Build Meaningful, Sustainable Habits | James Clear
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2020
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week’s conversation is with James Clear, a writer and speaker focused on habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement.
He is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Atomic Habits.
His work has appeared in Entrepreneur magazine, Time magazine, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and on CBS This Morning.
His website, jamesclear.com, receives millions of visitors each month and hundreds of thousands subscribe to his popular email newsletter.
So why do habits matter?
We all have tons of habits, things like signing your name or knocking on the door, ringing the doorbell, tying your shoes or unplugging the toaster after each use... but how do we build more important or meaningful routines around things that really matter to us?
For James, it starts with choosing what you want to optimize for and the type of identity that you want to reinforce, the type of person you want to become.
So in this conversation, we dive into some best practices for habit development and how to create a system that is organized toward the outcome you desire.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Progress and improvement are much more about trajectory than position. |
| 0:05.0 | We talk a lot about position in life. |
| 0:07.5 | What is the number on the scale? |
| 0:09.0 | What is the number on the bank account? |
| 0:10.5 | You know, like where am I currently standing? Am I in first place or am I in seventh place |
| 0:15.3 | but this argument is much more about trajectory it's like actually you know if you have a |
| 0:20.8 | positive trajectory if you're moving up into the right if you're getting 1% better each day |
| 0:25.2 | All you need is patience like if you have good habits all you your time is your ally all you need is for you know time to keep working for you |
| 0:32.8 | But if you have bad habits, be getting 1% worse each day, |
| 0:35.7 | or you're staying kind of stuck in neutral, |
| 0:38.2 | time becomes your enemy. |
| 0:39.4 | You know, every day that clicks by, |
| 0:40.7 | you dig the whole little bit deeper. |
| 0:42.3 | And so it's much more about |
| 0:43.6 | mastering your trajectory than your position it's much more about getting 1% better than |
| 0:48.2 | you know trying to have some magical outcome on day one. Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm Michael Jervay and by |
| 1:07.6 | trade and training I am a sport and performance psychologist and the whole idea |
| 1:11.8 | behind these conversations is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery |
| 1:16.7 | to better understand what they're searching for |
| 1:20.5 | how they organize their inner life, their psychological framework if you will. |
| 1:25.0 | We want to understand how do they use their mind to become their very best |
| 1:30.0 | and possibly even master the skill that they've dedicated their life efforts to work. |
... |
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