Pod Insights Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee BITESIZE | How to Make New Habits Stick & Why You Can’t Break Old Habits | Charles Duhigg #521 About this episode Are you constantly trying to create better habits and quit those that don’t serve you?
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 436 of the podcast with Pulitzer Prize winner and author of international bestselling book, The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg.
We can all make short-term changes, but so many of us struggle to make our new desired behaviours last.
In this clip, we discuss the science of small wins, the power of momentum and the importance of keystone habits. This conversation is packed with practical tips to help you build better habits.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:20 Rangan 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 436 of the podcast with Charles Duhigg, author of the international bestseller, The Power of Habits. We can all make short-term changes, but so many of us struggle to make our new desired behaviours last. In this clip, we discuss the science of small wins, the power of momentum, and the importance of keystone habits.
2:08 Rangan Chatterjee? You can't extinguish a bad habit because those neural pathways stay in play. That's really, really interesting.
2:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:17 Rangan Chatterjee? Let's use sugar or chocolate. Let's stay on those because I think they're so common, particularly in my world.
2:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:24 Rangan Chatterjee? You feel a bit low. You get your favorite chocolate bar. You get a big reward, don't you? You feel high, you feel good. You've self-soothed, right? So that's the reward.
2:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:38 Rangan Chatterjee? It's quite tricky to change that though, isn't it? Because once you've locked that in, it's quite hard to change it.
2:44 Speaker 01 So what's interesting there is you're craving the self-soothing, right? And once we do the experiments, we figure out what I'm actually craving. What's the reward that my brain wants? So and for anyone, you know this, but for anyone who's listening, who hasn't been exposed to some of these ideas. One of the things that we've learned is that every habit has three components. There's a cue, which is like a trigger for this automatic behavior. And then the behavior itself, and then a reward. Every habit that exists in our life has a reward, whether we're aware of it or not. And once we know that it's self-soothing as opposed to the taste of chocolate or the buzz that chocolate gives me, then then at that point, it's a question of what else also delivers self-soothing. So you, I mentioned some before, calling a friend.
3:28 Speaker 01 Calling a friend oftentimes is one of the greatest sources of self-soothing. And so it's worth at that moment saying, instead of picking up the chocolate bar, I'm going to self-soothe because I know that I'm craving that right now by calling a friend. Now, it might be for someone else that actually the taste of the chocolate is what they they really, really enjoy. In which case, we should experiment and they should have a piece of apple, right? That's also sweet to see in a healthier, to see if that satisfies the craving that they're feeling. There's actually some experiments done where they they gave people Splenda and they told them just to rub it on their tongue. And they found that people who crave taste sensations, sugary taste sensations, this will basically satisfy that craving.
4:10 Rangan Chatterjee? Wow.
4:11 Speaker 01 And so the thing is to figure out what is actually driving the behavior. For me, when I was writing Power of Habit, I had this bad habit where every afternoon I'd go eat a cookie in the cafeteria of the New York Times where I worked at the time. And I couldn't figure out why. And I talked to these researchers and they said, well, you know, let's look for the cue, right? Like, tell me about when this happens. And I was like, oh, it's usually between 3:15 and 3:45. And they were like, sounds like a time of day is probably your cue. And then we know the behavior. You go up to the 14th floor, you buy a cookie, you eat the cookie. And what happens? What happens then? And I said, well, usually I'll like, go over and like, I'll, you know, I see some friends and I'll sit down and I'll kind of gossip with them for a little bit and I'll eat the cookie. And they said, okay,
4:52 Speaker 01 the reward might be the cookie. It might be sugar. It might be the just taking a break from work, but it might also be those friends. So next time you do this at 3:45, whenever you feel the urge, stand up, look for someone to go gossip with it without going up to the cafeteria. Go gossip with them for 15 minutes and then come back to your desk and see if you're still craving that cookie. And the answer was no. The reward for me was this social experience. The cookie was an excuse.
5:21 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah, I love that. I love that example so much because I honestly believe, I'm not saying this is easy, but I think we're making these things often a lot harder than they need to be. We always think it's the chocolate. Well, what if it isn't? What if it's something else you're getting? You know, as you say, that the social connection, what if it's the act of going to a cafe, interacting with the person and saying hi? Maybe there's someone you like in the cafe who, actually, you know what? Yeah, you tell yourself a story, you're going there for the crisps or the chocolate. And maybe it's just because you're a bit bored at your desk and you like the social interaction.
5:59 Speaker 01 Or maybe it's just you need a break from work, right? The 3:45 comes along and you're feeling a little bit low. So like, maybe taking a walk around the block does the same thing. And again, this is why experiments are so important is because if you come up with a list of potential rewards that are alternatives, and you experiment with them, you're going to figure out what's actually driving your behavior. When we're in the grip of a habit, our brain actually powers down, right? This is why habits exist is because every animal on earth has a part of their brain known as the basal ganglia that exists essentially to make habits. And it's because if you don't have habits, you have to decide every time you pass an apple or a rock, which one you ought to eat, right? You have to think about how you walk. So our brain developed the system where when we're in the grip of a habit, we can make a behavior automatic without having to think about it the entire
6:44 Speaker 01 time, which means we can think about other things. We can dream up how to build fire or forts or video games. But when our brain turns off in the grip of a habit, we tend to stop paying attention to the cues and the rewards, right? We don't notice, oh, I want ice cream right now because I'm stressed.
7:03 Speaker 01 Some part of us knows, but it's very easy to ignore that voice. And when you pull it into the forefront of your brain, when you make yourself start thinking about it again, and someone says, oh, my cue is stress. I usually turn to sugar. Sugar actually does not solve this problem for me. It's a crutch, but there's another behavior that would be healthier and provide the same reward. Then all of a sudden, change becomes so much easier.
7:29 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
7:30 Speaker 01 And it doesn't mean that change is easy.
7:32 Rangan Chatterjee? No.
7:33 Speaker 01 But it means change is easier. Now, that, so this is for changing behaviors. The other question often is how do we create a new habit? And in that case, it's very similar, but a little bit different in that we need to choose a cue, right? So for me, it was running. I would like, I was never athletic before I started writing The Power of Habit. And I really wanted to get in better shape. And so my goal was I was going to run a half marathon.
7:55 Rangan Chatterjee? Okay.
7:55 Speaker 01 So I needed to choose a cue. So what I would do is I'd put my running shoes next to my bed. So I saw them as soon as I woke up and that became a cue for me. And I would, I would run before, before work.
8:05 Rangan Chatterjee? So that's a visual cue.
8:07 Speaker 01 I was using a visual cue, also time of day. Also, I would lay out my, my clothes. So it was very easy to get into my running clothes.
8:13 Rangan Chatterjee? Okay.
8:14 Speaker 01 And it's good to have more than one cue. One of them's really going to be the powerful one, but you don't know ahead of time what it might be.
8:20 Rangan Chatterjee? Oh, so you're, I like that. So you're peppering in a few cues to see one of these is going to stick.
8:25 Speaker 01 One of these is going to stick. One of these is going to stick. And it turns out it was the shoes. Like when I'm traveling, if I put my shoes next, my running shoes next to my bed, that gets me just, that gets me going like. And then I needed to choose a reward for myself. So instead, I didn't run every day. Instead, I only ran on days when my wife was going to bring the kids to school that day. So that I knew that when I got home from the run, I could take a nice long shower. I could have a nice smoothie with breakfast.
8:50 Rangan Chatterjee? So did you intentionally think about the shower and smoothie as rewards?
8:54 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
8:55 Rangan Chatterjee? So it wasn't just, oh, I'm sweaty after the run. I need to shower. It's like, I'm going to be sweaty and I'm going to really enjoy that shower.
9:02 Speaker 01 That's, I'm going to take, I'm going to give myself an extra three minute. Like normally I'd rush through the shower. I'm going to let myself enjoy the shower.
9:08 Rangan Chatterjee? And this really makes a difference, doesn't it?
9:09 Speaker 01 Makes a huge difference because if we decide something is rewarding, it becomes more rewarding.
9:14 Rangan Chatterjee? You can think of stress a little bit like this, can't you? You know, it's how we perceive things that often determine whether they're stressful or not. If we perceive it as stressful, it is. If we don't, a lot of the time it ain't.
9:25 Speaker 01 No, that's exactly. And if you think about it, like you and I and our children, they did not, they were not born thinking that getting an A on a report card is something they should feel good about, right? They only feel good about it because we've told them, you should feel really good about this. We constantly tell ourselves what we should find rewarding. And when we grab a hold of that and we take the power for ourself. Now, here's the one other thing with this, with starting a new habit. So the first day that I woke up, I saw my shoes next to my bed, never run before. I put on my clothes. I walked outside and I walked for one block and I came back and then I took the nice long shower. And then the next day I walked like two blocks. And after a while, you get to this point where you're like, okay, I'm walking a couple of blocks.
10:10 Speaker 01 I might as well like jog a couple of blocks and I might as well run, you know, like half a mile. There's this thing known as the science of small wins. And oftentimes the way that we change is nonlinear, right? We find something that's unexpected that makes it easier for us to change. We find a reward that we didn't anticipate. It's these little experiments. And when we see change as a series of shifts and it's okay for those shifts to be small, then what we're doing is we're freeing ourself to learn from ourself, to learn from our patterns. And so that's how I ended up running a half marathon and then a marathon, was literally just by taking it as these small, little incremental improvements.
10:53 Rangan Chatterjee? Well, first of all, congratulations.
10:54 Speaker 01 Thank you.
10:55 Rangan Chatterjee? Wonderful achievements. I love this idea about small wins.
11:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:04 Rangan Chatterjee? It's, it's really interesting. I have found through years of clinical practice that the best way to help a patient turn a new behavior into a long-term habit is to start small. I'd just seen it through trial and error. I thought when they make it really big. It kind of happens for two or three weeks and then it falls off.
11:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:25 Rangan Chatterjee? Whereas when I start small and, and once I honestly made a trade with a patient, I say a trade, an agreement that she would meditate for one minute a day.
11:35 Rangan Chatterjee? And that one minute became five, it became 10, it became 15 over a course of four to six weeks. Cause initially she was like, I don't have time. I said, okay, do you have 10 minutes? No. So do you have five minutes? Well, no. Do you have one minute? Yeah, I've got one minute. I said, all right, okay, let's start there. And it was only when I met Professor BJ Fogg and he shared with me some of the science on small wins. And we had this, this awesome aha moment where we both figured out that he'd come to that conclusion from the clinical research. I came to that conclusion from real life clinical practice.
12:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:11 Rangan Chatterjee? And trying to figure out what works. But these small changes, when done consistently, they help to build momentum.
12:19 Speaker 01 That's exactly right.
12:21 Rangan Chatterjee? And so I wonder, from your perspective, you know, what is momentum? Is there any science behind momentum? Cause it feels to be this really powerful energetic force that if we can harness it, it kind of moves us in the right direction.
12:36 Speaker 01 I, and here's how I think about it. I think of it as we are convincing ourself to believe in another version of ourself. So there's this idea known as keystone habits, that some habits are more powerful than others, because when they, when we build a new habit, it triggers a bunch of other changes in our life.
12:53 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
12:53 Speaker 01 For some people, exercise is a great example, right? And, and probably everyone who's listening has had this experience. You exercise in the morning and for some reason you also eat healthier that day, right? Like it's easier to like eat a salad rather than the hamburger when you walk into the cafeteria.
13:08 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
13:09 Speaker 01 We also know that when you exercise, other things happen. You procrastinate less. You tend to use your credit cards less often on the day that you exercise.
13:16 Rangan Chatterjee? Wow.
13:16 Speaker 01 We're not aware of that. But I think what's happening is that for many people, exercise is a keystone habit. It changes other patterns, like eating patterns and spending patterns. Because even if I think of myself as someone who's disciplined, there's a part of my brain that isn't listening to what I tell myself until I prove it to myself. And so I might know that meditation is great. I might say like, of course, I've read all the studies. Meditation is so good. I should definitely do that. But until I prove to myself that I can meditate and that there is some reward that it's giving me something.
13:48 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
13:48 Speaker 01 My brain basically thinks I'm a liar, right? It's very skeptical until I prove it. And that's, this is what keystone habits do. They change how we see ourself. We start thinking, I'm the kind of person who runs in the morning. And the kind of person who runs in the morning, they eat a salad for lunch, right? They don't pull out their credit card for anything. They, they make wiser decisions. I'm the kind of person who meditates in the morning. And that kind of person, that's someone who can find five or 10 minutes, right? They're, they're mindful.
14:18 Rangan Chatterjee? What's one of your keystone habits?
14:20 Speaker 01 Exercise. Exercise is a big one for me. And what's interesting is for people who were not athletes, the reason why exercise is so powerful as a keystone habit for some people is because it, if you weren't an athlete and you start running or you start exercising, it forces you to think of yourself as a new kind of person. It forces you to see yourself in a new light. Now, for people who were athletes as kids, and then they take some time away and then they start running again, oftentimes exercise is less of a keystone habit for them because, because it just conforms to their mental image of themselves. But for me, exercise is a huge part of it, going to bed. I, I'm someone who used to stay up till midnight, you know, every, and like my wife.
15:00 Rangan Chatterjee? You're a writer, hey?
15:01 Speaker 01 Exactly, exactly.
15:02 Rangan Chatterjee? So writers do.
15:03 Speaker 01 Right, I'm supposed to. And my wife goes to bed at like nine or nine 15. And so, and so I go to bed at nine 30 with her. And that's a keystone habit for me. Like it, it makes me feel like I'm in control of my, I am making good choices. I'm setting up the next day for success by going to bed early. And again, it's the story that we tell ourselves, right? Stories are so powerful. We start to tell ourselves a story about ourselves.
15:29 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
15:29 Speaker 01 And that's, that's how change happens.
15:32 Rangan Chatterjee? Let's say someone has just heard that and is thinking about a keystone habit for themselves. I'm thinking, because I would agree. I think it's an excellent thing to pay attention to, which is that one habit that when you do it, automatically means that these next five things are going to be better.
15:50 Speaker 01 Exactly.
15:51 Rangan Chatterjee? Always been thinking about that with my patients. It's trying to figure out, you could tell them 10 different things, but what's the one big one that when they get that right, those other things are going to happen automatically?
16:02 Speaker 01 Right, all on their own.
16:03 Rangan Chatterjee? For me, it is my morning routine, right? When I do it, even if it's a cut down 10, 15 minute version of it, I'm basically showing myself, yeah, you know what? It doesn't matter how busy the world is or how much stuff you have to do with the kids or for your mom or your wife. You know what? I still made time for myself.
16:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:22 Rangan Chatterjee? I'm worth it.
16:23 Speaker 01 Yes.
16:23 Rangan Chatterjee? Right? I can rely on me. I can trust myself to say I'm going to do it and follow through.
16:29 Speaker 01 Oh, that's so wonderful. That is such a, like such a wonderful way of putting that reward. And that, I'm sure that makes it more rewarding.
16:35 Rangan Chatterjee? I think it does. And I always, I'm keen to emphasize that I've been working on this for many years now. Because I don't want anyone to listen to this conversation and then suddenly go, wow, I need to try and do Dr. Shashi's 45 minute routine straight away. It's like, hey, I was rubbish for a few years. I'd do it for a bit, I'd fall off. I just realized more and more that, oh, when I do it, I'm a better human in every aspect of my life. I'm a more patient husband.
17:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:03 Rangan Chatterjee? I'm more present with my kids. I'm calm, I'm more productive. Do you know what I mean?
17:06 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
17:07 Rangan Chatterjee? So for me, that's, that's one of my keystone habits. But a lot of people find this stuff uncomfortable, right? So I wonder, Charles, what would you would say to someone who goes, okay, I know what I want to do.
17:20 Rangan Chatterjee? Am I going to find it hard forever? Or is it just going to be hard for a few weeks? At some point, will it no longer feel hard? And it will become automatic? You know, how would you help them think about that?
17:33 Speaker 01 So I'd say two things. Number one is trying to figure out what your keystone habit ought to be. One way that you can do that is ask yourself, what kind of change seems irrationally frightening to me? Right? Like when I, before I became a runner, when I thought of running, it was a little, like, I was like, I'm going to look terrible in those like spandex, right? Like, I look so goofy when I'm running, like. So it was irrationally scary. That's a sign that this kind of change is, will be meaningful to you. It's going to change how you see yourself. Then the second part of your question, which is, will it be hard forever? The wonderful thing is, again, and back to the basal ganglia, there's a part of our brain that literally exists to make that pattern easier and easier and easier.
18:15 Speaker 01 So is it going to be really easy on day three? No, but it's going to be easier than it was on day one. And by the time you hit day 21, or you hit day 30, or day 45, at some point, it's going to become a habit. You won't even think about it anymore.
18:31 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
18:32 Speaker 01 You'll just do it automatically. You'll, you know, you'll put on your lace up your shoes, go out for a run, and you'll be looking forward to the podcast that you're listening to. And it won't even occur to you to think about like, oh, this is hard.
18:42 Rangan Chatterjee? It's like brushing teeth, right?
18:43 Speaker 01 Exactly.
18:43 Rangan Chatterjee? Brushing teeth was not a habit when you were three or four, or even five years old. I mean, my kids are a bit older now. Sometimes I'm not even convinced it's a habit yet.
18:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:55 Rangan Chatterjee? Right? So, but I think, I hope for most people listening, it is now a habit. Right? So at some point, it does change.
19:02 Speaker 01 And like, I get out of the shower now, and even if my teeth are clean, I have to brush my teeth. I don't feel clean unless I brush my, unless I have that minty feeling in my mouth.
19:11 Rangan Chatterjee? Yeah.
19:11 Speaker 01 You're exactly right. Our brains exist to create as many habits as it possibly can. It wants to conserve all the cognitive energy it can by making these behaviors automatic. If you have consistent cues and rewards, if you're paying attention to those cues and rewards, then each day it will get a little bit easier, almost imperceptibly easier. But on day two, it'll be easier than day one. And on day 21, it's going to be easier than it was on day two. And at some point, your brain takes over and it just becomes a habit.
19:44 Rangan Chatterjee? Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. And if you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest. If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my bite-sized Friday email. It's called the Friday Five, and each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles of books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're gonna love it. The goal is for it to be a small, yet powerful dose of feel-good to get you
20:24 Rangan Chatterjee? ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it free of charge at drchatgy.com/fridayfive. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe, and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversation on Wednesday, and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.
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