In this solo episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick walks listeners through James Clear’s four laws of behavior change—cue, craving, response, and reward—as presented in the book Atomic Habits. He explains each law with concrete examples, notably his own long‑standing habit of chewing ice, illustrating how a cue (ice water), a craving (stress relief/fidgeting), a response (crunching ice), and a reward (calming effect) form a habit loop. Gubernick shows how understanding this loop enables both habit formation and habit breaking: to break a habit, alter or remove one of the four components (e.g., eliminate the cue by avoiding ice in drinks); to build a habit, deliberately design each component (set an environmental cue, create a motivating craving, define a simple response, and reward the behavior). He acknowledges the difficulty of initiating change, ties the discussion to previous episodes on resistance, and ends with a reflective prompt asking listeners to identify habits they wish to create or eliminate using the four‑law framework. The episode closes with the podcast’s signature encouragement to seize daily improvement opportunities.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick and welcome to the No Days Off podcast where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into today's topic. Today I want to talk about the 4 laws of behavior change, the 4 laws of behavior change, and this is outlined by James Clear. Uh, he talks about it all over the place, but I think he first discussed it in his book Atomic Habits. And I'm talking about these 4 laws of behavior change because they've been up on my computer screen for probably a month now as I'm looking to create some new habits, but I'm also aiming to break a few bad habits. These laws give insight into how habits are in fact formed and how you can modify or, or change certain things with respect to these laws to, to break habits. So the laws show you how to create habits, but they, you can learn if you, if you modify certain aspects of this, it allows you to, to, to in fact break bad habits. So that's why they've been on my screen. So let's talk about these 4 laws and how they apply to our respective worlds. Okay. Number 1, The first law is the cue or the cue trigger. This first law refers to the trigger or the cue that initiates a habit. So it's the event, it's the circumstances that prompt you to perform or do a certain behavior. These cues can be environmental, they could be situational, they could be time-based. So here's some examples, like an environmental cue might be seeing a snack sitting on your, your, your office desk. Or situational. Maybe it's some like feeling stressed, like feeling an emotion. If it's time-based, maybe it's a daily alarm, but there is something that is cueing or triggering this habit to be initiated. That's Law 1. The next law is craving or desire. So the second law involves a craving or desire that arises in response to the cue. So it's the motivational force that makes you want to take the action. Cravings are oftentimes tied to the rewards or the benefits you expect to receive from the behavior. So, uh, for me, right, I chew ice. I probably shouldn't chew ice because I know it's going to do damage to my teeth. I especially shouldn't chew ice because my wife's a dentist and she looks at me every time I chew ice, but I've been doing it for years and years and years. Now the cue for me honestly is a glass of water that in fact has ice in it. My craving, right? So the cue is there if it's present. So it's an environmental cue for me. The craving is just this habit or this routine. It's, it's, it's, I know it might sound crazy to some of you, but it's a calming act for me. Maybe it's calming me from stress. Maybe it's just keeping me active, like I'm fidgeting of like a fidgeting of sorts. But that's the craving I have. Now the third law, response or action. So the third law is about the actual behavior or the response that you engage in when you experience the cue. And the associated craving. So this is the action you take in response to the cue and the craving. So for me, going back to this ice example, the cue is a glass of ice water with ice in it. The craving is this desire I have to fidget or calm myself through this act. The response is actually drinking and, and pulling the, you know, grabbing the ice cubes and starting to crunch on them. And the fourth law is reward. So it focuses on— the fourth law focuses on the reward or the outcome you receive after performing the behavior. Rewards are essential because they reinforce the habit loop. So for me, you know, the action is chewing the ice. The reward is the— is, I guess, the calming act or these, uh, just the kind of mindless behavior that keeps me somewhat active. Right? And I've repeated this loop so many times throughout my years. I mean, I've been doing this for decades that it's, it's, I don't even think about it. I almost don't even realize I'm doing it, but I know it's not the greatest of habits to have. And I know it can damage my teeth. And between, between us, I mean, maybe I, maybe I have damaged my teeth a time or two, but I know it's not something that I should continue to do and I have to break this habit. Now this is a silly example, but I think it's a good, it's a good example to demonstrate what we're about to talk about next here. So if the 4 Qs are, I'm sorry, the 4 Laws are the cue, the craving, the response, and the reward. If I know that that's the habit loop, then I also know how to break that habit loop. So let's go back to the ice example. Best way for me to break this habit is to change the cue altogether. In other words, don't have drinks with ice in it. I mean, that is, I mean, really, like if you're like, hey, how do you stop this immediately? Remove the ice from all drinks. It's that simple. Now, why haven't I done it yet? It's really hard to get started. It's that resistance we just recently talked about a few episodes ago. I haven't made it a point. It hasn't become important enough to me yet. And so now I've got to discover how to make it, you know, what would prompt it to be more important? Why would I want to take action? But I would change the cue. Okay. I can't necessarily change the craving until time goes on and I no longer crave it. The alternative may be, I mean, maybe I could change the response. So if I have this cue, to relieve stress or to do something that is, you know, some sort of fidgeting type behavior, maybe there's alternatives that I can, I can do that create a different response or action versus crunching ice. So all I'm trying to say is if you understand these laws, then you understand how to disrupt these laws and break the habit loop. So in summary, these laws explaining the habit loop Uh, I mean, they work like the cue triggers the craving, the craving leads to a response or action, and the behavior is then reinforced by a reward. So understanding this loop is super valuable for building these positive habits, of course, but also breaking negative ones. So to change a habit, you just got to modify one of these four components. Now, if I want to build habits, right, let's set ourselves up for success. Create a cue. Again, maybe it's environmental, maybe it's situational, maybe it's time-based, maybe it's an alarm. Create a cue, develop the craving or the desire that the cue solves for or, or puts us in action to solve for. Then anchor it with the response or an action. And then lastly, be sure to reward yourself for that behavior. Makes sense? So the 4 Laws of Behavior Change. As outlined by James Clear, these are things that we can think about if we want to create great habits and also break bad habits. So the focusing question for you: what habits do you hope to create in your world where you can create a, a cue, a craving, a response, and a reward? Or what habits do you want to remove from your world to where you can disrupt the cue, the craving, the response, or the reward? How can you apply this today? Where in fact you have these habits you want to create or you want to eliminate. That's all I have for you today. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
