How to Hack the Habit Loop to Build a Better Life

Hey, this is Brett, before we get to today's show, I have an announcement. When the Art of Manly's podcast started in 2009, we offered listeners one episode per week. Later, we expanded to two episodes weekly. Starting this year in 2025, we'll be returning to publishing just one episode a week.

There are two big reasons we decided to do this. First, we want to continue to be highly selective in choosing guests. We've always been highly selective in choosing guests to have on the show. Looking for people with interesting, unique, edifying, and useful ideas we're able to express those ideas articulately. The interviews almost always center on an author in their book. And while there are endless so-so books and guests out there, we're not looking for so-so, we're looking for great.

Now, with over a thousand books read and a thousand episodes recorded, we've hosted some of the best thinkers multiple times, covered hundreds of subjects multiple times, and already highlighted many, many of the best books out there. Subsequently, it's become harder and harder to maintain our standard of guest selection. To find topics we haven't already done and done well, and to book folks, we have something fresh and worthwhile to say.

We've never wanted to find ourselves in a position where we have to book someone we only think is so so simply to fulfill a contractually obligated slot on the calendar. Moving to one episode a week ensures that we can continue to maintain our standards of selection and only offer listeners episodes that are truly valuable. Each week, there'll be an episode that is definitely worth listening to. The trend these days, of course, is for podcasts to add more and more episodes and even spinoff shows in order to maximize downloads and thus revenue. But quality has always mattered more to us than earnings.

The second reason we're moving to one episode a week is that allows us to spend more time on our first love, writing. This shift isn't just about doing less. It's about making room for something that both Kate and I have had the itch to do more of in the past few years. Deep, thoughtful writing.

Before the AO in podcast was a twice a week show, we were able to write longer form articles, which we really enjoyed. We haven't had much time for that since and we miss it. We'll be using the time that opens up from moving to one podcast episode a week to write articles for a new sub stack. We're starting dying breed.

To learn more about why we're starting a new newsletter, what we're hoping to do with dying breed, visit aom.is slash dying breed, or you can subscribe to the newsletter directly by going to dying breed.net. So again, we're moving to one episode of the podcast each week. It's going to be the same format, same quality guests you've come to expect from the art of manliness podcast. Look for new episodes to drop on Tuesdays and go check out dying breed.net to see what we're doing over there. Thank you for your continued support all these years. We're looking forward to many more episodes of the podcast in the coming years.

Now on to today's show.

Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Think about your habits, the things you do automatically without much thought, from brushing your teeth in the morning to scrolling social media before bed. There's a lot going on with these behaviors. On one level, they're just routines and actions wired into our brains through repetition. There's also more to it than that. Our habits shape who we are, influence our health and happiness, and determine much of our success in life.

There's a reason changing habits is one of the most powerful ways to transform ourselves. Today on the show, Dr. Gina Cleo will help us understand the science of habit formation and how we can harness it to build better behaviors. Gina is a researcher with a PhD in habit change and the author of The Habit Revolution. Simple steps to rewire your brain for powerful habit change. Gina and I discussed the three elements of the habit loop and how to hack them to develop good habits and break bad ones.

Along the way, we talk about why micro habits are so effective for creating lasting change, the differences between men and women when it comes to forming habits, how long it really takes for habit to stick, and much more. After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash habit. All right, Dr. Gina Cleo, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Brett. You have a PhD in habit change and you got a book out called the habit revolution, simple steps to rewire your brain for powerful habit change. It's a new year. So I imagine a lot of people are thinking about good habits. They want to start maybe some bad habits. They want to break. Let's start off with your background a bit. You know, the old saying research is me search. So was there something that led you to dedicate your academic career to researching habits?

Yes, of course there was, you know, my journey into habit research was deeply personal. I started my career as a dietitian, and I was really interested in health and wellness my whole life. But I really struggled to maintain my own healthy habits, whether it was

exercising consistently or even eating well. No, I would finish a day in my clinic and I'd be eating a packet of biscuits on my way home and really trying not to do that, but struggling so much with my own, I guess, healthy behaviors and consistency.

So I became really fascinated with the brain and neuroscience and why we do the things we do and what motivates us as human beings and how to actually create consistency in our behavior. And initially, I just thought I was a terrible dietician, but when I looked at the research, I found that actually 95% of people who set out to achieve a goal don't achieve it. So that's where this idea of learning about habits, which is the only proven method to achieving long-term success came about.

So I think a lot of us, I think most people have a lay understanding of what a habit is, but how do your researchers like you define a habit? How is it different from any other behavior? Yeah, so a habit is a behavior that's repeated regularly in the same context, and it's become automatic. Habits are generally triggered rather than being consciously intentional. So behaviors, unlike habits, they happen consciously, intentionally,

But with habits, once habits are established, they don't require much mental effort. They happen automatically, subconsciously. You don't have to deliberate over your habits. It's just something that happens without much mental effort. Habits are the things that we do automatically. Behavies are the things we do consciously or deliberately.

Okay, so just to recap, there are the characteristics of a habit. There's repetition. There's a high degree of automaticity. You don't have to think about it. And then there's a trigger of some sort that will kick it, kick start the hobby. Okay. What's the dividing line between a habit and say an addiction?

Yeah, the line between habits and addictions can blur, but a crucial difference is how much control we have over them and their impact on our life. Habits can be neutral. They can be negative or they can be positive. And although it's not always easy, we can absolutely change any habit that we have in our life. Addictions, on the other hand, are usually negative and harmful to our life and they're compulsive. They're driven by neurological dependence.

Addictions essentially hijack our brain's reward system and it makes us feel like we can't live a happy life without having that substance or the behavior that we're addicted to.

Okay. Um, so you know, you have an addiction. If it just disrupts your life, like if you can't work, you can't do daily functions. You have an addiction. I think that's important to, to differentiate or really be specific about what an addiction is. I think we throw that word around a little bit too easily like, Oh, I'm addicted to cookies. Well, maybe, but probably not. You just have the habit of like you eating cookies on the way home from work.

Yeah, that's right. And it's not sort of disrupting your life to a significant amount. You can control it with enough intention and effort and consistency. You absolutely can. And that's what separates the habit from the addiction. So you walk through the research or the science of how we form habits, and you talk about there's three stages of habit formation. So what are those three stages of forming a habit?

Yes, so the Hub Information Framework essentially outlines the three stages are initiation, training, and maintenance. So we initiate a new behavior, we train ourselves in that behavior through repeating it, and then we maintain that new behavior through consistency.

Essentially, this is how we achieve goals. We decide on a goal that we want to achieve. We take action towards that goal. We do the things that we need to do to achieve it. Then we continue to do that. We maintain those behaviors so that we can achieve that outcome. Theoretically, of course.

And you make an important point in the book is that you remind people that all habits at some point began as an intentional act. And you say, it's an important thing to understand in forming and breaking habits. Why is that?

Yeah, you know, habits tell a story about our life. I'm a really big believer of that because once upon a time, our habits were intentional actions. They are the things that we once chose to do. And it could have been in an attempt to maybe achieve a goal or suppress an uncomfortable emotion or

you know, reach some kind of desired outcome, whether it's convenience or productivity or well-being. And I think it's really important to know that because it helps us to identify because the chapters of our choices and our priorities, like why we're doing the things that we're doing. And I think once we understand our intentions for starting that behavior, we can then reshape it. We can fulfill those desires in potentially a healthier way if that's something that we want to do.

Yeah, it's a great reminder. You have some control over this. You're not a slave to your habits. You can manipulate them if you want. Yeah, that's right. And I think there's also a bit of self-compassion that can come to play. Say that you're doing something. Let's say you're coming home and you're having a drink of alcohol every night. And that's not something that you want to keep doing. But if you were to look back and think, OK, when did this start? What was going on in my life? What was my intentional reason for starting this?

you might see that it became a habit because you're trying to reduce stress, or you were conforming to social norms, or there's all these reasons why we do things. And I think once we understand that, we can have that self-compassion, go, OK, I was just really stressed at that time. That's why I was doing this. It was an act of self-soothing, potentially not the best way to self-soothe and reduce my stress, but that's where it came from. And I can now reduce stress in a healthier way.

You all talk about the habit loop. I'm sure a lot of our listeners are familiar with this idea, but for those who aren't, what is the habit loop? Yes, the habit loop is essentially the three ingredients that are found in every habit, both good habits and otherwise, and they are a cue, a routine, and a reward. So the cue, that's that trigger that we talked about. It's the reason why we do the habit.

And that queue could be the time of day. It could be the location that you're in. It could be what you've just done beforehand. It could be how you're feeling emotionally or the people that you're around. So all of our habits are queued by one of these five things.

And then there's the routine. That's the second ingredient. And the routine is the habit itself. And then there's the reward. And the reward is the reason why you keep doing this habit. If the reward wasn't positive, it wouldn't create this positive feedback loop for you to keep repeating the habit. So as an example, let's say that you come home and the first thing you do when you get home is you eat a cookie.

And the very first time you do that a mental link is created between getting home and eating a cookie so there's an actual physical neural pathway that's created in the brain. So getting home is the trigger and eating a cookie becomes the routine and.

The reward that you get is probably the taste of the cookies. It's the little energy hit that you get or the dopamine. Now, the more you repeat that, getting home, eating a cookie, getting home, eating a cookie, the stronger this link becomes in your brain until eventually just the thought of getting home prompts you to want to eat a cookie and trying to do anything else becomes really hard because your brain's like, well, when I get home, I eat a cookie and this is what I do. And that's how habits are formed. And that's essentially the habit loop.

Let's talk about cues and you also call them triggers because this is a really important idea and you devote a lot of time to this. You mentioned that there are five types of triggers. Can you summarize those again for us?

Yeah, so experiments have shown that almost all our habits fit into one of five categories and it could be more than one at a time. So the first one is time, for example, like waking up or midday. The second one is location. So it could be like the kitchen or the bedroom. The third one is proceeding event or action. So what you've just done beforehand could be something like brushing your teeth or getting home from work.

Number four is emotional state. It could be like stress, loneliness, happiness. And then finally, your social situation, like meeting friends, the people that you're around or your colleagues. So our habits are going to be triggered by one or more of these five triggers.

All right. So common triggers, time, location, we got proceeding to vendor action emotional state and social situation. Another one I've heard of that's rare. I've heard this with some people who are recovering from drug addiction. We're going from habit to addiction, but they're kind of similar smell. Like I guess there's certain drugs that you make that use bleach, I believe. And some people when they smell bleach, they get a sudden urge for a fix.

Yeah, I mean, that makes so much sense because our smell is like the quickest way into our memories. And like just a whiff of a familiar smell can trigger a memory from childhood. And I think that probably falls into that emotional state. It creates an emotion within us that makes us crave that thing, you know, like the drug or whatever it is that we're craving. That's really interesting, though.

Okay, so we've covered the three basic parts of the habit loop. There's Q, routine, and reward. And these components are part of both bad habits and good habits. And we can tinker with them in different ways to either form a good habit or break a bad habit. Let's talk about forming good habits first. First off, what types of behaviors are we more likely to find success with as far as turning them into habits?

The complexity of the behavior is going to play a really big role in whether something becomes a habit or not. So more complex behaviors take a lot longer to develop compared with simple behaviors. So one of the latest studies showed that they had two groups of people, one group they asked to wash their hands every day, and the other group they asked to go to the gym every day. And the hand washes took only two weeks to develop that habit.

Whereas the gym goers took seven months to develop the habit. And that's because going to the gym is a lot more of a complex behavior compared with washing your hands. Washing your hands is something that you can do at any time. There's mostly a sink around. It doesn't take a whole lot of motivation. It takes two minutes to do. Compared with going to the gym, that requires motivation, getting changed, getting in your car.

And so simple behaviors are much more likely to become habitual. Now you as a person, you need to want to do the habit. It's really hard to develop a habit from something that you don't care much about. You don't value a lot. You don't see us going to benefit your life or other people's lives. It's really hard to develop that into a habit because there's no intrinsic motivation. There's no reason for you to want to keep pushing and making it automatic.

You have a chapter going to this idea of keeping it simple, of using micro habits to build larger, maybe more complex habits. Walk us through that idea of micro habits.

Yeah, so micro habits is a term that I've created, which essentially they're just tiny manageable behaviors that serve as the building blocks for larger habits. And they're really powerful because they're achievable and they minimize resistance. So for example, doing one push up a day or drinking a glass of water after waking up can be the start of a larger habit.

their simplicity builds consistency, which is a key to long-term success. So a couple of examples I've given a book is, you know, if your goal is healthy eating, it's much easier to have a goal of eating a piece of fruit every day compared with trying to overhaul your entire diet. Or if your goal is to do more exercise, it's much easier to have a goal of walking for 15 minutes a day than to try to run a marathon.

meditating, you know, start with just two minutes. A lot of times the very first step is the hardest to everything, you know, the first gym session, the first healthy meal, like the first everything is the hardest. And I'm a big believer that if we can reduce the barriers to entry, if we can make that first step, easy and enticing and rewarding, that we're much more likely to do it. And then we can build on that.

Okay, so when you're trading your habits, start off simple, keep it small. I know BJ Fogg with his tiny habits. One thing he talks about if like flossing your teeth is a habit you want to start. He says, just start off flossing just one tooth. Like you don't have to floss all your teeth. Just do one tooth. And then gradually over time add more teeth, but you don't have to do it all at once because you're probably not going to be successful with that.

Yeah, and what you might find is when you floss one tooth, you're like, oh, I may as well do the rest. Like I've already pulled the floss out and I'm here doing it. Now, I always say to people, create the habit of getting to the gym rather than creating the habit of exercising. If you create the habit of getting to the gym, the rest is going to happen. You're not going to get to the gym and be like, okay, I'm done. I'm going to go home now. You're very likely to go in and do a workout, even if it's a small workout, but it's better than nothing at all.

Yeah, you talk about in the book that you've had days where you didn't feel like working out because you're tired, but you still got up and you went to the gym and then you drove home. Oh, yeah, I have done that. That's right. That's right. This time I was really sick, actually, and I was just starting at a new gym. It was a powerlifting gym. I don't powerlift anymore, just like you Brett. We're both recovering powerlifters and I wanted

to continue the momentum of getting up and going to the gym at a specific time because I had a coach and there was sort of a schedule with it. And this one morning I was really sick and I was like, no, I'm still going to get up. I'm going to get dressed, drive to the gym and I'm going to come straight home. And the really cool thing is once I got better after a week or two, I didn't have to restart my habit of getting to the gym because I was already in it.

Yeah, I've done that throughout my lifting career. We'll call it that I'll have days where I still do this just to maintain the habit of exercise. That's the most important habit to me. It's not my PRs aren't that important to me, but like just maintaining that habit of regular exercise. So I'll have days where I don't have time to do a full workout that I have planned. So I'll just

Get what I can get done in 15 minutes. That might means I just do a single set of every exercise. And that's it. Or if I'm just feeling beat up and tired and I'm like, I really don't want to lift today, I'll go for a walk instead at my regular workout time. I'm just trying to remind my mind and my body. It's like at this time, you're going to move your body in an intentional way. And so once I feel better, I have more time. It's not a problem to keep doing the regular programming.

Yeah, it's so powerful to do that because that's exactly what you're doing. You're reinforcing those neural pathways that at this time I move my body. So yeah, that's awesome. And that will really solidify the habit moving forward even more. So with the behavior of the routine, keep it simple. That's going to be your best bet in creating a habit. Let's talk about triggers. You talk about different ways we can supercharge our triggers. So make them more powerful. So if we're wanting to design a positive habit,

What are some things we can do with those common triggers to make them even more powerful? So what are those ways we can supercharge a trigger?

So you want triggers to be really specific. So instead of, for example, saying, you know, after dinner, you might say, when I'm finished eating, because after dinner can be any time, you know, from the time you finished in until, to the next day, whereas after finishing eating is much more specific. So then the other one is being salient. So making your triggers really obvious. So you could say something like,

When I make a coffee, for example, in the morning and having that like really clearly, that's obviously what you're doing. Another one with triggers is something that you wanted to be consistent, something that you encounter regularly, consistently, inevitably would be really good. So something that you know is going to happen like the time of day, that's going to really supercharge your triggers compared to saying like, at Christmas, I'm going to do this because that doesn't happen a lot. It only happens once a year.

Okay. And then you also recommend finding triggers that are automatic. What does that look like? Yeah. So something automatic could be like when I'm finished my breakfast or when my alarm goes off in the morning, I'm going to do this. So they're automatic. They don't require you to put in a whole lot of effort. It's just something that you know is going to happen. Okay. Let's talk about rewards a bit. Is there anything we can do with the reward aspect of the habit loop to help form good habits?

Yeah, you know, one of the best rewards is our emotional rewards. It's just the feeling of satisfaction, of accomplishment, of being proud of yourself. A lot of times people will say things like, you know, if you've done a workout, then go buy yourself a new outfit. And that she doesn't work because we need the reward instantly.

We need to feel that satisfaction, this sense of accomplishment straight away for that habit loop to become reinforced. And so let's say you've done a workout when you really didn't feel like doing it or you're creating a new habit of working out.

Once you get to the gym, take a moment to celebrate your decision to do that, celebrate the fact that you're there. And it's just a silent moment to yourself when you're just like, I'm proud of you, like well done for being here. And that's going to be such a powerful reward. The other thing that you can do, which I highly recommend is using a habit tracker.

So every time you perform the habit that you had intended to do, you just give yourself a little tick for doing that habit. And you know, like with children, we give them a gold star say for doing their chores and they feel really good for doing that and they're motivated to want to do it again. We don't grow out of that reward learning as adults.

So when we give ourselves a tick on a habit tracker, it sends dopamine through our brain and that feels good and rewarding and pleasurable. And that tells our brain, it's like, hey, that felt really good. We should totally do this again. And it reinforces the habit.

I think it's a good point. I've tried rewarding myself with like physical things like, Oh, if I do this thing, yeah, it doesn't work because you can only reward yourself once with, you know, save one and buy yourself a new pair of shoes, right? Like a lifting shoes, but what's your reward going to be all the other times you'd complete at the habit loop, you know, like each time you do your workout because there's just too much of a delay between the behavior and the reward.

Yeah, exactly right. And just accept that the reward might be endorphins from working out. It could be dopamine, it could be a hit of serotonin, but just sit and notice those moments. I actually think buying the lifting shoes, getting the new outfit for working out should be done before you work out, because that's going to motivate you to go, rather than trying to do it afterwards.

So let's put all we've talked about together and how we can form an action plan for creating new positive habits. We've been talking about working out. Let's talk about something else. I know a lot of people, maybe they want to read more instead of scrolling more on social media at nighttime. So walk us through an example of, say, someone wants to read more. What can they do using the things we've talked about of the habit loop, the habit formation process to become a regular nightly reader?

Yeah, so start really small. Find the book that you want to read and maybe set out just to read one page if you're new to reading. I would also say if your phone is around, it's really hard to put that head-to-head battle between the phone and the book because most likely your phone will win. It gives you way more dopamine, there's a lot more stimulation in a phone compared with a black and white book.

So I would put your phone somewhere where you can't reach it from bed. I charge my phone like in my ensuite or in the lounge room even. And then have your book there and ready. So start small, set that micro goal like reading one page and set the trigger. So you might say, when I get in bed in the evenings,

I'm going to read one page. And then once you've done that, check it off on your habit tracker. And that's, you know, you're created the habit loop. So that's going to be you celebrating your win, which is the reward. And it's just then all about consistency. So focus on consistency over intensity.

And then gradually build. So once one page becomes natural and easy and something you don't have to remind yourself to do, then you can start with two pages and then gradually building from there. Okay. Simple enough. So it's simple. Might not be easy to put in place. I think the hard part is just that training part of doing it over and over and over again night after night without fail because that's what you got to do if you want to create that habit.

Yeah, that's right. But, you know, I think when you have in the front of your mind why you're doing this, why it's valuable to you, why it's important to you, then the motivation to keep going becomes easier to access. We're going to take a quick break for you word from our sponsors.

And now back to the show. Do we know how long it takes to form a new habit? How long do we have to do this training process of reading a page every night before it just becomes a habit?

Yeah, there's a really wide range, which I hate saying. I hate saying it depends, but it does depend. Most people have heard that it takes 21 days or 28 days to create a new habit. That is absolutely false. There's no evidence to prove that at all. The research shows it can take anywhere from two weeks to up to a year to create a new habit.

with an average time, like very rough average being about 66 days or 10 weeks. But again, those simpler habits are going to develop much quicker. The stronger your intention, the quicker the habit will develop as well.

Yeah, that 21 day thing, I'm sure people have heard that one. The funny thing about that, that came from a book written by a plastic surgeon, I think like in the 1960s called Psycho Cybernetics. It was kind of like a self improvement book, but I think you mentioned like the 21 day habit thing in that book.

Yeah, so he was a facial reconstruction surgeon and he found that when his patients would look in the mirror after they've had facial reconstruction, it took three to four weeks for them not to get a shock when they looked at their face, their new face. So he was like, okay, it must take 21 days for neuroplasticity, which is changes in the brain. That means it takes 21 days to change a habit.

But really, it is such a loose connection and it's been debunked by science ever since then. So you mentioned some factors that can influence how long it takes for a habit to form. One of them is this the intention you're putting into the habit formation. Any other factors that might contribute to how long or how short a habit takes to form?

Yeah, so another factor in a really common one is stress. So the more stress we are, the less we are likely to create a new habit, prefrontal cortex or our logical brain isn't as active. We're more likely to fall into unwanted habits because it's

really hard to find the motivation and I guess the oomph to want to create new healthy habits. So stress is going to be a factor. How habitual you are as a person also plays a role. You know, I'm not naturally a very habitual person, which is quite ironic for a habit researcher. I prefer spontaneity, flexibility. I

No two days are the same in my life. And so it takes me a little bit longer potentially to create new habits, but I can break old habits quite easily compared with my husband, who is very habitual. Like the man can easily eat the same thing every single day and doesn't bother him at all. He can create new habits a lot quicker, but struggles to break old habits as quickly as I do.

The other thing is consistency. How consistent are you with performing your new habit? The more you do it, the more habitual it's going to become, and the quicker it's going to develop into a habit. Making sure that your environment is conducive and supportive to your new habit, that you're encountering the trigger as often as possible, and that you're doing the habit every time you encounter the trigger.

Yeah, that idea of some people are just more habitual than others. I've seen that in my own life. I'm a very habitual person. I eat the same thing pretty much breakfast, lunch, and then dinners, whatever we have as a family. But I've been eating the same thing for like the past seven years.

And it's funny, my dad is like that too. Like he's been eating special K and drinking Folger's coffee probably for 40 years. And I picked that up from him. You highlight some research. This is speculative. It's burgeoning that men and women might differ in their habit formation. How do they differ?

Yeah, I mean, men and women are motivated and triggered by different things. For example, men are more triggered by external or environmental cues, like images or matching other people's behavior, whereas women tend to be more triggered by internal or emotional cues, like how stressed they are.

how much responsibility they have in their families and how much capacity they have to create new habits. So it is speculative. Research is still emerging, but we are definitely seeing that there is a difference. In my own practice, anecdotally, I found that men develop habits a lot quicker than women. And I think because there is less of those emotional fluctuations that

trigger behavior compared with women. Men can be a lot more militant, I think, if I was to be overgeneralizing in my comment, compared with women who are a little bit more fluid generally from their day-to-day life. We talk about how do you perform a good habit? You also talk about that sometimes even good habits can be detrimental. How so?

Yeah, I mean, there's a theory called this habituation where we're too habitual. Your good habits can become rigid, making us sort of less adaptable in new situations. So, for example, a really strict workout routine might cause anxiety if it's disrupted. Whereas balance comes from allowing flexibility and thinking of habits as tools rather than rules.

And then maybe periodically reassessing whether a habit is actually serving your current goals and then adapting it accordingly. You know, I just came back from holiday and while we were away, we were in the Philippines for a couple of weeks and then went to Thailand. And our time in the Philippines, there was a power outage in the entire island. We had no power. So there was no running water, no electricity, no fans, no air con, nothing.

And for the 10 days that we were there, it was really challenging to want to work out because it was so hot and super humid. And the gym that we'd signed up to had also closed because it was just like, there's no lights, there was nothing. And so we had to just.

adapt. We went surfing and walking, we went on little hikes. And yeah, it wasn't what we planned and scheduled, but we did what we can with the resources that we had. And I think if we're too rigid, then our good habits can become detrimental because they create anxiety. So that flexibility point is really important for our well-being.

Yeah, we see that with exercise. We kind of talked about that. Both you and I, we had moments in our programming or our training where we couldn't do the full workout that we had programmed. If you're really rigid with that, you're like, well, if I can't do the full workout, then I just shouldn't do anything at all. But if you have a little bit of flexibility with that, it's okay, what's the bigger goal I'm trying to accomplish here? Okay, exercise. Well, I can do something else besides three sets of five on deadlift squat and bench and I'll be okay.

Absolutely. And I see this all or nothing mentality so much, especially with our diet. If I can't eat perfectly, then I'm just going to blow out and I'll eat all the cake and all the ice cream and all the things. And it's actually so much better to be flexible in your approach and enjoy everything in moderation and then just keep living your life that way instead of having this all or nothing mentality, which just doesn't work long term.

Let's talk about breaking bad habits. So how can we use this knowledge of habits to break bad habits we don't want?

When you think of the habit loop as key routine reward, every single habit is triggered by something. So if we can disrupt that key routine reward loop, then we can break our habits. So there's two ways that we can do that. We can either replace the old habit with a new habit that we want to do, or if it's possible, we can try to avoid that trigger altogether.

So often the one thing that we get wrong when we're trying to change a behavior is we focus so much on trying to break the habit. We will say, okay, I'm going to stop drinking. I'm going to stop eating cookies. Like those things are dead to me. And then we get home. And the first thing that we do is we go and eat a cookie or, you know, grab a bottle of alcohol.

And the reason is that as soon as our brain encounters the trigger for the habit that we have, it's already started firing the necessary neural pathways to take the next action. That key routine reward, that habit loop, happens in a split second and we're not even aware that it's happening. And so it's really hard for us to encounter a trigger and then try to stop doing the habit.

It's so much easier to understand what the trigger is, preempt the trigger. So you might say, when I get home today, I'm really going to feel like having some alcohol, but this is what I'm going to do instead. And you can preempt the craving and try to interject with a new behavior or change your environment or create barriers to make those unwanted habits.

harder to do. And it is so much more empowering and much easier to break habits that way than trying to do it the other way. It's much easier to reverse engineer the process. So if, for example, driving past a fast food chain triggers you to go in there and order a Big Mac combo, then if it's possible to drive a different way, do that. And that's going to break that habit of eating fast food.

If you can't change the trigger, you know, if driving a different way isn't a possibility, then it's important to preempt it. You would say, okay, when I drive past this fast food chain, I'm going to be tempted to go inside. But this is what I'm going to do instead. And you might, you know, pack something, you might order something smaller or, you know, whatever it is. And it's really just about creating barriers for the habits that you want to break.

and having really strong intentions. The stronger our intention, the weaker our habits become. You also talk about we can do things with the reward aspect to break bad habits. What are some things we can do to manipulate the reward to break a bad habit?

Yeah, I remember a story I wrote in the book about our perception of certain rewards. Let's say you smoke, for example, and you really love how this cigarette makes you feel. You love the nicotine hit that you get, the dopamine hit, and it feels awesome. And so your mind is telling you, I really love this habit. So you've got this big reward value from it.

What they did in a study recently actually is they got smokers to mindfully smoke. So they got them to have a cigarette and then describe exactly what it tasted like, what it felt like afterwards. And the descriptions that they gave were things like, oh, this tastes like ash, like tar, like you're on a tarmac at an airport and it just tastes disgusting. And once they reward value, like their perception of the reward of that cigarette reduced,

Every single one of the study participants stopped smoking and it's because they no longer felt like it was a rewarding experience. The reward they thought they got from it wasn't actually there once they bought mindfulness into it. It's a really interesting diet. I think it's called the Yuck diet. It's not

on a technical term, certainly not a scientific term, but some guy invented it where essentially he started thinking of things like spaghetti is like worms and chocolates like mud and cheeses like mucus. And once he started to think of food like that, and look, not that I'm condoning that because I think all food is acceptable, but for him, he had a real, I guess he was sort of out of control with some of these foods. But once he started to see those foods as less valuable, less rewarding, less enticing,

He no longer craved them and was able to eat them with a lot more control, and he lost a bunch of weight, and it was a really cool story. But the reward that you place on something is going to impact directly how much you crave that thing. So if we can change our perspective on things,

I think it can be one of the most empowering things we can do with breaking out unwanted habits. Yeah. Judson Brewer, we've had him on the podcast. He talks about this. He calls it disenchanting bad habits. So yeah, whenever you experienced that reward from, you could be food or I think he does like smoking cessation, you work to disenchant the reward. And I've actually used this idea to quit looking at Instagram.

Because you're bored and so you're pulled into just opening up the app and just scrolling through. But every time you do, you're like, man, there's nothing here. Why am I wasting my time with this? And you almost feel a little bit of disgust. And so to just enchant the habit, you really have to lean into that feeling and really focus and think about the fact that

There's nothing interesting here and you wouldn't have missed anything if you hadn't checked it. So let's use kind of a practical example to walk people through how to break a bad habit. What we've been talking about. I know a lot of people in January, they take part in something that's called dry January, which is, you know, you don't drink alcohol during January. So how could we use these things we've talked about in breaking bad habits to be successful at dry January?

Yeah, I mean, again, looking at the habit loop is like, what are the triggers and try to change the environment as much as possible. So firstly, don't have alcohol in your house. Maybe stock your house filled with non-alcoholic alternatives instead. I worked with someone who would come home and the first thing that she did was she'd pour a glass of wine and that was like her habit. You know, not coming home isn't an option. She's got to go home every day.

And so what we did is we moved all the wine bottles into a really hard to reach shelf in the garage, where she needed to get a step ladder to access it. We moved all her wine glasses to a different cupboard, and then we put all her tea mugs where the wine glasses were. So the first couple of days she came home, she opened the cupboard where the wine glasses used to be,

Only to find all these tea mugs and that's what was triggering her memory that she's actually here to change this wine drinking habit. And so then she'd make herself a tea and she felt the reward and satisfaction of doing something that was healthier for her body.

So think of ways that you can create barriers for drinking. Definitely tell your friends so that you've got that accountability and that they're not tempting you when you use social events that require alcohol and keep that habit tracker. So every day you successfully go without drinking alcohol, make sure you give yourself a tick and be proud of yourself for another day down. I love it. You devote a lot of time in the book to motivation. How do psychologists define motivation?

Psychologists define motivation as the reason that we initiate, choose, or persist in specific actions, in specific circumstances. Simply put, motivation is the reason that we act in a particular way. What's the interplay between motivation and habit formation? Why did you spend so much time talking about motivation in a book about habits?

I think whenever we're looking at changing our behavior, one of the biggest things that people say is, I just don't have motivation. I don't have it in me. It's almost like we're waiting for motivation to come. But it's such a myth because action is a prerequisite to motivation.

Motivation comes as a result of action, like how often do you absolutely not feel like doing something and you take the first step anyway and then you're in it, like you're motivated to do it and you complete the task and you actually feel quite good about it. I definitely have that with things like, you know, decluttering something or, you know, unpacking my suitcase right now. I'm like, oh, I just don't feel like doing it. But as soon as I get started,

the rest flows and it becomes so much easier. Motivation kick starts habit formation. We have to feel motivated the very beginning of creating a new habit. But once that habit has a bit of momentum and automaticity, then consistency is what sustains it. We no longer need motivation for our habits.

It's like no matter how tired, stressed, fatigued you are, you'll always put your seatbelt on in the car because it's something that you do habitually. You don't need to be motivated to do it. And that's a real power of habits, but we do need motivation just at the very start when we're creating a new habit.

So you mentioned, okay, just do the thing the motivation will follow any other things we can do to take control of our motivations. So we're more likely to achieve our habit goals, especially for those habits that seem harder to make or break.

Yeah, I mean, break those ones down. Definitely make it a lot more enticing for yourself. Find ways for you to want to do it. You get to listen to your favorite music as you're doing the task, or you get to do it with a friend, or the other thing to do is really see progress.

make sure that you're measuring progress if you can, even if your progress is just seeing how often you're doing the thing, because motivation grows as you see progress, so that build that momentum nice and early, but just focus on, yeah, starting small and know that the motivation will come, like trust that it'll come.

Something that's going to happen in the habit formation journey is you're going to have setbacks. You're doing great. Then you have a day where you don't do the thing and then a day turns into two and you're like, oh, I failed again at starting a habit or you're trying to break a habit and you have a setback. What do you recommend people do to deal with setbacks and their habit goals?

I think the first thing to know is that setbacks are a part of the process. It's not if you have a setback, it's when you have a setback. No matter how disciplined or motivated you are, it's part of the process. And the most successful people in the world also have setbacks. And what differentiates them from the people that go and fall off the wagon entirely?

is the successful people will get up and they'll do so quickly after a setback. And rather than seeing those setbacks as failures, they view them as data. It's like, what triggered this lapse? How can I adjust moving forward? Do I need to change my cue or my trigger? Do I need to change the intensity of this habit? Really focus on your next action rather than dwelling on the setback. And the most important thing is going to be self-compassion.

People who are kind to themselves after a setback are so much more likely to bounce back quickly and like to allow themselves to make errors and make mistakes and just jump back on the horse and keep going.

That self-compassion component, I found that it's really important in any behavior change or goal pursuit that you have. I think a lot of us have this idea that, well, you got to really beat yourself up and you got to be a drill sergeant. And so if you fail, you got to just really, you know, flagellate in order to get back on the horse. And the research actually says that actually doesn't work. It's better just to be a little kinder to yourself.

Yeah, and I know it sounds counterproductive and counterintuitive, but you're right. That is exactly what the research shows over and over again with so much more are going to be much more successful if we can practice self compassion than self criticism.

And I think the problem is people have this, especially men have the wrong idea of what self-compassion looks like. They kind of think it looks soft and weak, but it's not. The way I think of self-compassion, you've had a coach, I have a barbell coach, like they show compassion to me. It's not like they're like, oh, Brad, it's okay. You're gonna be fine. He'll be really upfront with me and saying, hey, yeah, that was tough. You didn't make it. That's okay though.

Get back to your workout the next time and it'll be fine. It's not like you're not treating yourself like a little kid who needs a boo-boo kiss. You're just not beating yourself up. Exactly right. Yeah. And it is. And it's so powerful. And there's a really awesome book by Dr. Kristen Nith called Self Compassion. And I recommend everyone read it. It's a real game changer in

But for any person who struggles in this space, because I don't think it comes naturally for us to practice self-compassion. I think there are a lot of misconceptions around it, especially with men, like you mentioned, Brett. So I think it's something that we can all practice and do a little bit better in that space. It really is a powerful tool. Well, Gina, is there anything else we haven't talked about on habits that you think would be really useful for people to hear about in order to be more successful with their habit goals this year?

I mean, I think we've covered so much, but one thing I'd add is that you are not stuck with your brain. No matter how old you are or no matter how long you've been doing the habit, no matter how stuck you feel, all of our brains by virtue of neuroplasticity are able to be rewired. You can rewire your brain. All you need is consistency, determination, persistence and the right tools. So just know that you absolutely can change any habit that you have.

Well, Gina, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work? Thanks, Fred. I've loved chatting to you. Well, you can find my book and my work on my website along with free resources. Like I've got a free habit change masterclass, this free habit track is on there. You can also access my online courses and follow on social media for tips on rewiring your brain. And all the links are at drgenochleo.com. Fantastic. Well, Gina Cleo, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

Thanks for having me with you.

Well, that wraps up another edition of the A1 Podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanlies.com, where you find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles that we've written over the years about pretty much anything you think of. And if you've had done so already, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a renewable podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think gets something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay, reminding you to not listen to A1 Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

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