#648: James Clear, Atomic Habits — Simple Strategies for Building (And Breaking) Habits, Questions for Personal Mastery and Growth, Tactics for Writing and Launching a Mega-Bestseller, Finding Leverage, and More

Questions vs. Advice

Questions are more adaptable than advice.
Advice is brittle and context-dependent, while questions can be applied to various situations.

Habit of Reflection

Regularly reflect and review to course-correct in life.
Shorter review cycles, like weekly reviews, are helpful alongside annual reviews.

Transcript: James Clear So, you know, it’s nice to have a process for a reflection review. I actually think I’m sure we’ll talk a lot about habits in this conversation. And one of the kind of meta habits that’s really helpful is some kind of habit of reflection review because it allows you to course correct. Nobody sets out to get off course or to make a mistake or to do something that goes against their values. But we just kind of have this natural drift in life. And as time goes on, we kind of find ourselves in situations where maybe we’re not doing the optimal thing anymore. And an annual review is a chance to check in. I also think it’s helpful to have shorter cycles of review. So like on Fridays, I usually do some kind of short little business review where I look at revenue and expenses and new email subscribers and stuff like that. But at the end of each year, I like to ask myself some big questions. I’m glad you started here because I think that questions can be very useful. If you ask better questions, you can get better answers. But also questions are very resilient. They’re very adaptable to the context. And that’s something that’s different and perhaps a little bit better than advice. You know, advice is actually kind of brittle and context dependent. Somebody can have a really good plan, a really good piece of advice to give you, but if it doesn’t fit your context, then it’s actually not great advice for your particular situation.

Questions over Advice

Questions are more adaptable to different contexts than advice.
While advice can be brittle, questions are resilient and help you arrive at better answers relevant to your specific situation.

Transcript: James Clear If you ask better questions, you can get better answers. But also questions are very resilient. They’re very adaptable to the context. And that’s something that’s different and perhaps a little bit better than advice. You know, advice is actually kind of brittle and context dependent. Somebody can have a really good plan, a really good piece of advice to give you, but if it doesn’t fit your context, then it’s actually not great advice for your particular situation. Whereas questions are very adaptable. So I think maybe what I should do is just go through some of the questions that I like to ask myself for my annual review and throughout the rest of the year. So I guess we could say this first category is just kind of like questions that help improve self-awareness or help kind of bring me back to center. So like the first thing, I think actually this might be a question from Derek Sivers or some version of it from him, which is what am I optimizing for? You know, sometimes people optimize for money, sometimes optimize for free time, sometimes they optimize for creative output or being able to choose the projects they work on, all Kinds of stuff. But that answer probably changes over time. What I’m optimizing for today is different than what I was optimizing for five years ago or 10 years ago.

Questions Over Advice

Ask yourself empowering questions rather than seeking rigid advice.
Questions adapt to your context, unlike advice, which can be situation-specific.

Transcript: James Clear Whereas questions are very adaptable. So I think maybe what I should do is just go through some of the questions that I like to ask myself for my annual review and throughout the rest of the year. So I guess we could say this first category is just kind of like questions that help improve self-awareness or help kind of bring me back to center. So like the first thing, I think actually this might be a question from Derek Sivers or some version of it from him, which is what am I optimizing for? You know, sometimes people optimize for money, sometimes optimize for free time, sometimes they optimize for creative output or being able to choose the projects they work on, all Kinds of stuff. But that answer probably changes over time. What I’m optimizing for today is different than what I was optimizing for five years ago or 10 years ago. So I think it’s a helpful question to keep revisiting. And you need to decide what it is for you. Otherwise, it’s easy to kind of slide into this status signaling or just kind of like doing the things that you feel like you’re encouraged to do by society or by your friends or peers Or your parents or whatever.

Optimize For What?

Determine what you’re optimizing for to avoid status-seeking.
Revisit this question regularly, as your focus might shift over time.

Transcript: James Clear So what am I optimizing for? Another way of phrasing that is maybe like, what’s the real objective here? Like what am I actually trying to achieve? So some version of that question. I also like, does this activity fill me with energy or drain me of energy? You can tell a lot just by whether it like fills up your cup or not. And ideally, you’ll be spending more time in the next year on things that fill you with energy and less time on things that drain you with energy. Speaking of the things that drain you, maybe like a sub question that I like to keep in mind is, does the amount of attention I’m giving this match its true importance? And man, there’s so many years when I find that I’m giving something a lot of attention that actually is not that important.

Aligning Habits with Desired Future

After identifying what you’re optimizing for, ask: ‘Can my current habits carry me to my desired future?’
If yes, practice patience; if no, build new habits.

Transcript: James Clear What am I optimizing for? Am I spending my energy on things that fill me up or things that drain me? Another question that I think is helpful is if once you answer, what am I optimizing for? You can ask yourself, can my current habits carry me to my desired future? And that’s really about figuring out what kind of trajectory you’re on. And if they can, then maybe all you need is patience. But if they can’t, something needs to change, you know, like you need to develop or build some new habits.

Systems Over Goals

Focus on building robust systems instead of solely aiming for goals.
You fall to the level of your systems, so design them to support your desired outcomes.

Transcript: Tim Ferriss We may come back to the remainder of the list because I am a question junkie. No big surprise there. But I wanted to maybe reference the, I shouldn’t say the, but one of the key points in the first chapter of Atomic Habits, which is, you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to The level of your systems, which is a modification of one of my favorite quotes, which I can actually speak the original language, but I cannot. Alas, from the Greek poet and philosopher Archelokos, we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training. So to the systems piece, I think about this a lot and have found for myself and certainly for many people in my audience that stacking the deck so that it’s harder to fail goes a lot further Than trying to rely on willpower. It’s almost difficult for me to imagine precise steps you could take to hone something that is labeled as broadly as willpower. So how can you set up accountability? How can you set up incentives, et cetera?

Reduce Scope, Stick to Schedule

Reduce the scope of a habit if needed, but stick to the schedule.
Showing up on bad days and doing something, even if it’s less than ideal, helps maintain the habit in the long run.

Transcript: James Clear But I try to do whatever I can to reduce friction and make it as easy as possible to do it. So the first thing is I give myself permission to reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule. So if my typical workout takes 45 minutes, but I only have 15 that day, it’s easy to get into this story where you’re like, I don’t have time to do it all. Like why bother? But instead I try to remind myself to reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule. And there have been a lot of days where all I have time for is to go in and do a couple sets of squats. But I’m glad that I did that rather than doing nothing. And it counts for a lot to like not throw a zero up for another day. In a sense, in the long run, I almost feel like the bad days matter more than the good days. Because if you show up on the bad days, even if it’s less than what you had hoped for, you maintain the habit. And if you maintain the habit, then all you need is time.

Reduce Scope, Not Schedule

Reduce the scope of habits when needed, but stick to the schedule.
Showing up on bad days reinforces the habit more than perfect execution on good days.

Transcript: James Clear We can pick a couple different habits, like let’s take fitness, for example, and then also do it for like writing and business. So for fitness, which I consider to be this, this is kind of one of like my core habits. It’s one of the ones I feel like is most important for how I structure my day. But I try to do whatever I can to reduce friction and make it as easy as possible to do it. So the first thing is I give myself permission to reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule. So if my typical workout takes 45 minutes, but I only have 15 that day, it’s easy to get into this story where you’re like, I don’t have time to do it all. Like why bother? But instead I try to remind myself to reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule. And there have been a lot of days where all I have time for is to go in and do a couple sets of squats. But I’m glad that I did that rather than doing nothing. And it counts for a lot to like not throw a zero up for another day. In a sense, in the long run, I almost feel like the bad days matter more than the good days. Because if you show up on the bad days, even if it’s less than what you had hoped for, you maintain the habit.

Upstream Habits

Identify upstream habits, the keystone habits that positively influence other areas.
Focus on establishing these core habits to create cascading positive effects.

Transcript: James Clear I think it’s worth asking yourself what habits are upstream from other things that I want to do or other things that set me up for a good day. And what you’re kind of describing is that a workout habit, at least for you and I would say for me, is upstream from a lot of other good things that happen. Like I get the benefits of the workout. Sure. But also I tend to have that post workout high for an hour or two where I get this good period of concentration. I tend to eat better when I’m training. It’s kind of like I don’t want to waste it. It’s actually when I’m not training that I get lazy and, you know, start eating whatever I want. I tend to sleep better at night because I’m tired from the workout, which means I wake up the next day and I have better energy. And at no point was I trying to actively build better sleep habits or nutrition habits or whatever, but it just kind of came as a natural byproduct of getting that one habit of a good workout In. And it doesn’t have to be fitness. You talk to some people, you know, comedians, for example, will talk about how or athletes will talk about how they have this visualization habit before they step out on the stage. And if they get that in, they kind of recite what a good performance is going to look like. That helps them perform in the moment. Or CEOs will talk about a meditation habit. And if they get their 15 minutes of meditation in the morning, that sets them up for the rest of the day being productive. So I think it just comes down to asking yourself, when I’m living a good day, when I’m on, what are some of the key habits that are part of that? And then maybe rather than worrying about everything and trying to hit every little domino along the way, what’s the lead domino? What’s that first action that’s upstream from the other productive things? And can I just pour my energy into making sure I do that today and kind of trust that the momentum will carry me forward? Okay, so your question was, what are some other examples of systems?

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