This is the 10% Happier Podcast.

I'm Dan Harris.

Hello, my fellow suffering beings.

How are we doing? Today, we are coming back to what is for many of us a diabolically difficult challenge. How to overcome inertia and create habits that actually stick. In other words, how to get motivated. The good news is this is something that has been studied quite extensively.

And we've got a world leading expert today on the science of motivation alongside a world-changing

innovator who's helped come up with a plan, a program that has gotten hundreds of thousands of

people off the couch and on their feet. So we've got two guests today who are really just made

in a lab to help you get your shit together and get motivated. We talk about the approaches that

research suggests actually work in this regard. These include starting small, having social

support, finding your why, and tracking slash celebrating your progress.

Although, big asterisk here, you want to do all of this without getting too obsessive,

and my guests have some really good thoughts about how to manage that.

Sad guests are Dr. Gary Bennett and T. Morgan Dixon.

Just a little bit about them before we dive in here. Dr. Gary G. Bennett is the dean of the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences at Duke University. He's a professor of psychology and neuroscience, global health, medicine, and nursing, and is the founding director of the Duke Digital Health Science Center. He's authored more than 200 scientific papers and is a past president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. In other words, this is a guy who knows what he's talking about. My other guest is T. Morgan Dixon, who's an amazing human being. She's the leader of Girl Trek, the largest health movement in America for black women with over a million members.

I think you're going to love her.

This is, by the way, the penultimate episode in our month-long Get Fit Sainly series,

which is all about one of life's most difficult and delicate dynamics,

how to take care of your body without losing your mind.

This episode first dropped, by the way, last year, but we're pulling it out of the vault

because it's the perfect button for this month-long series.

We've given you lots of information about gut health, about muscle strength, about how to get more rest,

and this episode is designed to help you choose the stuff you want to act on and get after it.

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