E212: Tiny Habits, Remarkable Results (Book Report: Atomic Habits by James Clear)

When we see massive success, it’s easy to think that these results came from massive action. We feel pressure to make earth-shattering changes and improvements in our lives so that we can reach big goals.

However by making tiny changes, we can make more meaningful, remarkable results. This is the power of atomic habits…

[00:54] About a year ago I read the very famous book Atomic Habits by James Clear. When people hear that I am a Health Coach who specializes in Healthy Habits, most of them bring up this book. And what a success Atomic Habits is! Over 9 million copies sold WOW! If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it. Get your copy here!

I decided to re-read the book again for the purpose of sharing with you on the podcast how I use this book with my own clients, members, and offerings. This is also a great episode for you if you’re interested in the book but not ready to read it yet. I’ll be sharing a lot of the key points, and useful takeaways with you today. It’s kind of like a little book report!

Other Book Report Style Episodes:

Episode 199: Create LIMITLESS Habits (LIMITLESS by Jim Kwik)

Episode 182: The Power of Passion and Perseverance are the Keys to Success (Grit by Angela Duckworth)

Episode 174: Book Report: The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin

There are a lot of reasons why I enjoy and recommend Atomic Habits:

James Clear does an excellent job at organizing, outlining, and explaining useful concepts to create habits that stick.
The book has lots of evidence-based self-improvement strategies, memorable stories, and helpful figures, images, and charts.
It’s also very engaging, motivating, and actionable. And if you know me, you know I’m all about taking action!

I’d love to spend our time together today discussing the whole book and going through each chapter with you, but this is not a book summary, this is a podcast episode. And with each of my episodes I have a goal to inspire you to take action after listening.

[03:00] The Habit Loop

So for today, I’ve decided to share with you Clear’s Four Laws of Behaviour Change. These four laws make a framework that is based off of the four stages of a habit, also known as The Habit Loop.

“The four stages of a habit are best described as a feedback loop. They form an endless cycle that is running every moment you are alive. This “habit loop” is continually scanning the environment, predicting what will happen next, trying different responses, and learning from the results.” (p.50)

The four stages of the habit loop are:

1. Cue

2. Craving

3. Response

4. Reward

“The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behaviour.” (p.48) Our brains are continuously analyzing our environment, noticing where we can find rewards.

“Cravings are the second step, and they are the motivational force behind every habit.” (p.48) We need some level of desire or motivation for us to act. All of our cravings are linked to a desire to change our internal state, the craving is not the habit. We crave the result of doing the habit. Every person is motivated by different cravings because we have different desires.

“The third step is the response. The response is the actual habit that you perform, which can take the form of a thought or an action.” (p.48) The action of the habit can only happen when we have two things: enough motivation and the ability to do it. If there is more physical or mental effort involved in completing the action than we are willing to do, it won’t get done. And if we aren’t physically or mentally capable of completing the action… it also won’t happen.

“Finally, the response delivers a reward. Rewards are the end goal of every habit.” (p.49) The previous three stages are getting us to our reward: “The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward.” (p.49)

We chase rewards again and again because they satisfy our desire/craving, and also because they teach us which of our actions are worth remembering in the future for when we want this reward again.

Our behaviours are all driven by the motivation to solve a problem. Some examples:

We want to achieve a goal to feel good (moving toward something)
We want to relieve our pain (moving away from something)

In my Make a Habit Mentorship, I work with clients 1:1 to create personalized action plans for their new habits, routines, and rituals. The very first part of the framework I’ve developed is called Trigger. In this beginning phase we are outlining the different cues, aka triggers that lead us to our transformation aka reward.

Between these two parts of my framework are three other steps that can be used in any order, they are: tools, track, tweak. These three parts of the framework are similar to stage 2 and 3 of the habit loop: craving and response.

As mentioned before, this habit loop is the basis of Clear’s Four Laws of Behaviour Change to help create good habits and eliminate bad ones.

[06:26] The Four Laws of Behaviour Change

The Four Laws of Behaviour Change help us create a good habit are:

The 1st Law: Make it Obvious (cue)

The 2nd Law: Make it Attractive (craving)

The 3rd Law: Make it Easy (response)

The 4th Law: Make it Satisfying (reward)

You can also invert the four laws to break a bad habit:

Inversion of the 1st Law: Make it invisible

Inversion of the 2nd Law: Make it unattractive

Inversion of the 3rd Law: Make it difficult

Inversion of the 4th Law: Make it unsatisfying

[07:05] The 1st Law: Make it Obvious

Let’s take a closer look at the first law of behaviour change: Make it Obvious. This law is all about our first stage of the Habit Loop: the cue.

What makes our habits so useful is that we don’t even need to be aware of the cue for our habit to start. We can notice an opportunity and take action without making any conscious effort or attention to it. It’s automatic.

To support us in building better habits, we can use the two common cues that trigger our habit: time and location.

Do this with the Implementation Intention Formula: I will [BEHAVIOUR] at [TIME] and [LOCATION]. (p.71)

This formula asks us to be more specific with our new behaviour. For example, instead of us saying we want to do more pilates, we use the formula and our new routine is: I will take a pilates class at 8:00AM on Mondays at Exhale Pilates.

In our first call of the 1:1 Make a Habit Mentorship coaching, we clearly outline and use this formula so that right after we have our first call you are prepared to take action at a specific time and location.

Another helpful strategy is to stack our habits. We’ve talked about this before on the show, most recently in Episode 193 with Jessica Stevens.

Episode 193: Move from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Stacking Tiny Actions with Jess Stevens

Stacking habits means we pair a new habit with a current habit. The Stacking Formula is: After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]. For example, after I put on my pajamas, I will meditate.

You can reflect on your own daily behaviours, actions, and routines and notice your own cues with your current habits. Where can you stack new habits with your current behaviours?

When you’re creating a new habit, consider how you can make the cue more obvious within your environment.

Using our examples:

Can you place your vitamins in your bathroom next to shower?

Can you set a timer on our phone to pre-book your pilates classes?

Can you keep your meditation pillow beside your bed or where you keep your pajamas?

When we create the right small changes, these begin to lead to large changes in our behaviour over time. You can elevate your habits to be associated not with a single trigger but with the entire context surrounding your behaviour so that the context becomes the cue.

For example, if you want to eat more veggies, take them out of the drawers/crispers in your fridge and bring them to the doors and shelves instead. Keep the junk food and sauces in the drawers instead. This way, every time you open your fridge you’ll see the fruit and veg right in front of you and you’ll be more likely to eat them than if they were hidden away rotting in the drawers.

In what ways can you adjust your environment to better support your goals and new habits? What distractions can you hide away, what supportive tools can you keep in the forefront or more obvious locations?

[10:44 ] Inversion of the 1st Law: Make it invisible

Right before halloween we bought a box of some of my fave chocolates: mars, twix, m&ms, the best. I said to Craig, “don’t open this box until Halloween. Because if it’s open I’m going to eat these, but if it’s not I won’t open them!”

Sure enough, he opened the box before Halloween and I started eating them. Nearly all of them. They were gone before Halloween night so we had to get more chocolates!

Being the Healthy Habit Coach that I am, I knew better than to keep the box in the kitchen. If we want to break a bad habit, we can invert the 1st law and make our bad habit invisible.

It’s a lot easier to avoid temptation than resist it. We can put the box of chocolates in our basement pantry on the high shelf behind the storage boxes where it’s totally out of sight, out of mind until we need them on Halloween.

I also have a group coaching service and I love talking about what obstacles we could foresee when we’re trying to swap habits in the Healthy Habit Membership with the community because we often share insights and ideas that other people in the group might not have thought of right away.

All these light bulbs go off in the group and we’re able to address obstacles before they happen with helpful solutions.

There are a lot of us who think we have the self-control we need to break bad habits, but it will only take us so far. We need to focus on long-term strategies like avoiding temptation, and reducing exposure to cues that lead to bad habits.

When I didn’t buy clothes for a year, I avoided the mall, at all costs. I also unsubscribed from emails from clothing stores, I unfollowed fashion blogs, accounts, and stylists. And I read more articles about sustainability, fast-fashion, and minimalism.

It worked because I truly didn’t buy clothes for a year!

Episode 61: I Didn’t Buy Clothes for a Year

[13:16] The 2nd Law: Make it Attractive

Clear’s 2nd Law of Behaviour Change is Make it Attractive. This is all about our cravings, because “the more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.” (p.111)

The craving is the anticipation of the reward. If you’re having trouble stacking your habits with the habit you currently do, and adding in the next habit, try the habit stacking + temptation building formula:

After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED].
After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].

I used this when I was trying to drink more water in the mornings. After I come downstairs from sleeping, I will drink 1 cup of water (need). After I drink one cup of water, I will do my coffee ritual (want).

Actually I think that’s how my entire morning ritual started, and to be honest, I don’t even drink that much coffee anymore, less than a cup a day! It used to be my reward, and now - this is going to sound so cheesy - my new morning routine is the reward itself for me. I love how it makes me feel, and it’s also pretty productive.

But enough about me, let me tell you how we use this in the Elevate Your Life 21 Day Healthy Habit Challenge! Once a season I run a 21 day challenge open to anyone who wants to join. We just started it this year, and we’ve had over 100 women take this challenge!

www.valerielavignelife.com/challenge

The very first day of the challenge, participants are prompted to choose a feeling word. And while in a way this could be seen as the reward, the goal of choosing a feeling word is so that we create cues and cravings that bring us closer to this word in the event that we cannot complete our actual habit that we set out, how can we at least connect to this feeling word?

This allows us to identify multiple routes to getting to our desire and so our positive actions and behaviours become more attractive to us.

Also, since the challenge is run live and we’re all doing it at the same time, I use my close friends list in instagram stories to share the stories, experiences, and trackers of the other challengers to encourage and empower the community during the 21 days.

Clear talks about how the role of family and friends shape our habits, and “one of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where (1) your desired behaviour is the normal behaviour and (2) you already have something in common with the group.”

I believe that this is another reason why the Elevate Your Life challenge is so successful, because our group comes together ready to Elevate their routines, and we share that, it’s pretty amazing.

Our next challenge is coming up, you can join the challenge, or the waitlist for our next challenge at www.valerielavignelife.com/challenge

Think of some of your current behaviours and how they might have been influenced by a group. Were you seeking approval, respect or praise? This is a common form of attraction and creates cravings for habits from the crowds we’re in.

[17:44] Inversion of the 2nd Law: Make it Unattractive

To help eliminate or break a bad habit we can invert the 2nd law of behaviour and make it unattractive.

The habits and behaviours we have now are modern-day solutions to our body’s ancient desires. Some of these ancient desires are: (p.127)

“To conserve energy
Obtain food and water
Find love and reproduce
Connect and bond with others
Win social acceptance and approval
Reduce uncertainty
Achieve status and prestige”

These ancient desires can also be called deeper underlying motives. We crave a surface level manifestation of this deeper motive.

Netflix and chill = conserving energy

Swiping on Tinder = Finding love and reproduce

Posting on instagram for likes = win social acceptance and approval

If we want to break our bad habits, we can ask ourselves, “how can I make this habit unattractive?” One of the ways we can do this is by associating our bad habit with a negative feeling. And the same works for when we create a new habit, we can associate it with a positive feeling.

When I’m working with clients 1:1 in the Make a Habit Mentorship Program, I listen when my client says something along the lines of, “I should be doing this habit,” or “I have to do that.” There's a subtle difference between: “should” and “have” to “I want” and “I get to.”

Usually “I should” and “have to” have an underlying negative feeling. Guilt, shame, frustration, and discomfort are a few feelings that come to mind.

And “I want to” and “I get to” are typically connected to positive feelings. Such as: excitement, anticipation, gratitude, and appreciation.

When we unpack the meaningfulness of the habit the client is coming to me with, we might discover that this habit is actually irrelevant to the client and they only thought they needed to do it because of social or family pressure.

Going deep into these layers often requires an outside perspective, or coach’s skillset because we really understand the neuro-linguistic programming of habitual behaviours and language.

This unbiased opinion and professional perspective can get to the root of the behaviour more directly, and this way the client can focus on more useful and productive actions to rewire the neural pathways.

If you’re having trouble making your new habit more attractive, it can help to create a “Motivation Ritual.” This means doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit. The motivation ritual can be the simplest mindset shift of swapping “I have to” with “I get to.” Try this out today!

To help you create your new habits and rituals, I have a free guide just for you! It’s called Build Better Habits and it’s your step-by-step guide to creating consistent habits that matter.

You know... the ones that bring you closer to the best version of yourself, and make a greater impact on the world around you!
Grab your copy at www.valerielavignelife.com/habits

[21:08] The 3rd Law: Make it Easy

Our third law of behaviour changes is Make it Easy. This feels like one of the most obvious ways to build a new habit, and yet people don’t do it. Why?! You may ask… well because they think “what’s the point!?”

I was working with a client recently on a habit she wanted to build: reading daily. Her style is all or nothing; go big or go home.

Unfortunately weeks were going by and no books were read, no pages were turned. If she couldn’t sit down and sit still for an hour a day to read, she wasn’t going to read.

In her frustration, she booked a call with me. I suggested creating a micro habit to make the habit easier.

“What’s the point of two pages a day?!” She asked.

I said, “The point is practice. The point is action. The point is you’re actually moving the needle – or in this case the bookmark forward.

In 30 days you could have read 60 pages of a book, possibly more! But instead we’re x number of days into the month and you’ve read 0.”

Here’s the deal, the most effective form of learning is practice, not planning… so even if you’re only reading two pages of a book a day, the point is you’re reading the book. And sometimes you’re settled into reading that you continue to read more than two pages.

Sometimes we do certain things and make certain moves and we think we’re supporting our habits but we’re really just in motion.

For example, we buy a stack of personal development books, or add them to our cart. This is motion. We want to focus on taking action instead. Action is reading the book.

Consider what habits, routines, or rituals you want to create. Are there behaviours or moves you're making that have you in motion? Or are you taking small actions to get there?

When behviours are new for us, they are not automatic right away. But with repetition, they become more automatic. The more we repeat them, the more automatic they become.

Going back to our reading example: it doesn’t really matter how long you read for today, what matters is that you continue to read again and again.

I was invited to speak about Healthy Habits for Actors, and the video is now available on YouTube

In this workshop – which really is wonderful for actors, creators, performers, and really anyone truly trying to change their bad habits and make better ones – I speak more to the motion vs action. If this is one of your stuckspots, I encourage you to check out this workshop and make some notes… but more importantly take action!

In my own experience through building the Healthy Habit Membership I’ve learned a lot about myself and also our members.

When we started the membership there were more call times. We had 2-3 coaching calls per month and as the months went on fewer people were attending the live calls.

The membership has evolved into one coaching call per month with a workshop/theme for the month of mindset or helpful tools to support any habit and not just a specific type of habit or area of wellness.

The skills I teach are transferable, like in Atomic Habits, and in this podcast episode.

Now in the Healthy Habit Membership, the members have direct access to me one day a week where they can connect with me through text, voice note, photos, and video on Voxer. This weekly support helps the members in the moment. It allows them to ask questions that pop up after our coaching sessions and lessons in real-time and has been one of the best changes we’ve made in the membership so far.

These adjustments in the membership made behaviour changes easier, and focused on action verses showing up to calls, which emphasized the motion.

[25:35] Inversion of the 3rd Law: Make it Difficult

Just like the other laws, we can invert the third law to break a bad habit. The inversion of the third law is Make it difficult.

Snack and candy companies spend millions of dollars (probably more) a year on researching all of the ways to get consumers to buy and eat more of their products.

From the attractive and bright packaging to lure you in, to the way you have to reach into opaque bags so you don’t realize how much you’re eating at the moment, to the addictive ingredients in the products.

They know that if they want you to buy, and eat, and buy more, they’ve got to make it really easy! (As well as attractive and satisfying, etc.)

You can imagine that trying to break bad habits can feel really difficult because sometimes it is. So let’s look at the ways we can make the bad habit difficult, easier for us.

Typically replacing a good habit with a bad habit is a lot easier than breaking a habit all together. We want to replace the behaviour with something new.

Instead of buying junk food on your next grocery visit, you can add healthy snack alternatives to your list and shop around the aisles avoiding the junk all together. (Bonus tip: go grocery shopping when you’re already full!)

Personally, if it’s not already in the house, I’m not interested in going out to get it. But if it’s in the house… well will power isn’t going to cut it when the craving hits.

The best way to lock in a new habit is to automate it.

For example if you want to start saving more money, you can set up an autopay or auto transfer into a savings account. This is perfect because it only requires your action one time, and then it keeps working for you in the background.

Another one time choice example is investing in a better quality mattress for better sleep. This automates your future habits and delivers increasing returns over time (p.176)

There are a lot of different tools that can help us automatically track our habits which are also really helpful.

For example, my OURA Ring tracks an abundance of things and tells me about my daily readiness, sleep, and activity scores.

Your phone, Apple Watch, Fitbit, and OURA ring will also track your steps. The bluetooth water bottle I have tracks how much water I drink every day. Meditation apps, language learning apps, I mean… you probably can open your phone right now and I’m certain a handful of the apps that are tracking your progress in some way.

If there are apps you’re already using, or one time choices you’ve made to support you with your new positive habits, I’d love to hear about them! Share them with me on instagram @vallavignelife

[28:38] The 4th Law: Make it Satisfying

Alright friends, we’ve reached the final law of James Clear’s 4 Laws of Behaviour Change. The fourth law is Make it Satisfying.

This relates to the reward of the habit loop. The reward is what we crave! One of the key points in this chapter is that “we are more likely to repeat a behaviour when the experience is satisfying.” (p.193)

Makes a lot of sense doesn’t it!

“The human brain has evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over delayed rewards.” (p.193) This information is very important and useful to building our new habits because it reminds us to create the simplest path toward our habit goal.

Questions that come to mind for me are:

What is the most direct path to satisfaction?

What are ways I currently feel satisfied with habits I’m already proud of?

How can I experience satisfaction quicker in an effort to get me closer to the bigger goal?

Clear also states “The Cardinal Rule of Behaviour Change [is]: What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided. To get a habit to stick, you need to feel immediately successful – even if it’s in a small way.”

Understanding the ways in which you feel satisfied, rewarded, and successful will help you create lasting change. Use the methods that are already working for you to get you to where you want to be.

We all have different cravings, different goals, different rewards. Knowing your own can make all the difference in your journey!

When we use the first three laws of behaviour change – make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy – we actually increase the odds that the behaviour will be performed at that moment. The fourth law – make it satisfying – increases our odds that we’ll repeat the habit.

And remember what makes a new behaviour a habit? Repetition!

As we go through this together it might feel repetitive, or obvious. I get it. You might be thinking “duh Val we know these things about habit forming, we listen to your podcast.”

Cool! I’m so grateful that you’re listening AND paying attention. And honestly these reminders are important. YES! Creating new habits is simple. But they’re much easier to not do.

Lots of our bad habits are satisfying. That’s why we do them all the time; again and again.

And I’m not saying that to make us feel guilty about it. It’s the facts. Now we have to choose what we want now for what we want most.

Do we want to keep smoking? Binge eating? Procrastinating? Being lazy? Continuing with the negative self-talk? Etc. etc.

I guess that’s for each one of us to answer on our own.

One of the ways we can make our new habits satisfying is to track and measure our progress. Knowing that we’re achieving or accomplishing something, knowing that we’re making progress is one of the most satisfying feelings.

Super easy and super simple: use a habit tracker to measure your progress. Also easy, mark an X or a checkmark on a calendar and watch how your progress grows. These visual forms of measurement are great forms of evidence and super satisfying.

In the Elevate Your Life Healthy Habit Challenge, everyone is provided with a 21 day tracker that they can easily share to their instagram stories or reels. Some use the tracker, and some create stories of their progress with little videos of themselves doing the actual habit.

Another powerful part of the 21 days challenge is that, because of the energy of the group, we’re committed to getting back on track. Even if we miss a day. In Atomic Habits, Clear recommends never missing two days in a row, and if you miss one, get back on track as quickly as possible!

[32:42] Inversion of the 4th Law: Make it Unsatisfying

The inversion of the fourth law is Make it Unsatisfying.

“We are less likely to repeat a habit if it is painful or unsatisfying.” (p.210) SImilar to our desires, what we find painful or unsatisfying will be different for each of us.

For example, when I was growing up my grandparents lived with us and helped take care of my siblings and I when our parents were at work. Since I was a baby my grandfather was really sick. I remember he used an oxygen tank 24/7 to help him with his breathing. The ambulance came to our house sometimes and would take my grandpa to the hospital and year after year the doctors would say “this might be your last chance to see your grandfather.”

For ten years (maybe more) he was in and out of the hospital. And even though we were grateful that he came home each time, his quality of life was low. He needed lots of support from machines, medication, my grandmother and my dad. When we were little and would ask our parents – and my grandpa – “Why is he so sick?” they replied with, “Because he smoked cigarettes his whole life.”

Seeing this challenging quality of life for my grandfather made the habit of smoking so unsatisfying for me – and that’s the polite term I’m going to use for it.

As I got older, people I met who smoked asked me why I didn’t like it so much and I told them, “My grandfather died of lung cancer from smoking.” Sometimes they would reply with some story about someone they knew who was old and a smoker and “fine.” But I didn’t care. Just like they didn’t care that they were poisoning themselves with cigarettes.

My now partner used to smoke before we met and quit about a year before our first date. What he used to do every single day he now finds repulsive.

I asked him one of the things that helped him, and he said a big one was not going outside with other people who smoked. Having people in your life who hold you accountable can be really helpful toward changing and transforming your habits.

With the 1:1 Make a Habit Mentorship program I offer, this is one of the biggest impacts for the client. Knowing that in 1-2 weeks we’re going to have another conversation, or knowing that tomorrow I’ll be popping in on Voxer to hold them accountable and ask them how it’s going for them.

How can you make your bad habits unsatisfying?

Who can you reach out to to hold you accountable?

Could you post on your social media that you’re making a change so that more people see and ask you about your progress?

One of the members of the Healthy Habit Membership shared a blog post series about her morning routine and the changes and updates through her progress. It’s helpful for yourself to journal through the transition, and also helpful for others to read, perhaps as they begin or continue with their own personal growth journey.

[36:03] Speaking of personal growth. I would love to invite you to grab the free Build Better Habits Guide – I shared it earlier in the show and I wanted to talk about it one more time.

You can download it to your device and fill in the workbook directly on your device, no printer needed! It’s the PERFECT starting point for your habit journey.

If you’re looking to work with me deeper, the challenge, the membership, the 1:1 coaching are all incredible options depending on where you’re at. If you’re not sure… you can contact me and we can have a chat to see what the best fit is for you!

Connect with me through www.valerielavignelife.com/contact !

Dear friend, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. Next week’s episode is our last of the year, and it’s our Holiday Party/Best of 2022!

Join me in a countdown episode of the best episodes of the year!

Podcast Host

Valerie LaVigne

Valerie is the creator and founder of Valerie LaVigne Life and the Women's Empowerment Show. She helps busy and empowered women create healthy habits so that they can become the best version of themselves and transform their lives. Learn more about Valerie here!