times a day, and so you set one up every two hours throughout the course of the day. Another thing you do is schedule in your workouts right. Automate these things so that they become easier to follow. Okay, so that's all about making it easy.
The last law of behavior change is make it satisfying. Okay. Our brains, our human brains, are wired to seek immediate gratification. So find ways that makes the new habit you want to adopt satisfying right away, and that's gonna help solidify it. It's gonna make it more likely that you're going to adopt that behavior in the long term. And so here's three strategies. You've probably heard these before, but I think that it's good to just review them right. The first one is obviously immediate rewards. So when you finish an exercise, when you finish exercising, right, check it off on your calendar. There's something gratifying and rewarding about completing a task and scratching it off a list. Right In that same vein, it's important to implement what's called habit tracking. So use a app on your phone or have that kind of calendar or tracking sheet where you mark off that you've completed that habit, because what's that going to do is it's going to increase immediate gratification. Where you see those streaks kind of come together, you see multiple days of action, and that's very rewarding. The last thing is, in terms of making it satisfying is share your goals and progress with friends or family. This is all about accountability, and when you do that, you get positive reinforcement. Again, make it satisfying. So those are the four laws of behavior change according to James Clear, and there's a number of strategies that I went through that you can implement.
But here's the challenge that I have for you now. I want you to identify one behavior that you want to adopt. Maybe it's exercise, maybe you want to read more, like myself, maybe you want to start journaling or you want to start meditating. Now, it doesn't have to be these habits, but I want you to pick something that you want to do more of, not exclude. This is something I want you to adopt and do more of.
Once you've decided on that one habit, I want you to apply each of the four laws to it. So how can you make this new habit more obvious, more attractive, how can you make it easier and more satisfying? So I want you to take 10 minutes to go through this exercise. This exercise could add quality years to your life. It could help you make more money. It could help you have a better relationship.
So I don't want you to skimp out on this. I want you to do it now and then follow through. In fact, what I want you to do is I want you to create an experiment where you test out these laws and strategies for two weeks to a month. I want you to commit and dedicate yourself to this process and this new habit that you want to create for yourself, and then see what happens. What would happen if you applied these four laws of behavior change every day for a month, with one habit, not five, not 10, one habit. Okay, I guarantee you you're going to see very, very cool results. Okay. So that's the challenge, fellas, and that's this week's episode. Thank you so much for stopping by. Please share this on social media. Share this with your friends. They're struggling and they need some guidance, and I want them to be exposed to this podcast because I know it's going to help them. Until next week, keep showing up, keep doing the uncomfortable work. Thanks, fellas.
Now is the time to take action and change your life. Head on over to thespearmethodcom and discover how I can help you get started on your path to better health and weight loss.
Get simple - but powerful - health, fitness & weight loss advice straight to your inbox.
Join 5K+ weekly listeners and subscribe to the Man in the Arena Podcast for tips to feel better, look better, and do better.
