BITESIZE | The Surprising Secret to Making New Habits Stick & Effortlessly Achieving Your Goals | Shane Parrish #597

Are you constantly trying to create better habits and quit those that don’t serve you? We can all make short-term changes, but so many of us struggle to make our new desired behaviours last. Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 402 of the podcast with entrepreneur and best-selling author Shane Parrish. In this clip Shane introduces the powerful notion of playing life on ‘easy mode’ to put us in the best position for success, and we discuss why setting personal rules can be a powerful hack for creating healthy habits and effortlessly achieving our goals. Thanks to our sponsor – ⁠⁠⁠https://drinkag1.com/livemore Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/402 Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts ⁠⁠https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore⁠⁠ For other podcast platforms go to ⁠⁠https://fblm.supercast.com. DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rangan Chatterjee?

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• 0:41Rangan Chatterjee?

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• 1:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  See all details at drinkag1.com/livemore. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 402 of the podcast with entrepreneur and bestselling author Shane Parrish. In this clip, Shane introduces the powerful notion of playing life on easy mode to put us in the best position for success. And we discuss why setting personal rules can be a powerful hack for creating healthy habits and effortlessly achieving our goals.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  If you look at sort of what I did was look at the titans of industry and the people who consistently get better results than everybody else. And the one commonality they had that I've never heard anybody really talk about is they're never in a bad position. They're almost never forced by circumstances into doing something. They're almost never in a bad position where even though they get angry, just like us, even though all these things, the life happens to them the same way that it happens to us, they're always playing on easy mode. And so it seems easy for them, but they're always doing the things in advance they need to, to be playing on easy mode. The fact that, you know, your brother didn't sleep well, doesn't change the fact that he's going to get up and do a race.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  But had he slept well, had he ate well, had he sort of concentrated on what are the things that I can do within my control that put me in the best possible position for this race, would have made the race maybe a different outcome. Maybe it wouldn't have made the race a different outcome, but it sounds like it would have.

• 3:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  What are the things that you do in your life regularly that help you play life in easy mode?

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's a couple of things, and I look at this in different domains, right? And in the domain of life, one of the things I do is like, I have a regular bedtime. And it sounds so weird, but I have a rule around my bedtime. And we can get into rules later about why they're successful and why they work. But I, I know that if I don't get sleep, I'm just more heightened about things, you know? Everything, little slights and little comments get to me a lot more if I haven't slept. So I sleep well, I eat well, I invest in my relationships with my kids and with my partner and with everybody else. And what does that mean? Well, that means that when something happens, that it's inevitably easier to overcome. But rules are so fascinating because we've been taught our whole life to follow rules.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  And, you know, we're taught the speed limit, the tax code, all of this. Nobody reminds us every day to follow the speed limit. We're taught once to follow the speed limit. That's what we do because we're taught to follow rules instinctively. This is bred into us since we're children in school. But we've never thought about how we can use rules to our advantage. And I was with Daniel Kahneman on the, he had his penthouse in New York. And I remember he was on the phone, and this is how this idea came to me. And he, he was talking to this person who was asking him to do something. And he would, he just said in passing, like, my rule is I never say yes on the phone. I'll get back to you tomorrow. And then he hung up and I was like, tell me about this. What is this rule? And he's like, well, I found myself not wanting to disappoint other people.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  So going back to the defaults, we talk about social default, part of that. You don't want to disappoint other people. I didn't want to say no to other people because I feel bad about saying no. And so I devised this rule where I would just dissipate the situation. And then I would go back the next day and he's like, I went from saying yes 80% of the time to saying yes like 10% of the time. And I feel much better, I'm much more in control of my schedule. And it works out for everybody because now I'm not saying no to their face. I can have an assistant do it. I can have somebody else do it, or I can reply over email and just say, sorry, that doesn't work with my schedule. But when I tell them it's my rule, he's like, they don't argue with me. If I tell them, oh, let me check my calendar, they'll be like, hold on a second. Yeah, no problem. I'll wait. If I tell them I'm not available that day, then they'll start arguing about another day.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  And so he's like, I'm in this conversation I don't want to be a part of. But if I say my rule is I never say yes on the phone, I'll get back to you. Nobody pushes back on rules. We don't push back on our own rules. And we just automatically, they circumvent our behavior. So he's like, he's not conscious about saying yes or no in that moment. He's just following his rule and his rule is I'm not going to say yes on the phone. Now, let's take that afterwards, he, I was like, what other rules do you have? He's like, none. I was like, this might be the most powerful thing you've done. And, and I don't think you quite understand that, right? Because this circumvents choice. And it can allow us in these ordinary moments to turn our desired behavior into our default behavior without conscious processing.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  And if it can do that, then we can do all of these things where you can wake up and you can set a rule for the day and have your rule be that, you know, you're going to take two breaths before responding. Or your rule can be, you're not going to send an email that's longer than two sentences. Or you're not going to send an email after five. Whatever that rule is that works for you, and you pick one or two for the day. And then you can throw it out in the morning. But the fact that you have that rule, you won't even think about it during the day. You just won't do it. It's so surprising. Try it. Like, I encourage everybody to try it.

• 6:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, there's something about the word rule, isn't there? That's very black. And white, there's no shades of grey there. You know, let me have a think about this. Let me check my calendar.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  That's like, then you're, you're using willpower, right? Conscious choice. And then all of a sudden, but now you've circumvented it. So when you think about how people want to handle anger or ego or social situations, most books tell you, you have to recognize that you're in the moment. And then you have to make a conscious choice. And that works maybe 20% of the time. And so that's great. If you can do that, brilliant. But if you can't do that, well, can you create a rule so that you don't even have to recognize that you're angry? You just don't do the thing that you would do when you're angry. And that might be the rule is I take two brass before I respond. And that allows you the time for your conscious brain to catch up to your unconscious brain. And now you're reasoning before you respond.

• 7:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  If I think about that through the lens of health.

• 7:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  And as a medical doctor, of course, how this impacts people's ability to make good decisions about their health is of huge interest to me. Let's take diet, for example. There's so many debates about the best diet, which I think is the wrong debate to be having anyway. I believe it's more the question should be, what is the right diet for me in the context of my life and my lifestyle?

• 8:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  But one of the reasons I think that rules work, like I'm following a low carb diet or a low fat diet or a vegan diet or a whole food, plant-based diet. One of the reasons I believe that they can work for an individual person is because in a world where there is an overabundance of food available to many of us at all times, it forces an element of restriction.

• 8:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  And for some people, simply saying, I'm on a low carb diet, that eliminates a whole host of foods that they would otherwise be tempted by when they're out and about. And you could apply the same reasoning to other diets. Do you think that?

• 8:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  That is one of the reasons why so many different diets appear to work for different people, because they've applied a rule.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're not making a choice. When you go to a restaurant and you're, I'm not a medical doctor, but if you're following a particular diet plan and you go to a restaurant, it's eliminated a whole bunch of choices for you and narrowed down the options available to you. And so you're not consciously eliminating all these options one by one. You're just blanket eliminating them. So the rule is super powerful. Now, I don't, I don't think that way in my life. I don't think in terms of diet, but I've applied rules to eating with hundreds of people because I've tested this idea over the years. And it's so effective in social situations, in all these different types of situations. We were talking earlier about one of my friends who's a salesperson.

• 9:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  And, you know, we were working because he was trying to lose weight. And I was like, well, why don't you just create a rule, an automatic rule. I call them automatic rules for success. Why don't you create an automatic rule for success that you just choose the healthiest thing on the menu every time you're out at a restaurant and you never eat dessert?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  And he was skeptical. And six weeks later, I get an email from him. He's like, I've lost weight. I'm healthier. I got more energy than ever. This is the best thing to ever happen to me. And I was like, how are you, you know, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm doing exactly what you said, because he was like, I was eating, you know, generally pretty good in the morning and the afternoon, but he's always out with clients and always out in these situations. And for the client, that's like a great night out, right? That's wine, that's a lot of food, it's dessert, it's all these things. And he's like, I just said to the clients, like, my rule is I don't do this. And he's like, I'd have a drink or two with dinner, but I wouldn't eat dessert. And I'd order the healthiest thing on the menu. And he's like, that's it. Those two simple things. It's like, they never push back. He's like, when I used to be like, I don't feel like dessert tonight.

• 10:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's not just the people around you pushing back though, is it? It's also something it does to yourself internally, because, I don't know, let's say, for example, people are trying to eat well and they're tempted by dessert if they're out.

• 11:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  The rule principle, what I like about it is it signals to the people around you that this is black and white. I don't do desserts, for example. But it also sends yourself that signal as well that I don't have to choose here. I'm just going to follow my rule.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Totally. So you're not consciously thinking in that moment. You're just following a rule. You're not making a willpower choice. You're not doing anything. People will not push back against you. So they won't argue with you in that moment. Especially the first time they might sort of push back just gently. But the second time they won't push back at all. And so then it's so powerful, right? Because not only are you signaling to yourself, you're the type of person who doesn't eat dessert. So part of your identity, part of your ego in a positive way. But you're sort of not getting the social pressure that you normally get when you're like, I don't feel like dessert tonight. Well, what happens when you're out with a group of your friends? And you're like, I don't feel like it. And they're like, oh, come on, you can have a piece. Or if you say, you know, I just started this diet. I'm not doing this thing.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  And they're like, oh, you can start tomorrow, right? And so the social pressure is really gets you to do these things that you don't want to do. And because you're a good person, because you're a social, you know, we've been brought up to be social creatures, to get along with the tribe. Because if we couldn't get along with the tribe, we didn't survive. And so this is inbred in you over thousands of years.

• 12:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  These defaults, right? Emotion, ego, inertia and social. These are the defaults that may be working against you in your current environment.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so you can turn them into a positive thing, right? Which is the rules allow you not to think. It doesn't, you don't have to recognize that you're tired and you don't have to use willpower. And the reason why we want to try to avoid using willpower is just that eventually everybody loses the battle with willpower. So if we can get out of situations where we have to recognize and use our willpower, or you know, if you consider that sort of like a battery and it runs down during the day, the further along in the day you get, the worse choices you're going to make. The more social situations you get into, you know, the worse choices you're going to make because you're going to feel pressured. And doing these things. But if I don't have to use that willpower battery and I just say that's my rule, I don't do that.

• 13:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  Also, something I talk to patients a lot about is that every choice you make is using up some of your cognitive reserve, which I guess speaks to what you just said, which is if you're constantly making choices throughout the day, you're not going to have that much energy to make reasoned, rational choices at 4pm, 5pm, 6pm. So one of the reasons I'm a fan of morning routines that stay the same every day is because of the consistency.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  So I know every morning when I get up, what I'm doing for my morning routine. I don't have to decide, well, what we're going to do today? Am I going to do a strength workout? I'm going to do flexibility, yoga? No, I'm going to do a five minute strength workout whilst my coffee's brewing. That's what I do. It's not a choice. So I'm not using up any load on my brain first thing in the morning.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  And you're not negotiating with yourself. And so I used to, I know people like working out. I'm not one of those people who love working out, right? Like, I don't, I'm not ecstatic to go to the gym. I'm not like, you know, there's people running on treadmills and they're, they're running at like, twice the speed that I'm running at and they're not even sweating and like, I'm dying, right? Like just chugging along here. And so I don't look forward to going to the gym, but I want to be healthy. And so how does this sort of tie in is I had this rule, I was going to go to the gym three days a week. And so I was going, you know, sort of Monday, Wednesday, Friday loosely. And I would wake up and I'd be like, I'm tired today. I'm really behind on work and I would start negotiating with myself.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  And then I would, I would have a conversation where I'm like, oh, I will, you know, I will do extra tomorrow, you know? And then, so I get out of doing it today and then tomorrow comes and what do I do tomorrow? Well, tomorrow I'm like, I'm even more tired. I'm even more behind and you know, this spiral. So I was like, in practice, I went and pulled my report from the gym. I was like, how often am I actually going to the gym? And it was not two or three days a week. It was more like 1.5 days a week. And I was like, this isn't working because it's not getting me where I want to go. How can I change this? Apply the rule, right? This was right after I met with Dan O'Conman. I was like, okay, I'm going to have a rule where I sweat every day. I go to the gym every day. And so it doesn't mean that my workouts are 60 minutes every day. It doesn't mean they're 90 minutes.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  The duration or scope of my workout can change, but the fact that I sweat every day does not change. And I think that that's really important because now the negotiation with myself like you isn't, am I going to work out today? It's what does my workout look like today?

• 15:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's so, so powerful, that idea. It's really interesting that I've been talking about this five minute strength workout for many years on this show because I've used it successfully with many of my patients. I've used it successfully with myself and I often use the analogy of tooth brushing, which I think really speaks to what you just said, which is, you know, you don't debate with yourself each day, am I going to brush my teeth?

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  Ah, you know, today's busy, I'll skip it today. You don't even make choices each day where you think, what am I going to do? I'm going to brush my teeth, am I going to floss? You know, what am I going to do today for my dental hygiene? No, you know, you've got a routine, you brush your teeth for two minutes in the morning, two minutes in the evening, seven days a week. We never think we're too busy, so at the weekends, we'll go in for a one hour deep clean. We know that a little bit each day keeps our teeth healthy for life.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's how I see my five minute strength workout. Sure, I can do extra, I can go to the gym, I can do other things, but just like tooth brushing, I know it means that I'm doing five minutes of resistance training every day without fail, pretty much every day of the year.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, it's interesting, over the last few years, I've tried to get into endurance running and I've had a few injuries and I'm working with this wonderful coach called Helen. And just last week, we were looking at things and looking at the log of how much I actually run, which is not very much. And so we've completely changed the approach and just a few days ago, she said, wrong and right, I think what we need to do with you is you need to commit because you want to do a marathon, you need to do an hour a day. So what, every day, set an hour a day? Now, it doesn't mean you're running the whole time. Some days it'll be nine minutes walking, one minute running, nine minutes walking, one minute running. And we'll, and the log will come up with different things you can do on different days. But I love it because instead of me now looking at my workload

• 17:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  going, I can't fit a one hour run in because then, you know, I'm going to be tired, I'll have the shower, I've got that going on. So I know it's simplified the thought process, which is no, I am going out for an hour each day. No questions. And so we're only a few days into it. So I have done it every day for the last few days, but I can already feel how that will transform my relationship with running.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Well, after a while, it just becomes a ritual for you, a habit, if you will. And once it does that, then it won't even require conscious processing on your part. You'll just wake up and know you have to run that day. And the question will be, what does it look like that day? And if you think about it, so often we say our priority is something that it isn't. And I have this saying, which is, don't tell me your priorities, show me your calendar. So if it's important to you, then it shouldn't have a problem fitting into your calendar. And if health is important to you, then that should be a component that's just built into your day, like brushing your teeth. And it shouldn't be something you have to find time for, shouldn't be something you struggle to find time for. If it really is important to you, then it should just have time every day dedicated to that, whether

• 18:50Speaker 01

  you block it off in your calendar, or it's the same sort of time every day and you don't need to book a meeting for it, it doesn't matter.

• 18:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  And then if you think about like a goal, like in this case, right? So let's work backwards. Everybody has a goal. Everybody listening has a goal, whether it's a marathon, whether it's just being healthier, whether it's improving their relationship with their partner, whatever that goal is. Well, what are the rules that I can put in place to get me closer to that? And what are the rules that put me in a position where that's going to happen? And the positioning is really important, right? Because I want to play this on easy mode. So if my rule is that I'm going to work out every day for an hour, or I'm going to run every day for an hour, well, now I also need a rule where, you know, what's going to make that easier, that running easier, is if I go to bed on time. So I can create a rule where I go to bed at 10. And it doesn't mean I'm going to sleep the whole

• 19:39Speaker 01

  night, but my rule is I go to bed 10 o'clock, it's consistent across the board, I'm doing it every day, it's not a choice, because that's going to put me in a better position the next day to do that run.

• 19:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. Let's apply that then through the lens of health. So

• 19:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  Let me think of, I don't know, common scenarios. It might be, I know that stimulating my mind or being on my devices last thing at night doesn't help me sleep well, but I just can't help it.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Okay, so if you're on your devices late at night and you don't want to be on your devices late at night, and that is a choice that you're making,

• 20:22Speaker 01

  and you're relying on willpower to make it, you're never going to make it. Right? So you have to change things. And what can that change look like? Well, the first level of change can be, I'm just going to leave my phone outside of my bedroom. Right? I'm not physically going to have my phone in my bedroom. Okay, well, now does my behavior follow? Do I use it on my couch now instead of in my bed? Okay, well, if that's happening, the second thing you could do is take Apple and just be like, I can't use these apps past 8pm. Get your partner or your spouse to set the password so you don't even know the password to override it. So you can create these rules, these little constraints, this artificial environment, which is really what we're doing. We're using the environment to dictate our behavior.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  One is a software environment, one is a physical environment. But we're using that to change behavior so that we're not consciously using willpower to make a choice.

• 21:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  Or I guess if you have iPads or tablets in your bedroom, again, this idea that the environment is influencing our behavior all the time, whether we think it is or not. Again, coming back to your four defaults, you know, these things that are constantly going on around us. If you have an iPad in your bedroom, it's just going to be a lot harder to exercise the restraints.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're playing on hard mode.

• 21:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  You're playing on hard mode. And I think that's it, isn't it? And I know, although I don't follow it all the time, I try to. But when I leave my phone in my kitchen downstairs to charge. It is transformative what that impact has. I sleep better. I'm more rested in the morning. Of course, I'm not going to go on Instagram just before I'm in bed because I have to go out of my bedroom, downstairs, into the kitchen. And just that little bit of friction means you're infinitely less likely to engage in that behavior.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Totally. And if you find yourself saying the same thing over and over again, I stayed up late, I did this thing, well, now I can use a rule to avoid that whole problem to begin with, right? Like, and if you reflect out in a journal, like writing, then you can see these patterns emerge. Whereas if you rely just on your brain and your memory, you're probably more likely to distort things.

• 22:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  But when you see these patterns that you don't want in your life, again, no judgment on my part. You want to stay up all night playing video games? Go ahead.

• 22:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  I have no problem with that. But if you're choosing, you know, that's happening and it's causing you trouble, it's causing you to wish you were doing something different. And wishing is not enough to change that behavior. Well, you can create a rule. What can I do in my environment? Maybe I get rid of my PlayStation. Maybe I, you know, I cancel my Netflix subscription. Maybe I create a rule where I'm in bed at 10 o'clock. Maybe I create a rule, there's no devices in my bed. Try that for, just because you create a rule, doesn't mean you have to follow it for life, but try it for a month, try it for a week. See what happens. Does it change your behavior? Well, I know it'll change your behavior. And is that effective to the things that you want to accomplish?

• 23:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I love it. What would you say to someone who says, okay, Shane, I'm with you. And they, they apply a rule. They say, right, I'm going to follow this rule. I'm going to go to bed every night, or I'm going to be in my bedroom by 10pm every evening, without a device, let's say. What happens if they follow that for the first four days of the week? Fifth day, for whatever reason, they don't follow it. A human tendency is to beat ourselves up and go, wow, that, that rule didn't work for me. I did it for four days, but it didn't work on the fifth day. So it's the wrong rule for me. What would you say to that person?

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Well, two things. James Clear has this idea, which is never miss twice.

• 24:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's brilliant.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  So I love that idea, right? Which is, you know, don't miss the next night. So don't do two in a row. You can get back on track. That's fine. That's easy. The second thing is this voice in our head, this loop. And we all have this inner monologue.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  I think what we don't appreciate is that the most powerful story in the world is the one that we tell ourselves. And so if that loop starts to become, I can't do this, this doesn't work for me, all of these things, you need to hit pause on that loop and be like, not this time. I'm not going to listen to that loop this time because I've listened to that loop my whole life and that loop hasn't gotten me what I want. That loop is not getting me where I want to go. That loop is not getting me the things in life that I want to get. I need new music. I need a new song. I need a new loop. Not this time.

• 25:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. Hope you enjoyed that bite sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back next week with my long form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.