Why Smaller Goals Can Lead to Bigger Changes with Eric Zimmer

Most of us are familiar with this frustrating pattern: you set a goal, start off strong, but then lose motivation and end up right back at square one. Why does it seem so hard to change — even when you have a plan in place? Turns out, you may be aiming too high, too soon. Laurie breaks down the science behind this pattern with Eric Zimmer https://www.oneyoufeed.net/about-eric-zimmer/, host of the award-winning podcast “The One You Feed https://www.oneyoufeed.net/category/featured/” and author of the new book How A Little Becomes A Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/0063420805?lv=shuf&hvlocphy=9004400&hvptwo=&hvnetw=g&mcid=&hvext=372720227149&hvadid=813009524573&language=en_US&hvpone=&hvlocint=&hvcampaign=23942094413&hydadcr=18393_13883182_2506261&hvpos=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvocijid=6768543887556236076--&hvqmt=a&hvexpln=0&tag=smgglusdsadts-20&hvtargid=kwl-2484167636399&adgrpid=199045999082&hvrand=6768543887556236076&channelId=500&ref_=&plpRedirect=mhFallback. Eric spent years struggling to overcome a heroin addiction before eventually turning his life around. He explains why lasting change often comes from making consistent progress in the right direction rather than attempting one dramatic transformation, and shares what he’s learned about building momentum, overcoming setbacks, and finally reaching the goals we’ve been striving for. Experts Mentioned: Eric Zimmer https://www.oneyoufeed.net/about-eric-zimmer/, author and host of “The One You Feed https://www.oneyoufeed.net/category/featured/” Steven Pressfield https://stevenpressfield.com/, author Resources Mentioned: How A Little Becomes A Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/0063420805?lv=shuf&hvlocphy=9004400&hvptwo=&hvnetw=g&mcid=&hvext=372720227149&hvadid=813009524573&language=en_US&hvpone=&hvlocint=&hvcampaign=23942094413&hydadcr=18393_13883182_2506261&hvpos=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvocijid=6768543887556236076--&hvqmt=a&hvexpln=0&tag=smgglusdsadts-20&hvtargid=kwl-2484167636399&adgrpid=199045999082&hvrand=6768543887556236076&channelId=500&ref_=&plpRedirect=mhFallback, by Eric Zimmer (2026) “The One You Feed https://www.oneyoufeed.net/category/featured/,” hosted by Eric Zimmer The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles https://www.amazon.com/The-War-of-Art-Steven-Pressfield-audiobook/dp/B07PTBYH2G/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.lgZ11asrWu6SED87cPivW3hMEwYZgERUGnRjSkYAEYCz8ybEbXI9L4cmWGLh8hYngWocju20shK1F1QVY_kkSRE5rZUQR1H2-EKiN1InTy2CPYSl1YoYLmK5JDa5QqTODRLpbLIvM4OtkpWmKfCPdJ-N0RzGfOBbqpugnKaRr34KGTjEGd3fa_73Di0J91D49eR3AqGOIEpqGt1CNafRrV1fB3T0tM6aZ61fRLzgohc.hdeviY2LPYc4Nvo3JO0tgZV8yq6TYw9SvFS1_Ab2OMA&dib_tag=se&hvadid=792740976374&hvdev=c&hvexpln=67&hvlocphy=9004400&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=18342432930842640156--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=18342432930842640156&hvtargid=kwd-342894155&hydadcr=15702_13884898&keywords=the+war+of+art&mcid=75f2f1bc00e632eaaa5d168e451585b0&qid=1789750172&sr=8-1 by Steven Pressfield (2002) Related Episodes: "Dump Your Inner Drill Sergeant https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/dump-your-inner-drill-sergeant" "How to Kick Bad Habits (and Start Good Ones) https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/how-to-kick-bad-habits-and-start-good-ones" "You Only Live Once… So Commit https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/you-only-live-once-so-commit" See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Laurie Santos?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  This is Jacob Goldstein from Business History. When the internet arrived, most people used it to look things up. Others saw what it could really do. The same is true with ChatGPT. ChatGPT work goes beyond answering questions. Give it a goal, plus things like notes, files, feedback, data, or project plans, and it can help create a brief analysis, deck outline, tracker, or workflow. You stay in control, reviewing the work and choosing the final result. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro Plans.

• 0:43Speaker 02

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• 2:12Laurie Santos?

  You know, so many people are talking about how to support your gut health these days, but honestly, it can feel a little overwhelming. That's why I love when I find something easy, like Kashi Gut Health Granola. It's just so refreshingly straightforward. It's loaded with fiber, prebiotics, and gut-activated cultures. And it's absolutely delicious. No joke. We're talking blueberry almond delicious. With Kashi Gut Health Granola, you have a yummy breakfast and you fuel your gut. Doesn't get any easier than that. Say hi to new Kashi Gut Health Granola. This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, hosted by the amazing Katie Milkman, behavioral scientist and author of the bestselling book, How to Change.

• 2:57Laurie Santos?

  Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Each episode shares the latest research in behavioral science and dives into themes like the power of self-control, shaping your mindset for success, navigating new beginnings, and why starting over can feel so hard. Katie talks to authors, athletes, Nobel laureates, and everyday people about why we make irrational choices and how to make better choices to help avoid costly mistakes. You'll learn about tools and strategies to help improve your decision-making and a ton of other fantastic things about the mind. Listen and subscribe at schwab.com/podcast or find it wherever you listen to your shows.

• 3:45Laurie Santos?

  Pushkin.

• 3:51Laurie Santos?

  Behavior change is hard. That's something we talk about a lot on The Happiness Lab, and I'm pretty sure no one knows this fact about the mind better than today's guest.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  I had been in detox before. I had been in treatment before, so there were lots of times that I made an attempt to change, and none of them had worked.

• 4:09Laurie Santos?

  This is podcaster and author Eric Zimmer.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  I think for a lot of, if not most addicts, there will be a story that is similar, which is probably years before they achieve full sobriety. There's a lot of little attempts at change. There's lots of attempts at moderation, only on the weekends, or I'll drink whiskey, but I won't do heroin, right? And I'd had all those. I'd also had my, okay, that's it. I'm done. I'm swearing it off. I'm detoxing. I'm going through cold turkey moments where I tried that. It hadn't worked, and I really felt like I couldn't change.

• 4:47Laurie Santos?

  But Eric was wrong. He did eventually change, in ways that his younger self could never have imagined were possible.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  My life has gone on to do all kinds of incredible things, right? I've written a book and I've hosted a podcast. I started a solar energy company. I was part of a lot of software startups, but I had to get recovery nailed first.

• 5:08Laurie Santos?

  And now Eric is working to help others do the same, not just when it comes to major life changes like addiction, but also the more mundane ones that we all struggle with, things like getting to the gym more often, getting to sleep on time, or spending less time scrolling on social media. Whatever behavior you're working on, chances are it's something that you've tried to change before without quite getting the results you hoped for. In Eric's new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot, he argues that making the lasting changes we want could be more within reach than we think. And in this episode of our back-to-school book series, Eric will share what he's learned about why our attempts to change often fail and how we can massively improve our likelihood of success. So whether you've been struggling with the same goal for years, or you're hoping to

• 5:51Laurie Santos?

  make a fresh start this fall, stay tuned, because Eric and I have got you covered.

• 6:02Laurie Santos?

  Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy, but what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction. You're listening to The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 6:26Laurie Santos?

  I'm chatting with Eric Zimmer about his new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life. But the ideas behind Eric's book stretch back decades, back to his own recovery from addiction and to a well-known parable that continues to inspire his award-winning podcast.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  There's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent, and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. I first heard that parable probably somewhere around 30 years ago in some church basement in Columbus, Ohio, as I was in recovery from heroin addiction. And at that time, that parable really hit home so strongly.

• 7:26Speaker 03

  I'm not even sure I was feeding the good wolf or feeding the bad wolf at that point. I almost feel like it was eating me at that point. But it was really clear that there were actions that I could take that led me towards my recovery and actions that I could take that led me towards where I was headed, which was death or an institution. And so that parable just was very poignant for me in that moment and has remained so in the years since, primarily in the sense that it's a good parable. We hear it, we know what it means, our choices matter. But I also love it because it points to something I think is really fundamental,

• 8:04Speaker 03

  which is that we do all have competing desires, forces, call it what you want within us. We're motivationally complex creatures. And I love that that parable normalizes that.

• 8:18Laurie Santos?

  So what's the basic idea behind your new book? What's the goal?

• 8:22Speaker 03

  The basic idea behind the new book is that we've been sold a pretty dramatic version of change. We've been sold the idea that there are big moments. If you had been filming the movie of my life, what you would see is me walking into this detox center in Columbus, Ohio in 1994 as a homeless heroin addict. I weighed 100 pounds. I was yellow and jaundiced from hepatitis C. The prosecutor said I might be going to jail for 50 years. And I am asked to go to treatment, long-term treatment, and I say, no, thank you. And I go back to my room, and I have what we describe in recovery as a moment of clarity,

• 9:03Speaker 03

  where I see very clearly, if I leave here, I'm going to die or go to jail, and soon. So I go back and I say, okay, I'll go to treatment. That would be the big moment, right? The director would spend a lot of time there, and then there would be inspirational music in the background. And that moment was important, but it only has its significance because of the thousands of little choices that I made after that, day after day, month after month, year after year, that made that change possible. And so my book is trying to set that idea in people's mind. And it's also just a book overall about how do we make any kind of change in our

• 9:46Speaker 03

  lives, not big dramatic change like I did, but the sort of change we all wrestle with and what allows us to do that more effectively.

• 9:55Laurie Santos?

  I think when we're having trouble with change, the thing we often tell ourselves is that there's one thing that could get us to change more, and if we could just harness that thing, everything would be great. And this is something I know you talk about in the book. What's the one thing we assume we need for change, and why is that assumption wrong?

• 10:11Speaker 03

  Well, we almost always assume it is something that you would call either willpower or discipline or self-control. That's usually the thing that we think we are lacking. And we usually think that there's something wrong with us. And one of my big messages in the book and in all the work that I do is that I truly believe that change is a skill. It's something we can learn to do. I eventually got sober because I figured out the puzzle of what it took for me to make that change. And so most of us are taking it as there's something wrong with us, right? If I handed you a trombone right now, you're not a trombone player.

• 10:55Laurie Santos?

  No, I'm not a trombone player.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  If I handed you a trombone and you picked it up and started playing, it would sound terrible. We wouldn't conclude that you were a bad person. We just conclude you don't know how to play the trombone. But when it comes to our own behaviors and our own emotions, we take it very personal and we think it tells a story about us. And I think it's incredibly important that we flip that story. And we say, okay, we can learn to change. And some of that is skills and things we do before we even get to the moment of change. And we can also learn how in that moment, when we make decisions that we don't want to make, when we see ourselves making the choice we wish we didn't,

• 11:39Speaker 03

  we can learn to develop more self-control, discipline, willpower, whatever you want to call it in that moment. And so that's the key is to recognize that we all can do this if we have the right resources, the right learning and the right attitude.

• 11:59Laurie Santos?

  And one of the things that we need to learn is just how change works and the kinds of things that tend to inhibit change. And you've argued that one thing we need to learn about is how our biology and our nervous systems sometimes affects our ability to change. What's the problem with how our nervous system reacts that we need to understand better?

• 12:16Speaker 03

  Well, I'm oversimplifying a complex process here called homeostasis, which is that things like to largely remain the way they are. Our bodies are always trying to balance things out. If I get too warm, my body's trying to cool me down. If I haven't eaten enough, my body tries to get me to eat. There's a constant balance for equilibrium. And I think something similar happens within us when it comes to change. Because change does make us uncomfortable. When we start doing things that are different, there is a discomfort that often comes with it. There's a lot of good that can come with it also. And we can learn to tune into the good and less of the bad. But that discomfort makes us want to revert back to what we know.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  And so I think we're fighting that. And I think there's a certain resistance that is built into doing some of the actions that we want to do that make our lives better, right? We think about getting off our phone or exercising or eating better. There's a reason why these things are hard for everyone. And some of it just has to do with there's a resistance to doing those things that we all face.

• 13:29Laurie Santos?

  Talk to me about what this idea of resistance looks like in practice.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  I think resistance is what we all feel when it's time to do something and we don't want to do it. Every single time I've exercised in my life, and I'm not a young person anymore, so we are talking thousands upon thousands of times. Every single time when I'm done, I go, I'm glad I did that. You would think, based on basic reward learning, that I would run to exercise every morning. And yet I do not. I find myself still a lot of the time facing resistance. There's a book out there called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. And he talks about this very idea too, that creatives face this.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  There's a resistance to doing these things that are really important to us. So I think first is recognizing that resistance just exists. And I don't think it goes away. I think it's part of why we've become obsessed with habit literature is because we just want this to be easy. We want it to be automatic. We don't want it to be hard to exercise. We don't want it to be hard to sit down and work on the novel we're trying to do. We want it just to be easy and it gets easier. But I have found that resistance remains part of the game. And that's okay because we can learn how we overcome resistance. And we can build momentum that does make it easier.

• 14:55Laurie Santos?

  How do we make it easier to overcome that resistance? Because I know I'm great at setting ambitious goals, but equally great at sitting on the couch when the time comes to follow through. When we get back from the break, Eric will outline an approach from his book that can help us all get off that metaphorical sofa and start making progress on the things we want to achieve. We'll break it all down when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment.

• 15:23Laurie Santos?

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• 16:06Laurie Santos?

  From warm, reasonably sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves to beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  This is Jacob Goldstein from Business History. Imagine Henry Ford trying to create the assembly line. He had factory plans, production schedules, supply information, research and ideas coming from all directions. His team spent years studying how to make the process work. Now imagine having ChatGPT work. ChatGPT work can help with big projects that have lots of steps. You give it the goal along with real information like notes, files, reports, feedback and project plans. It can use approved apps, connected tools and files to help turn all of that into something useful. A plan, an analysis, a tracker, a presentation outline or a workflow you can keep improving. And you stay in control.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  You give direction, review the work, approve actions and choose the final result. Would Henry Ford have built the assembly line faster with ChatGPT? We'll never know. Ford didn't have ChatGPT. You do. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting work mode. Available on plus and pro plans.

• 17:41Laurie Santos?

  I just moved into my new sabbatical house and I've been trying to make it feel more me. The living room is already furnished with a boho vibe, but it lacked the perfect rug to bring the room together. That's why I turned to Wayfair. I bought Wayfair's washable, distressed, vintage floral oriental rug in blue. That rug is so soft and cozy and I was able to find it in a vintage looking blue color that perfectly matched the rest of the items in the space. And with Wayfair, you can get rooms that look great at every price point. I'm only staying in my sabbatical place for a short time, so I didn't want to spend a lot on a new rug. But with Wayfair, you can shop thousands of products across every style and budget, whether you're simply replacing an appliance or transforming your home from top to bottom for the holiday season. And now that the weather's getting colder,

• 18:26Laurie Santos?

  I gotta say that I'm especially loving the coziness of my new rug. Find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com.

• 18:48Laurie Santos?

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• 19:30Laurie Santos?

  Visit tacha.com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off your first purchase. That's T A T C H A dot com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off.

• 19:43Laurie Santos?

  Podcaster Eric Zimmer's new book is called How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life. And that title is also the basic idea behind his approach to behavior change. Instead of focusing on one big transformation, Eric says we should focus on the small actions that can add up over time. He calls this the little by little approach.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  When I say little by little, I mean something fairly specific. I mean low resistance actions done consistently over time in the same direction. And so the sneaking up on change part of that, the low resistance actions, is that when we do what we say we're going to do, when we make and keep promises to ourselves, even if they're really small, there is a subtle feeling inside that feels good when we do that. And we know that motivation tends to go up when we feel good about ourselves and good about our chances of success. So by doing a little bit that we can get ourselves to do, we also become more motivated.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  So for example, imagine you're trying to become a runner. In the beginning, if you do a half a mile of walking, that might be relatively easy for you to do. Well, a couple of weeks from now, you might be able to run a half mile and it remains the same level of difficulty because you're getting better, you're getting stronger. And so that's what little by little does. It allows us to raise our motivation and keep tasks at a difficulty level that we will do them. And then success breeds success.

• 21:19Laurie Santos?

  I know when I think about making a change in my life, it's so tempting to start off big, right? It's so tempting to start off like, I want to hit the gym five days a week, or I'm going to write the entire novel. Walk me through why that's so bad, like this temptation to go big. It seems like it always backfires on us.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Well, it's important that we go back to the definition of little by little because little by little doesn't necessarily mean tiny. It means low resistance actions, things you can get yourself to do. So if you can get yourself to do a big thing and you can keep doing it, have at it, right? This is for people who keep trying big and that not working. The harder something is to do, the higher your motivation has to be to do it. So if you are going to go to the gym five days a week for an hour and you haven't been working out at all, that might be really hard. And when I say hard, I mean lots of different things. I just don't mean the effort in the gym.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  I mean, how much time is in your schedule? That matters, right? If you don't have a lot of time in your schedule and you now try and insert five new hours in, that's going to be difficult. So difficulty can be a lot of different things. But when we try and do difficult, the only way we can do it is if we are super, super motivated. And we generally don't stay that way. It comes up and it goes down. And so inevitably, we start not doing the action, which is then what we start to focus on. So if I'm like, well, I'm going to work out five days this week and we do it two, we're focusing on the two days we didn't do it.

• 23:00Laurie Santos?

  Completely beating ourselves up and like, oh my God, I screwed up. I can never do this, et cetera, et cetera.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  Exactly. Which reinforces that, well, I'm just the kind of person who can't do this. I don't have the willpower. I don't have the discipline. And our motivation then goes down. And so I always work with people on like, let's start smaller if we can and then build. My story of this is meditation. I have been trying to become a regular meditator since I was 18 years old. And when I wanted to start meditating, the options were, there were books to read and there was some weird guy in Columbus who taught transcendental meditation. This is a long time ago. And so I'd read the books and they'd say, do it for 30 minutes to an hour a day. And even the transcendental meditation people were like 20 minutes twice a day. Well, that was really hard for me.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  When I sat down, it was like pandemonium in my brain. It was like the dark circus came to town. So I could do it when I was really motivated for a day, a week, maybe a month at the outside. But inevitably, I would not stick with it. Then I would start thinking, see, you're going to quit again. And I would. And then a few months later, I'd be like, I really need to learn to meditate. I did this again and again for decades, embarrassingly, until finally I was like, all right, you know what? I'm going to just do three minutes a day. And I did it. And I would try and do my best. Like after I did it, good job. You did what you said you were going to do. That led to five minutes. It led to 10 minutes.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  That's led to multiple seven day, 10 day retreats. It's led to studying deeply with a Zen teacher, passing 100 koans, all of that really deep study, but it came for me being willing to start at what seemed to be an almost embarrassingly basic level.

• 24:49Laurie Santos?

  You had this Romans saying that you shared in your book that I love that captured this idea really well. What's that?

• 24:55Speaker 03

  Justina Lente, make haste slowly. And it means we can often go faster if we actually slow down in the moments that we are in, right? I had been trying for two decades to get to be the sort of person that could meditate daily and go on meditation retreats. And I was trying to do it fast, right? Every time I'd pick up the book, I'd be like 30 minutes or an hour. It didn't work. When I went slow, the three minutes a day, I got where I was going far faster. I got there in a couple of years when I had been trying for decades the other way. So it's that make haste slowly really pays off in these sort of situations.

• 25:37Laurie Santos?

  So do you have any ideas for how to know if a goal is too small to fail? Like, how do we know when we're really in the little range that you're talking about?

• 25:46Speaker 03

  It's a trial and error calibration process. What I generally say is if you're succeeding consistently, I don't mean perfectly, but I mean consistently, then you're probably doing just fine. But if you're not, if your goal is to do five days a week and you're doing two days a week, we probably need to change the goal. And I think it's always better to start a little bit smaller than we think because it's easy to add. Okay, great. Two weeks went by where I went to the gym three days a week. Let's add a day. Let's see what happens. But the downside of it, of going too big, is that we increase our belief that there's something wrong with us when we fail. We increase our belief that we can't change.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  We don't have the discipline. We don't have the stuff, whatever it is, we don't have it. And those stakes are really big, right? I talk about the stakes of change in my book. And one of the stakes of change is simply, you don't get the benefit from the thing you're trying to change. So if you're trying to build an exercise habit and it keeps not working, you don't get the benefits of what exercise would bring you. Okay, that's important. But I think more importantly is that we erode our trust in ourselves and we erode our belief that we have agency over our own life. And that is a very high cost. I was a behavior coach for years. I still do some of it.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  And the only reason somebody hires a behavior coach is when they've tried to make a change a lot and it has not worked. And so it's the same thing there. We had to try and undo the story that they had now convinced themselves of, that there was something wrong with them. We had to get success going and we had to get them internalizing that success and getting back to believing that they are the kind of person who can make change, who does author their own life.

• 27:44Laurie Santos?

  So that's one way that we can get success going is we pick a goal that's little enough that we can't mess it up. Another thing we get wrong though, is we pick too many goals at once. You've talked about how we go on these self-improvement binges. What do you mean there?

• 27:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, coming back to the definition of little by little, I said, low resistance actions done consistently over time in the same direction. And part of what I mean by that is, yeah, we are exposed to so many ways to change our lives. If you get on Instagram and you're sort of linked to all the self-help type accounts, you could have 30 ideas of things you need to do to improve your life in the first hour. So which of those do we do? And there's a temptation to try and do all of them, which doesn't work because we're trying to do too much. Also, we try something, we do it for a few days, we expect change to happen. We're like, okay, I've started meditating and I've done it for four days now and I'm

• 28:44Speaker 03

  not a different person, right? But we give up and we try something else. And that scatteredness does not help. It's been far better for me to narrow down to like, okay, what is the next most important thing that I want to change in my life? And let me really give that my attention and give it time to work.

• 29:07Laurie Santos?

  In your book, you talked about a case where you messed this up some of the first times you tried to go to treatment, where it's like, I'm going to get sober, but I'm also going to do many, many things at once. Yeah. So explain what you learned from that.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  The first time I went to treatment, longer term treatment, and I came out and I was like, all right, I'm 30 days sober. I need to stay sober, but my life is way behind course. All right. I'm 23 years old and I've never been to college. I have no job. I make no money. I don't have a car. I need to get sober, but I also need to get in great shape because I've been in bad shape and I better start eating right. And I need to enroll at the local community college because I've got to get my education on track. And what ended up happening for me was by doing all those different things, I missed the thing that enabled all of them, which was my recovery. My recovery needed more care

• 30:00Speaker 03

  and attention for a little bit longer before I was ready to diversify. It was the enabler of everything else. And that was what I did differently this time around. I made it the priority. I gave it the attention it needed for the time it needed so that it was solid. And then I was able to start building on top of it.

• 30:22Laurie Santos?

  And this idea of making sure that you give whatever your goal is the time it needs gets to another part of your little by little strategy, which is that rather than trying to cultivate some particular habit, we should instead think about cultivating momentum. Why is momentum so important, but so underappreciated?

• 30:39Speaker 03

  Well, back to what I said earlier about habit. We want habits because we want these things to be easier. And most larger behaviors we do in life aren't going to fall into the category of what researchers would call a habit, which is something that happens automatically. And it typically happens in the same way, around the same time. And one of the big problems is that most of us have lives that have constantly shifting context, meaning I might say I'm going to work on my novel right after the kids get on the school bus every day, but there are plenty of days the kids don't get on the school bus, or the dog is sick,

• 31:19Speaker 03

  or something comes up, which means it doesn't become automatic. But we can have momentum, which makes it a lot easier. And we can work to keep momentum even when we can't do the thing perfectly. Example I often use is my goal is to move my body every morning and usually in some way vigorously. There was a stretch of time that my mom kept ending up in the hospital. And when my mom would be in the hospital, it sort of took over everything. And I would have to get up at the crack of dawn and get into the hospital because you never know when the doctors are going to come by. It's not like they're like, well, check on your mom at 8:30. You just have to be there if you want to talk

• 31:59Speaker 03

  to a doctor. So I couldn't exercise, but what I could do is walk up and down the halls for 20 minutes. There are ways that we can do a smaller version. I often say a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. So we can do a smaller version of whatever our activity is. That helps us keep momentum. And we all know what momentum feels like. Imagine it on a bike. The first few pedal strokes are kind of hard. You're a little wobbly. You've got to put extra effort in. Once you get moving, it's easier. It's not like you don't have to pedal or steer. You do, but it's easier. And that's what we're after.

• 32:35Laurie Santos?

  Another thing we can do to keep momentum going is to celebrate the tiny accomplishments along the way. And this is something that I struggle with, especially when I'm using your little by little approach. If I go to the gym every day for a month and I can check off the perfect gold star, I'm like, you know, pat on the back. But when I just look at momentum and like, well, I'm working out a little bit more than I was last month, it's so hard to realize that as a win. So any hints for how to celebrate even when we're not perfect?

• 33:03Speaker 03

  There's two parts of that question that I want to address. The first is about the celebration aspect. And I think it's important, and I think the word celebrate might be overselling what we actually do. But I try, anytime I do what I say I'm going to do, big or small, I try and have a moment where I inside give myself just a little good job, nice work. And I try and notice the feeling. It's subtle, but it is always there in my experience of I did what I said I was going to do. There's an internal alignment that feels good. And I try and notice that. And we can contrast it when we don't do what we say we're going to do. And we all know the mental agitation that comes along with

• 33:48Speaker 03

  that. So some of it is recognizing like, oh, this good feeling is subtle, but compared to that other thing, boy, this is much better. I think the perfection is a different animal because it is a real problem in my experience with people trying to change. We expect that we're going to do it perfectly. And that simply does not exist for the vast, vast, vast majority of people. I often talk about the 80% rule, which means if I'm trying to do something daily, and those two things for me are move my body for 30 minutes and meditate. If I'm doing that 80% of the time or so, I consider myself successful. I try

• 34:32Speaker 03

  and give myself the gold star for it. Because if I can do that week after week, month after month, year after year, I get all the benefit there is to get. That 20% that I missed just doesn't matter. But if I focus on that 20% I'm not doing, I threaten to derail the entire project. And so getting away from that all or nothing thinking is critically important when it comes to making lasting change.

• 35:00Laurie Santos?

  And another thing we need to get right in terms of our thinking is that we need to understand which goals we really want to be pursuing in the first place. You argued that one reason behavior change is hard is because we often want more than one thing at once. Give me some examples of this and explain why it can be such a huge problem for behavior change.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  Well, I think if any of us pay attention to what shows up in our day to day life, we recognize we want lots of things. I very recently was just in New York City and I wanted to enjoy New York City. I wanted to also continue to promote the book that was out. I also wanted to take a nap because I was tired. Right? I mean, I've got all these things that just show up moment to moment. And the chapter in the book is called, What Is Worth Wanting? And there's a little snippet from a song, one of my favorite songs by artist Jimmy Dale Gilmore that says, "My mind's got a mind of its own." And I think we can all relate with that. When we start getting into all the competing things inside

• 36:01Speaker 03

  of us, boy, there's a lot of theories on it. And I ended up really simplifying, I hope not oversimplifying, but definitely simplifying into two things, values and desires. Values are the things that the best, wisest part of us has decided are worth wanting. And desires are just the things that show up. You just want them because you want them. And so the first type of conflict we find ourselves in is the value to desire conflict, or as I like to call it, what I want most versus what I want now. And we're all familiar with this one. What I want most is to be in shape. What I want now is to continue to

• 36:43Speaker 03

  sit on the couch and read Substack because my goodness, there's a lot of great writers out there. That's what I want most versus what I want now. But the phrasing of that question is really valuable because it makes me realize that I do want the thing that I currently don't feel like doing. And I think that's, that's critical. Now, there's a lot more that goes into solving that, but even phrasing the question allows us to make better choices. Then there's a second type of conflict that comes up, and these are even harder in some ways. And they're, they're the values to values conflicts.

• 37:19Laurie Santos?

  Give me some examples of those harder ones.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Well, I've done some exercises on my values and I've ended up with two values in my list. One of them is adventure. I've realized that I am happiest, most fulfilled, most alive when I'm on some sort of adventure. I don't mean I have to be summating Everest, but I'm doing something I haven't done before, or I don't know how to do. So that's one value. Another value that's really important to me is to be able to be content right where I am with my life the way it is. Well, there is a nearly constant tension between those two values. And I don't know how to solve it. I actually got to the place where I finally

• 38:01Speaker 03

  realized like, it doesn't get solved. It's a constant negotiation or a dance between the two. And for me, that helps me relax. I used to ask some version of that question on the podcast all the time, like, how much should I be ambitious versus how much should I be content? As if somebody would give me a formula and this tension would disappear. And my experience is it hasn't worked that way. But knowing it's there allows me to think about and go, oh, okay, yep, I'm feeling the call to adventure again. Well, you've been on the road for the last four weeks. Maybe it's time to spend a little bit more time on contentment. I faced this with book launch, right? Book launch puts you into a

• 38:46Speaker 03

  future mindset of like, all this energy going to this day. And I've found that that has made it harder for me to be content with the moment that I'm in. So I've had to try and emphasize that a little bit more because the other one's just sort of happening. Another one that almost everybody will recognize is the tension between their family and their career. It's why we talk about work-life balance so much, because it's hard, because it's the tension that doesn't disappear in us.

• 39:18Laurie Santos?

  It's time for another break. But when we return, Eric will tell us how he figured out what his values really are. He'll also share his thoughts on how we can all spend more time pursuing what matters and less time frantically checking inane things off our to-do list. The Happiness Lab will be right back.

• 39:41Speaker 01

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• 40:24Speaker 01

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• 40:47Laurie Santos?

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• 41:29Laurie Santos?

  Visit tacha.com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off your first purchase. That's T-A-T-C-H-A.com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. There are plenty of reasons we put off getting support, and for a lot of people, cost is one of them. With BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide, with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. And while we're reconsidering old assumptions, maybe there are a few others worth questioning, too. Women these days inherit a lot of unwritten rules. Be ambitious, but not too ambitious. Be there for everyone, but still make time for yourself. Have it all together, but don't look like you're trying too hard.

• 42:14Laurie Santos?

  I've been trying to unwrit the unwritten rule that I'm never allowed to say no, that it makes me a bad person. I've been trying to give myself the grace that I would give other people and to remember that no one has the bandwidth to do everything all the time. If you're trying to work through your own unwritten rules, therapy may be of help. If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks, and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. Don't have insurance or live outside the US? You can still get 10% off your first month. Visit betterhelp.com/Laurie to explore your payment options. That's better H-E-L-P.com/Laurie.

• 42:57Laurie Santos?

  Life has a funny way of changing when we're not even looking. One day, your routine feels set, and the next, something shifts. A new job, a move, or maybe just a quiet realization that what used to work doesn't quite fit anymore. On this show, we talk a lot about how the little things in our daily lives shape our well-being, often more than the big flashy milestones. And that includes what we drive. Because when something you use every single day feels aligned with your life, it removes friction. It makes ordinary moments smoother, less stressful. That's where Cars.com comes in. They have over 2 million new and used cars and powerful filters that let you narrow your

• 43:39Laurie Santos?

  search by price, mileage, features, whatever actually matters to you. And their deal badges highlight when a listing is a great price, so you can feel confident you're making a smart choice. It's not just about buying a car. It's about choosing something that truly fits your routine and your next chapter. Start your search at Cars.com. Where to next? Before the break, Eric and I spoke about the importance of figuring out what we really value so that we can choose goals that matter. But that can be harder than it seems, because sometimes the things we think we value aren't really our own values at all. Eric had this realization a few years ago while driving through an affluent neighborhood

• 44:24Laurie Santos?

  in Atlanta.

• 44:25Speaker 03

  My partner's mother had Alzheimer's, and she lived there. So for six years, we were kind of back and forth between Columbus and Atlanta. And her mom lived up in the northern part of Atlanta. And I would drive to a library to work, and I would drive through Buckhead, Atlanta. And if you've been to Buckhead, Atlanta, one thing you will probably notice, that I certainly did, is it is lined, street after street after street, with enormous houses with giant yards, like jaw-dropping wealth. And I found myself one day driving down those roads, and what was happening was what sometimes happens when I'm on those roads is I start thinking, I want that. You know, what's wrong with me that I don't have that?

• 45:08Speaker 03

  So I'm noticing that, and at the same moment, I pay attention to what's playing on my car stereo. And it's a band I love called The Gaslight Anthem, who are kind of like a punk band. They're punk slash rock. And it caused me just for a second to reflect, because I was like, well, what is it about that that matters? And I realized, oh, it's, there's an authenticity to punk music. There's a doing what really matters to you ethos to it. There's a contributing ethos to it. And I was able just to see in that second, like, here's one value being presented to me that I'm finding myself wanting, and here's another value. And what I was able to do, though, in that moment was see that one of those values is

• 45:51Speaker 03

  one that I have wanted for a long, long time. It's deeply embedded in me. It's the value of being authentic, about doing what I want to do, about doing things that matter. This other one, this wealth value, seems to only show up when I'm exposed to it. And that's a way of telling which is which for me, is which ones am I constantly kind of coming back around to, that they remain there? And which ones show up when I'm exposed to them or when I'm around them? I was in LA recently, and one night, I was in a party in the Hollywood Hills, and there's a lot of money up there, gorgeous house, lots of people, lots of money.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  And I find myself thinking like, oh, yeah, okay, maybe I want to be here. And the next night, I was hanging out with a bunch of, you know, quote-unquote starving artists. And I found myself wanting to be like, oh, I really want to fit in there. And I just noticed, like, I am affected by what I'm around. So being clear on who I am is really important as I move through these different places in the world.

• 46:57Laurie Santos?

  Another dichotomy between our goals that we should pay attention to is kind of how they feel to us. You've talked about this distinction between want-to goals and have-to goals, and how they interact differently with this idea of resistance. Explain the difference between these goals and what they might look like.

• 47:12Speaker 03

  Well, if we think of saying to ourselves, I should do X, Y, or Z. And I'm not against the word should. I think it's a nice shorthand, sometimes. But what is it that I'm telling myself I should do? And is it something that I have to do? Or is it something that I want to do? And when we are constantly embedded in have-to goals, we become unmotivated, we become dispirited, we feel trapped. And so an example of this for me that I talk about is when the kids were younger, I was driving one to soccer practice here, and I had to get another one to the other side of town for that, and then I had to get, and my brain is going, this is ridiculous. I have to drive these kids all over the place. I have to do this, and I have to do that.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  And I just had the thought, and I was like, no, I don't. There is no law out there that says that I have to take these kids to these traveling soccer leagues and all these different things. And so I paused, and I went, well, why am I doing it then? And that allowed me to go, oh, I'm doing it because I believe it's good for them for X, Y, and Z reasons. I'm doing it because I really value my son's development. Now I'm doing the same thing, but I'm doing it in a slightly different spirit. And I think a lot of us fall into this. We're actually doing a lot of the things that are important to us, but we allow ourselves

• 48:35Speaker 03

  to get into, I have to do it, which becomes problematic, because then we feel trapped. So step one for me is often just reconnect. Why am I doing the things I'm doing? Now, if you go through your list of that and you find that there are things that you're doing that don't actually matter to you, that you do feel like are have-tos that don't matter, then that is where we want to work to change. I don't want to keep doing something that I feel like I have to if it doesn't align with what's truly important to me. Those are very difficult things. I've had to spend a lot of time, as I looked at my relationship with my parents, you know, how much of this lines up with my values of what I want to do to take care of them?

• 49:20Speaker 03

  And how much of this lines up with some inherited sense of duty? Those are hard to tell apart often. It takes some time thinking about those things. But I do think the more time we spend thinking about, like, why am I doing the things I am doing? The far better chance we have of leading a meaningful and intentional life.

• 49:42Laurie Santos?

  And so that's thinking about all the values and the goals we have so that we can create the right kind of lasting change. But once we pick our goals, we don't just need to set our internal compass, we need to make sure that the world is not messing us up. We don't want to be sabotaged by the world around us. And in the last part of our conversation, I wanted to talk about what you've learned about behavior change in terms of setting up our external environment, right? I know in your book, you've talked about different structural ways that we can go about bringing our goals to life. And you have this handy acronym that you use to do that. What's that?

• 50:15Speaker 03

  So we've got to get the structural right, the ways we set ourselves up for success. So I roll out a process in the book I call SPAR, which is a way of walking through all of these things. S stands for specificity. Because so much of what seems to us a failure of willpower is often failure of clarity. We're not specific enough about what we need to do. So we might have a goal, but are we really specific? If I have to figure out what to do and then do it at the same time, I'm in danger of failing. I know this one really well. I wake up, it's the weekend, and I know I'm going to exercise. And I'm like, okay, well, what am I going to do? It's kind of a nice day.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  Maybe I should go for a bike ride. But if I go on a bike ride, then I'm going to have to pack a lunch. And you know what? I'll go to yoga instead. Well, what time are those classes? Right before long, I am completely lost trying to decide what to do. So that ambiguity is a real problem. The next part of it is prompts. How do I get reminded to do the thing that I'm doing? This sounds simple, but it's actually often not. The mornings that I overcome my Substack exercise challenge are the mornings that an alarm goes off and says, now it is time. Alignment is really sort of what you just mentioned, our environment. And our environment consists of, have we made it easy to do? The classic

• 51:42Speaker 03

  one people always use is like, do I set out my exercise clothes the night before? My version of this that shows me how important environment is, which every time I tell it, I feel like a flawed creature, is that I play my guitar so much more when it's on a stand versus in a case right next to it. It takes about 30, I've timed it, it takes about 30 seconds to open the guitar case and take the guitar out. The fact that I end up playing more because of some 30 second friction, again, makes me think like, what kind of weird animal am I? And yet it is undeniably true. So the more that we set up our environment, the better chance we have. We used to say in recovery all the time, if you hang around the barber shop long enough, you're going to get a haircut.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  It speaks to, if I'm around people that are using, I'm going to end up using. And so who supports us and the environments we're in are all really important. And then the last part of it is R for resilience, which is planning for, what am I going to do when my plan goes wrong? So when I would be coaching somebody, we'd work out a great plan. And then I would say, okay, how is this going to fail? Back to the example I gave earlier, work on my novel right after the kids get on the school bus every day. What are we going to do on days the kids don't get on the school bus? The answer might be, I go, that day is just a wash. And that's fine. It's better than feeling bad that we didn't do it that day. It's much better just to go, well, days that the kids don't

• 53:10Speaker 03

  get on the school bus, I just don't do it. But we might come up with an alternate plan. So those are the structural elements and the environmental alignments that are so critical. All of these things are really important to our chances of success.

• 53:26Laurie Santos?

  A final aspect of resilience that you talk about a lot in the book is the importance of other people and social support. Talk to me about the power of social support.

• 53:35Speaker 03

  The more people support you that are in your corner, your chances of change go up multiple times. So this can just be a friend asking you, hey, how'd you do with that thing today? It can be sharing it on social media that I'm going to try and make this change. It can be asking your partner, I did it this morning. Last week was not a great week for me exercise wise. It was book launch week. So I said to my partner last night, I really need to get back to exercise in the mornings this week. Could you help encourage me? She helped encourage me. I got back to it. And so it's that sort of thing that makes such a difference. And my experience of change in my life, some

• 54:19Speaker 03

  of the biggest changes, and obviously the biggest one being my sobriety, came with the support of lots of other people. It came through 12 step support. But we don't all have to have a support group to be getting support from people around us. And it's just important to ask because we are much more likely to achieve the goal. I've had friends who were heroin addicts and cigarette smokers tell me that quitting cigarettes was harder. Now, I think there are a few different reasons for this. So I don't want to vastly oversimplify. But I think one factor is that when they were trying to get over heroin addiction, they were surrounded by people helping and supporting them. And

• 55:02Speaker 03

  when they tried to quit smoking, it was just them. They just said, today's the day. I'm not going to smoke. I'm not going to smoke. I'm not going to smoke. And no help makes a big difference.

• 55:11Laurie Santos?

  So any strategies for asking for that help, like you did with your wife? Because I think it can be tough to admit to other people that we want to change and that we need some help.

• 55:20Speaker 03

  So having the humility to be able to do it is hard. I get it. And it makes such a big difference. One way to do it is just get other people to want to do the thing with you. A number of years ago, when I worked in the software business, I worked in an office, people would always come in and be like, hey, I'm not going to eat that today. I'm on a diet this week. And this person would try it, and that person would try it. None of them really ever seemed to change very much. And so finally, at one point, I was like, you know what? Let's try something. Let's do a body fat challenge, where we're just going to take our body fat at the beginning and the end, and whoever's body fat changes the most in that window wins a prize. But what was remarkable is that about all seven of us made significant changes in those three months. Sometimes our support was not

• 56:05Speaker 03

  support in the way you'd think of it. Sometimes we're teasing each other, we're playing, but we're still doing it together. There's more than just me involved in the endeavor. And so I think there's lots of ways to set it up. There are people in your life you may not feel safe asking, that you don't want to ask, don't ask them. Your partner may not be that person. It might be random people on Facebook because you joined some group where they're all trying to do it. So there's lots of ways to find it. And I think it's just a matter of finding the one that works best for you.

• 56:36Laurie Santos?

  And so we've talked about so many different ways that we can build our skills to change better. How has taking this little by little approach affected the way you achieve your own behavior change?

• 56:46Speaker 03

  But it's essentially how I wrote the entire book. I have had the privilege of reading great authors for 12 years now for my podcast. I've read probably 500 or 600 books in this space. So I know what a really good book in this space looks like. And so I got a book deal, and I started writing. And I can assure you that in the beginning, my writing did not look anything like that. I had levels of self doubt I hadn't faced in forever. And so when I would sit down and think about writing for a long period, I just didn't want to do it. It brought up such feelings of doubt and uncomfortableness, I would try and just turn away. So I wrote the book 30 minutes at a time. Now, I might

• 57:28Speaker 03

  say, oh, okay, it's Monday afternoon, and I have four hours available for writing. But I, every single time, would sit down, I would start my 30 minute timer, I would put on my playlist, I'd set up all my distraction blockers. And my goal was not to bail out in that 30 minutes. And if I got to the end of that 30 minutes and I was rolling, I would still reset the timer, and I'd do it for 30 minutes. But if I got to the end of that 30 minutes, and I was really struggling, and I was really miserable, I could stop and walk away. And I would do a little of the, good job, you did it. You did it. You hung in for 30 minutes. In the beginning, I simply was like, if I put the time in,

• 58:10Speaker 03

  I get the A plus gold star. Now, over time, you start to see results from that, and the process gets a little bit easier. It never gets easy, but it gets easier. But that's kind of how I wrote the book. And so I follow that advice. And then the other one is I use that phrase, a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. I used it this morning. I meant to exercise this morning. I did not make the best choices in the world early on. I'm still checking, like, how are the reviews on Amazon? And did so and so share it? And then I realized, okay, well, I don't have time to do what I planned to do. Then I hopped on the exercise bike for 15 minutes. I still was like, a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. And that is valuable.

• 58:57Laurie Santos?

  So if there's been a small change you've been struggling to make, why not take Eric's advice and start small? Choose actions that feel manageable to you. Focus on consistency over perfection. And make sure the goal you're working toward is something you actually value. Because those little bits of progress, repeated over time, can ultimately change your life. If you'd like to hear more about Eric's advice on how to make lasting change, check out his book, How a Little Becomes a Lot, which is out now. Next week, we'll continue our back to school book series with comedian Chris Duffy. I'll ask him about some of my favorite takeaways from his new book, Humor Me. And we'll learn that embracing your inner goofball can help you become a better version of yourself.

• 59:38Speaker 04

  The humor that I want to celebrate is the kind where you are just laughing so hard that you're holding your sides and tears are streaming down your face. And it's really hard afterwards to even explain what was funny about that. But in that moment, you are so locked in, 100% present. And that is, these days, very rare to have that complete 100% presence with another person where they're not like half on their phone or half thinking about something else.

• 1:00:02Laurie Santos?

  That's all next week on the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 1:00:12Laurie Santos?

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• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  For I don't know how long, maybe 12, 13 years, I've worn a Whoop band on my wrist. I started doing it because I met the founder of Whoop at a conference. He heard that I was a runner, and he said, oh, you'll love this. It's perfect for athletes. And he was right. I've worn one ever since. Every time I work out, I see how hard I worked, how long I need to recover. I wake up in the morning, and I get a complete picture of how my sleep went, which helps me understand the kinds of things that lead to a bad night, and the kinds of things that lead to a good night. It's sleek, long-lasting battery, and now with AI looking at all my numbers and coaching me. Whoop is a winner. New members

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's whoop.com for your free month of Whoop.

• 1:02:06Laurie Santos?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.