Brian Johnson breaks down James Clear's four laws of behavior change: make habits obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying to build them; do the opposite to break them. The model starts with a cue that triggers a craving, leading to a response and reward.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. In our last number of plus ones, we've been having fun swimming in and out of the atomic habits pool. Most recently, we had fun measuring Michael Phelps's inseam and noticing the fact that it perfectly matched the domain he chose to dominate. Does your soul inseam fit your life? Today we're finally ready to get down to the nuts and bolts of creating great habits. We're going to take a super quick look at James Clear's four laws of behavior change. Then we'll spend a day applying those laws to building a good habit and then another day applying those laws to breaking a bad habit. Drumroll, please. The four laws of behavior change are based on the four keys to building habits. James basically brilliantly extends Charles Duhigg's model we discuss in our notes on the power of habit. Here's how James describes the habit loop. I quote, if a behavior is insufficient and in any of the four stages, it will not become a habit. Eliminate the cue and your habit will never start. Reduce the craving and you won't experience enough motivation to act. Make the behavior difficult and you won't be able to do it. And if the reward fails to satisfy your desire, then you'll have no reason to do it again in the future. Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. And without all four, a behavior will not be repeated. In summary, the cue triggers a craving which motivates a response which provides reward which satisfies the craving and ultimately becomes associated with the cue. Together, he says, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop. Cue, craving, response, reward. Cue craving, response, Reward that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. This cycle is known as the habit loop. End quote. So cue, craving, response, reward. We have a cue in our environment that leads to a desire to do something. We respond and we get a reward. Repeat. That leads us to the four laws, one for each of the elements of our habit loop. Here they are. How to create a good habit and how to break a bad habit. The first law. We've got a little grid in our plus one on the site. In the app, the first law is Q related. You need to make it obvious if you want to create a good habit and you need to make it invisible if you want to break the habit. Obvious or invisible, the second law is associated with craving. You need to make that habit attractive for the good stuff and unattractive for the bad stuff. Third law is related to response. You need to make it easy for the good stuff and make it difficult for the bad stuff. And then the fourth law is related to reward. Make it satisfying or unsatisfying. So want to create a good habit? Well, make it obvious. Make it attractive. Make it easy. Make it satisfying. Want to break a bad habit? Do the opposite. Make it invisible. Make it unattractive. Make it difficult. Make it unsatisfying. That's all for today. That's a lot for today, but that's all for today. With that, what's a habit you want to build in your life? Is today a good day to put the laws to work on it?
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