If you walk into most any gym and peek at their membership records, you'll find a telling pattern.

Nearly 15% of all memberships start in January. By the time June rolls around, a staggering 80% of these aspiring gym rats will have hung up their towels.

80%.

Why didn't their resolution stick?

I think it's because they never figured out how to turn their aspirations into habits.

Friends, I refuse to let that happen to you, which is why today we're resharing one

of my all-time favorite interviews, a conversation I had with James Clear about his book,

Atomic Habits. He serves up easy, proven strategies that you can use to build good habits

and break bad ones. Easy because they start with small incremental steps. That's what makes them

atomic. A quick fact check before we dive in. When I spoke to James

at the end of 2023, his book had sold 15 million copies. So that's the number I cited at the

beginning of the episode. Today, however, it's over 20 million. I cannot express how astonishing

that is. The old man in the sea hasn't sold that many copies.

Though I can't say I'm completely surprised because of the countless books I read over the years,

atomic habits is among the two or maybe three most useful, most concretely actionable.

I've applied James's techniques to my life over the last year.

I think about his advice almost every week,

and the results have been measurable, significant,

cumulatively, as advertised, life-changing.

Hopefully this conversation will have the same effect on you.

Thank you. I'm Rufus Griscombe, and this is Next Big Idea Classics.

Today, the secret to building good habits and breaking bad ones. It's a new year, folks, and this year, we're going to try something a little different on the show.

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