The Strange But Effective Way You Can Stick to Hard Goals - Nir & Far

Hi, I'm Nir Eyal and this is the near and Far Podcast. This podcast is about business, behavior and the brain. On this show I do a few things. I read quick articles, I've written about topics shaping your behavior. I interview authors of books I enjoy, and from time to time I devote episodes to answering your questions. If you want to ask me a question, visit the podcast page on itunes, go to Ratings and reviews and ask me a question. By leaving a review, I promise to read it and possibly include your question in a future episode. So please ask me anything now. Enjoy the episode and for more, you can always Visit me@nearandfar.com.

This podcast is brought to you by X AI. You know, a lot of times when you listen to a podcast, the host will recommend a product because they're the sponsors and that's as simple as that. Well, I want to tell you about a product that I actually use. I've used it for about a year and a half now. It's called X AI. X AI is an artificial intelligence virtual assistant that will schedule your meetings for you. So every time I schedule a meeting, I don't play the email ping pong game back and forth. All I have to do is CC MyVirtualAssistan with a simple email address and the artificial intelligence will take care of the rest. It's a great product, highly recommended, and right now you can get one month free by going to X AI nearandfar. And you want to enter in the discount code near and far. Now remember, near is spelled like my first name, N I R. Check that out@X AI NEARANDFAR. You ever hear the saying that you should never trust a skinny chef? Well, by that logic, you should never trust an out of shape behavioral designer. Over the past four years, I've studied how habits can change our lives. And I've used these techniques to hack my own lifestyle. For example, I learned how to change my diet and how to enjoy running. And I even found the discipline to write a best selling book. Fundamentally, I wanted to figure out how habits can change our lives. And once I understood these basic principles, it's just paid tremendous dividends since. But there's been just one goal that has nagged at me for years. And that thing that I have found so difficult to actually get done is going to the gym. I'm just not a gym person. I don't like the smells, I don't like the sweats. I just, the whole thing is just not my scene. But I thought, you know what if I could figure out that one behavior, if I could figure out how to get to the gym and actually make that part of my day to day routine, man, maybe that would help me figure out how to crack all sorts of other hard to achieve goals. Here's the thing though. There's a lot of mumbo jumbo out there about habits. And I think that a mistake I see a lot of people making is that they confuse habits with routines. So let's get our definition straight. According to Dr. Benjamin Gardner, a psychologist focusing on habits at the University College London, habits are an impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought. In other words, habits are things that we do without deliberation, without thinking. But there are only certain types of behaviors that can even become a habit. You see, building a habit is actually pretty easy. You just have to provide a clear trigger, make the action very, very simple to do, and just make sure it occurs frequently enough to form that habit. But some behaviors are not good candidates to try and turn into habits. For example, if the behavior doesn't occur frequently, or if the behavior is something that requires a lot of intentionality, a lot of deliberation, a lot of thought, a lot of hard work, that is not something that you can turn into a habit. For example, I'm a writer, and let me tell you, writing is not a habit. Now, it requires a lot of hard work, a lot of thinking. It's not something that I can do with little or no conscious thought. Similarly, lifting weights for me is not a habit. It's something that I'm really working hard at, that my mind is fully there. It's not something that I can turn into an impulse done with little or no conscious thought. For me, writing and lifting weights are not habits, they are routines. The definition of a routine is a series of behaviors. Regularly practiced routines don't care if you feel the urge. They don't care about the impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought. They just need to get done. If I waited to feel the impulse to write, I would never write because it's hard work. Same goes for lifting weights. I never have the impulse to go to the gym with little or no conscious thought. It's not a habit, it's a routine. So when I freed myself from the constraint of trying to make these behaviors into habits, I could focus on how to make them into routines. So what's the trick to sticking with a routine? Well, before I tell you my secret, I want to make sure that I make you aware of a few disclaimers. Number one, this is for you to use on yourself. Do not try this technique on other people like your kids or your employees. Don't do it. It's for personal use only. Number two, this is not the only technique you can use. This is just one technique of many you can use to accomplish difficult goals. Okay, so here it is. Here's how I stick with a difficult routine like writing or lifting weights, and it's called the burn or burn technique. So how does it work? First, pick your routine. Second, book the time. If you don't schedule that time to do that routine on your calendar, it's not going to happen. Next, get yourself a crisp hundred dollar bill. Now, you could use a different denomination, but it's got to be an amount of money that you would really hate to lose. Next, get yourself a lighter. Next, get yourself a wall calendar and place it somewhere that you can see every single day. And finally, you want to take that $100 bill, affix a piece of tape to it, and stick it on today's date. So now you have a choice to make. For me, this is called the burn or burn technique, because every day I can either go to the gym and feel the burn, or I can burn this $100 bill. Okay, so I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Burn the $100 bill. That's crazy. That might even be illegal, right? But that's the point. You never burn the $100 bill. Why? Because you do the thing that you want to do. You do your routine. So here's my calendar that my wife made for me for the month of February. And you can see, every day I go to the gym, I take one day off a week. But I either lift weights or I do abs or I walk. I do one activity every single day, and I move that $100 bill. And I have never burned that $100 bill. So what I want you to do real quick is to bring awareness to how you feel right now. My guess is that you might be feeling a little tension. You might be thinking to yourself, oh, crap, this might actually work. And I may actually have to do this. And that's great, because this technique really does work. And I didn't even make up this technique. There's actually a lot of good science supporting why the burner or burn method works. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that when smokers put up their own money, they were much more likely to quit smoking. Now, the funny thing is that many people refuse to do this technique precisely because they know it will work. Now I know this can be a bitter pill to swallow, and a lot of people have an averse reaction when I tell them about the burner burn technique. But here's the thing. It really does work. I've been using it for over a year now, and let me tell you, I have not missed a workout. So now that you've watched my video and you know about this technique, you have a choice to make. If there's a method that could almost guarantee you could stick with your routine versus the way you've been doing things today and not really accomplishing what you want to accomplish, ask yourself if it's worth trying this method. Can't wait to hear what you accomplished with the burn or Burn technique. Let me know in the comments below. Check out my blog@nearandfar.com and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of the near and Far Podcast. You can always find more at my blog, nearandfar. Com. And don't forget, if you have a question you'd like me to explore in a future episode, leave me your question. The former review for the podcast on itunes.