How to Set Goals and Create Healthy Habits in 2025

Well, it's that time of year again, Drew. You know what time it is? What time is it? It is it is time. It is that time that we do every roughly 365 days where we Are betrarily decide that this is the time that we're finally gonna change something about ourselves And then we sit and we obsess and we get really excited and we write down a bunch of goals and then by February we We're back to snacking on the couch and watching love is blind reruns. Right. And maybe I'm just speaking for myself I don't know about you There you go, checks out. It's the subtle art of not giving a fuck podcast with your host Mark Manson Are you ready for this time? Are you excited for this yet another new year new you special? I do like a fresh start. I do and maybe that's just because of the novelty of it or whatever But I do appreciate the fresh starts. Yeah. Yeah. I will say my evolution with new years or new year new you It's changed. You know when I was younger I was very cynical about it. I was like this is stupid You should be able to change your life any time of the year. You don't need a specific date But I do think there is some some sort of value to the ritual of hey first week of January Let's sit down assess your life. What's working? What's not? I think that's the whole reason we have holidays, right? Is that they are reminders for us to check in on certain things or topics about ourselves? So I in my older age I've mellowed a bit and I've I've come around to come around. Okay. Good. Well, that's good because It's January 1st in and we have to do another fucking new year new you Was it so I think was you avoid you you compared this like the self-help industry This is like our Christmas album You have to do something on January 1st. It is impossible not to because it's just it's especially now that I've been in this Industry for like 16 years like I'm like, uh, it's another January 1st. Oh god We need to like what are we gonna promote this year? What's our new like pdf for special recourse or whatever like every year It's something right right so this year you guys get a podcast It's no longer a blog post right now, which isn't which is the sack of coal equivalent of the The sack of coal equivalent. I mean it's just a podcast People are probably gonna listen to 20 different new years podcast through You know trying to set their goals or anything so okay Well, we'll do our part right. We will uh, we will check in you know last year you and I made new years resolutions And then we did a check-in in June. I'm curious yours was sleep better. Yeah. You were currently under slept Honestly, the year went pretty well last night did not know well So if we if we step back to take the force for the trees. I have improved my sleep habits Well, I set a goal to run a marathon and I quit by March. You're turned by March. Yeah. I think I was I was like that the typical New Year's resolution Candidate for the last year, but I like what we're doing this year. So what we're doing today is actually I've never been a huge new year resolution guy. I'm saying longtime listeners and readers know I I think most of the value of goals is just that they get you to do something It's like the goal itself isn't really that important So it won't surprise people that I've never been huge on big new years resolutions What I've always liked to do is I've like to set a theme for the year of like This year I'm focusing on X and to focus on X these are like the two or three modest changes or Goals that I have throughout the year. Uh, so today instead of doing the fuck of the week We're doing fuck of the year the fuck of the year. What is our fuck of the year? What is it? What is either the thing that we want to give more fucks about or give fewer fucks about and why and then we'll talk about What the repercussions of those things are so so do you want to kick us off? I fuck it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Mine is perfectionism Okay, and this is a lifelong battle and 2025 is my year to finally slay this drag and I think okay, I think How are you gonna go about doing that? Well um first of all what I did is I kind of took an inventory of like how much how perfectionism is kind of like fucking up my life or there's areas where I'm like I don't really pay attention to but I'm like if you weren't so perfectionist about this you probably do a little bit better on that sure So I kind of took an inventory first of that. What are some of those things? Yeah, well, I mean first of all The big one I've noticed over years and years now is that perfectionism just leads to more paralysis around taking any sort of action for me I have that kind of perfection. There's a few different flavors of perfectionism the one I have is uh kind of leads to that anyway and When you want everything to be perfect, you just don't even start on things sometimes or you get a little bit started on them And then you're just like I gotta wait and let this like be a little bit more perfect in my life and that's just I can't keep doing that. Yeah, because you end up spending your wheels or I got like 10 projects that I start that I don't finish Yeah, that's sort of things. So yeah, that's a big one. So what's your What's your plan of attack here? What is what what are you? Well, tangibly going to change. Yeah, so so the The thing I've learned especially if I'm like doing this podcast is like how like would you just don't you Can't get it perfect. You won't get it perfect And so accepting being more accepting around that and just trying more things and like failing in public That's kind of that's kind of going to be a big part of this I think too. It's just be like well you done plenty of that One of that done plenty of that but just being a little bit more open about things with people too And just be like hey, I'm planning on doing this and knowing that I mean I'm not even for the social pressure I think a lot of people do that for like oh, it's gonna be a social pressure, but just be like letting people kind of knock in on some more of like my plans because I usually keep pretty private about things Yeah, because of the fear of like oh, if I tell somebody this and I don't know it It's gonna look really bad and it'll be imperfect, you know, is there a fear of criticism or judgment? Oh 100% yeah, okay I'm yeah, I think that's a big part of my perfectionism too. Okay, I fear that yeah, okay. Yeah, so Being more open about plans Being more okay with things not going great like how are you gonna keep yourself accountable? Yeah, so that's easy to ask you about this because this is kind of wishy-washy a little bit like abstract Sure, how do you take something that is more abstract like that and you have this? I mean just in general what we're doing here is more yeah, we're saying we're not gonna say resolutions We're gonna have these themes. Well, that's pretty abstract. So how do we make that more concrete? Well, I think I think it's useful When I approach this stuff I always like think of the theme or the issue that you want to attack perfectionism is in your case, right? And it's like The thing about stuff like this as well is you've struggled with perfectionism your entire life You're not gonna get rid of it in a year right like the place you want to get to it is where it's Manageable and so the goal is almost isn't necessarily to get rid of perfectionism. It's to develop tools and habits and behaviors that allow you to manage your own perfectionism. So what I would look for is You know identify common situations where perfectionism fucks you over and then develop a plan of action of like Okay, in that situation in the future or this year. I'm gonna do this other thing instead, right? So you know broadcasting decisions I would get very very clear on like okay, where that has Tripped you up in the past and where you've been afraid to kind of express your plans or your ambitions or your motivations like get get really clear on I'm gonna share this with people in this context. So before I do this sort of thing, I'm going to Shoot a message to my friends or my family or my siblings or whatever and be like, hey, this is what I have planned and and Make that commitment to include that the next time these situations come up And I think it's it's probably useful to find like two or three situations like that and create those very tangible action plans Because yeah, if you kind of just go through the year, I'll wish you washy of like I want to be less perfectionist than As we all know it kind of you kind of don't really change. So you so you have to like Whittle it down to the actual behaviors that you're gonna modify And again, I think the goal shouldn't be to get rid of the perfectionism. It should be to find courses of action that help mitigate or compensate for the perfectionism. Yeah, the outcomes of it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense like damage control Okay, mostly so I'll create an example and and I don't think you have a problem with this But let's say let's say that you Were struggling with perfectionism like within our our business the podcast, right? It's like every time I ask you for a podcast outline. It shows it like It's crickets like nothing shows up and it's because you're just obsessing over all this stuff and Let's say that that was a consistent problem. What I would do is I would I would create a Like an agreement with yourself or even communicate it to me And be like I'm all I'm gonna sit when I think it's 75% done I just have to send it tomorrow no matter what and communicate it say like hey heads up This is only 75% done, but this is where I'm at. This is the direction I'm heading and that's just an example You know, you could apply it to a lot of other things too like I'm trying to think like if you're a perfectionist about Uh Shit now I'm blanking like what another perfectionist. What's another area that it fucks you up? I think any sort of like personal project Outside of work right now that I'm like, I should like start to I don't know a newsletter or something like that. I just sat on my Just like no, I'm not gonna do that, you know, yeah, and for for I - The procrastination around it is palpable too. It's just like, oh, this hurts, and I just need to stop thinking about it. It's way avoided that way. So I don't know, more personal projects that have some sort of, or at least what I see is a big component of myself worth wrapped up in them. For whatever reason though, with work, and I think part of it is just working alongside you where you're pushing it along. You're like, no, let's go, let's get this going. So that helps accountability wise for me. I need that kind of like external accountability, I think. Do you have other people in your life that are like that? So for instance, we've talked about this before. I am like an anti-perfectionist. I am just like fucking ship it, whatever. It's a mess. Let's figure out how to fix it as like, let's build the ship as we, as we sail. And it's funny because I found that I naturally end up with a lot of perfectionists around me too. Yeah, but it's funny because it works both ways, right? Like it's, it's, like I help the perfectionists in my life because I just like force them to ship. And the perfectionists help me because they help me like slow down and be like, well, wait, we could probably fix this thing really quickly or well, maybe actually you want to like, yeah. Address that before you go any further. Like I know that's, it's been true in my work career, but it's also like in my personal life, like my wife's a huge perfectionist. And I see that dynamic play out there as well. Do you have people in other areas of your life that are like that? Yeah, I think so. There's, I mean, I have a pretty supportive network of people who support me either way and offer good criticism too, I think at the same time. So yeah, leaning on that might be a big thing for me. Yeah, seeking those people out and then like really leveraging them as well. My fuck of the year is related. You'll get a kick out of this. I know. So I am very good at, you can almost look at not giving a fuck in like two different dimensions. The first one is kind of the classic, like, not worrying about the things that don't really matter to you. And I think I'm excellent at that. Like there's a handful of things that I care about in my life and I'm really good at focusing on those and caring a lot about them. And then the things that are not within that small little sphere, it's kind of dead to me. Like I don't really, I don't lose any sleep over it. Within that sphere, I am definitely and you have experienced this directly within the sphere of the things I give a fuck about. I think I'm a little bit obsessive and a little bit of a control freak. (laughing) I knew you'd enjoy this. I knew you'd, you'd, you'd, you'd really get it. I'll let you finish. You're the benefit co-host for this episode. And as you know, so the team's growing. There's a lot more people on the team, which means I need to like delegate and trust people, like get things done and not metal as much. But also, like, as listeners are gonna discover, we're doing a lot of new things this year. - Yeah. - Like my business is gonna change a lot over the next six, eight months. And in many ways, by 2026, like my career's gonna look very different than it does today. And that's terrifying. I am definitely discovering that there's a certain amount that I just need to let go and let it happen. Like try not to, part of this too is controlling the audience's perception of me. Like I am, I think I've been a little bit too worried over the years of like, well, we can't really do that 'cause that's like not a Mark Manson thing and it doesn't really fit with the brand. And, you know, it's like all these people, they don't wanna hear that. Like I've worried a little bit too much about that or maybe it wasn't too much, but I think at this point in my career, I'm older, you know, the books are six, eight years old. It's time to move on to another phase of my career. And I think that moving on or that transition into like whatever the next version of my career is, it means letting go. It's like, okay, a large percentage of my fans, my audience are gonna hate the next thing I do. I need to live with that and not try to like protect it and cuddle everything and, you know, go the same way that it's always gone because I think in a creative field, that's just, that's death, you know, if you're not evolving and changing. So it's, I see it on two fronts. I see it as the team grows and expands. I need to relinquish a little bit of control and trust some of you guys to, you know, handle it and not meddle in everything. And then, but also as I move into this next phase of my career, not worry so much that not everything is gonna be loved or adored by all the people. - You said it's terrifying. What about it is terrifying? - It's the loss of version. Like it's, it's, oh, yes. It is, it feels good to create something and put it out there and have a lot of people like it. It feels really good to get all that attention and, you know, people get really excited over it. The feeling of, let's say the feeling of pleasing 10,000 people is like, it's a very nice feeling. The feeling of pissing off 10,000 people is like five times worse, at least. It feels five times worse than pleasing 10,000 people feels good. And so I think what happens with people like me who have been doing what they do for a very long time and have built a very large audience, kind of doing the same sort of thing for a long time is you get complacent, right? It's like, well, I can just, it's kind of like the rock band that just keeps playing the same hit from like 1989. So it's safe and you know it's gonna be a crowd pleaser, but you're also, it's also not as creatively satisfying. And I think you have that personality for that, which is like you need to keep trying new things and doing different things. I get bored. And pissing people off too. Totally. That's part of it. I get bored easily and I've definitely felt there's been a really strong tension in my career probably last three, four or five years of like, I wanna do something new, I wanna do something different, I wanna try something, something novel. But man, if I just keep churning out the fucks, the whole not give a fuck to it, like it's just, it's just safe and comfortable and everybody likes it and it's what people know me for and it's been hard to leave that comfort zone. It's become a comfort zone, which is odd because I think the reason it did so well 10 years ago is because it was outside of everybody's comfort zone. Right, and now it is the comfort zone. And so now I need to like push outside of the comfort zone again, which means trying new things and maybe doing some things that people don't love as much, which my goal this year is to let go of control. Okay. Well, I think we can help keep you accountable then too. Oh, I just thought of something. We should have a safe word, I think. For when Mark is being too controlling. We team safe word. Yeah, I don't know, banana or whatever you know. Like, I don't know, something like that and we can call you out on that. Sure. I'm in. Okay. I mean, we'll come up with something. Okay. I'm nervous, just talking about this. I've like, my palms are sweaty. Yeah, it's a really bad extent right now, yeah? Yeah. I didn't, I mean, I didn't realize up until like, probably the last couple of years of how much of that, because when it was just small, it was just a few of us, you know, we all kind of had our own little area and you could kind of pull the strings from wherever you need it. Totally. Yeah, but it's a very different piece now. Yeah. When it was just three or four of us, it's easy because it's just, it's like all of us talked about everything. So it didn't feel intrusive, it didn't feel taxing on me. You know, now we have 12, 13 people. So if I'm worrying about every, if I'm hearing about every little problem that's going on with all 12 or 13 people, I will get nothing else done the entire day. Yeah. And I will be stressed the entire day, right? So it's, there have to be boundaries. And at some point, it's like, hey, this is your problem or this is her problem or this is that guy's problem. It's not my problem. It only becomes my problem if it like, clears certain thresholds. Okay. You know, that it's worth bringing to my attention. So some of that is just like business management stuff. But it's, I think the emotional experience and the thing that I'm working on is just the letting go of control. Like, you know, I don't get to always determine what the outcome is in everything in my life. And this is true, by the way, in other, like other things that I care about in my life, like I also could probably do with back and off a little. Back and off a little. Yeah, like I'm, I'm just all in or all out. Okay, that's just my personality. Yeah, I'm, it's, I don't, I have no chill mode. Okay. (laughs) We'll see how this one goes. You, I just, from my perspective, you've hired a very competent team that there's, I don't think there's anybody on the team who can't handle what you've assigned them to do in any way. So you're a little biased, but that's true. That's true. Also, we need to talk about a pay raise. I'm sure. Oh, God, here it comes. Here it comes. No, no, no, okay, I'm excited to see how this goes, yeah, yeah, so there we go. All right, we'll be right back All right, we're back with another Edition of brilliant or bullshit. What are we talking about today? This one Mark? You're gonna have to keep me on the rails today All right, oh boy evolution gave us our purpose in life Data evolution give us our purpose in life. Okay, so there's so many more. There's this study It's called surviving and thriving the fundamental social motives provide purpose in life It's by these two researchers out of Arizona state Essentially what they do first. Let's first provide a definition a nerdy psychological definition of yes purpose in life Or please because they that's important here purpose in life as Psychologist to find it is a sense that one has a direction meaning and significance in their life Okay, some sort of okay, it involves long-term goals Basically like you have direction in your life essentially as well. Okay now where we've typically in the past Derived meaning purpose in our lives is from outer sources like you know the divine Religion that sort of thing but what they say is that actually evolution probably gave us The pathway for having a purpose in our life. Okay logically right from a general evolutionary perspective Okay You should actually have some sense of well-being in your life if you are doing things that would Increase your quote-unquote reproductive fitness right passing your genes on to the next absolutely and that can involve that's not just like sex You know already like that but that can involve relationships anything in direct ways of doing that too helping other people Right status in your life Getting social status is in some way affiliating with other people to keep you safe in a group that sort of thing Yeah, that they say should drive purpose in life. Okay, but nobody's ever really tested this before and so they tested it out. Okay, all right And how did they test it? Yeah, so the methods of this it's a it's a kind of an exploratory study Okay, okay, the methods of this study I'm gonna say are like I'm not gonna call them bullshit because I think they knew that they're like Okay, this is exploratory kind of like for goodness up Basically, they have people come in and they're like okay, right about different things in your life And they give them different inventories how much purpose do you feel in your life in this area that area right about the things that You think would give you more purpose or meaning in your life And then they kind of analyze those put them into buckets and figure out what people are okay Okay, so it is pretty subjective By a lot of terms and in a lot of ways right, but I think it's getting they're starting to get at something This is kind of the foundational exploratory research they have to do in order to get to the next stage I Oh, man, I have really Like mixed feelings about this. Okay. Okay. Well hold on hold on. Okay, so I think it's a little both but keep going probably probably That's what we always do on the time come on But all right, I can take the bullshit round on Finish so the the specific Social motives what they're calling social motives which are these evolved Drives that we have in social settings. They're saying that they've they they found Self-protection just like keeping yourself safe in a physical environment Avoiding disease made acquisition. Yeah, you know find it somebody to get naked with right. Yeah, mate retention So if you're already in a relationship Retaining like getting around. Yeah, the relationship maintenance What they call affiliation basically just social connection and having friend group that sort of thing Kin care so caring either for children or just other people in your family And then the last one is status to achieving some sort of social standing irrespect within a social hire Archie So they found evidence for all of those things if you if you engage in behaviors that increase those in your life You have a higher sense of a more an increase sense of purpose in your life and direction you have a direction in your life By engaging in the these types of behaviors. Okay, and we can pick apart one of those There's one in particular I want to dive into with but first let me get your reactions I I feel like this is so and there's a lot of Particularly evolutionary psychology. Yeah. You see this a lot. I think I know you want this There's a lot of circular like thinly veiled circular reasoning that happens Which is and in this case, it's essentially like hey, we have this term purpose. We're gonna define it as Feeling a sense of direction or feeling like there's something in our future that's gonna make us feel good or be happy So let's take all the things that people feel is in their future is gonna make them feel happy Let's measure those things. Oh my god. Look at correlates with purpose. Right the way we decided to define our key metric like it feels like they're just It's like Yeah, it's it's a little bit Mastable masturbatory Intellectually, you know like it's and but That said I do it makes sense to me that a sense of purpose, you know much like pleasure much like happiness like I these are all kind of Psychological levers or evolutionary levers that we probably evolve to help us do Behaviors and actions that help our reproductive status. It's like it is by definition It makes sense. So yeah, I think there's a little bit of voodoo going. I'm not the irony here I think I agree with their hypothesis. I agree that like a sense of purpose is probably something that we evolved To get us to do things to increase our our survival and our reproduction. Well, okay, but let's take that point right there Yes, okay, which you would you agree with? Yes, okay, and I think the the kind of the conclusion of the study they make Is that or at least one that I took away was we often have these like oh, I need to find my purpose in life I need to go out and I need to Some grand thing I need to be a writer or I need to be an artist or yeah That kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, and they're saying actually what you need for direction and purpose in your life is to like do the things that humans do. Yeah You know, I like totally like like the three biggest ones they found to but the three strongest relationships they found to were Affiliations so friends and social relationships. Yeah working on those Kincare what they call kincare so taking care of people in your family or you know Whatever you consider your family necessarily the last one was status to actually which I found interesting people actually derive some sort of Sense of well-being from stat like seeking and and Status within their social groups. Yeah, interestingly though. They they're like okay. There's other there's other research out there saying when you seek status This doesn't work that it actually ends up with a lot of bad outcomes negative outcomes. Sure But what they found was it's more like seeking social status within your social hierarchy in socially positive ways. Okay All right, so like one one What do you laugh on? Okay, I When I'm standing out loud sure it sounds really obvious, but I think the again the larger point is yeah is that there's like these really basic things That I think we can turn to you don't have to like change the World so as you know, I totally agree with that yeah that I think people overlook especially in this day and age people and I think this would be a nice explanation of like why A sense of a lack of of purpose seems to be epidemic at the moment and I think it's because people just overestimate How high the bar is to feel a sense of purpose which 100% with you there Absolutely, it's it's a sense of purpose is is not found. It's generated right just doing a bunch of basic Things that improve your life one step at a time hanging out with friends and family Getting a little bit better at your job getting a little bit healthier. You know, it's it's all incremental improvements So that I'm with you there like Dispelling that kind of illusion of of what purpose is but Yeah, I guess I guess it's one of those I I'm just kind of like having this like we'll sew what like obviously right maybe maybe We got a reaction to Robert Green's episode Remember Robert Green's episode where he talks about your life task. Yes, and there were some there was some reactions in the comments and people you'll mail in and saying Well, that would be really nice to you know Usually the language they would use us that'd be really nice to pursue my passion. Yeah, but right now, you know I'm just trying to put food on the table or something like that. Sure, right and I mean, I my response is He didn't say what you're like you need to find your passion. He said you need to find your life Task yeah, sometimes your life task also. It's given to you. You don't gonna choose it Yeah, you don't necessarily like it all the time right and so if if you if you are somebody who is struggling Yeah, financially or whatever it is That's like a safety issue. You need to take care of that. Your life's task at that moment. It's not about your passion Yeah, it's about security like having some sort of security which is a basic need that we all have yes You know, I mean it slips into like maslow's hierarchy of needs and all that kind of thing But the larger point I think is that there are really just some of these basic human drives that we have to fulfill and it's not I don't it's just not this pie in the sky. We need to all find our quote-unquote passion. Yeah I definitely think the passion thing gets overrated. I think people can like overestimate What is required to feel a sense of purpose in their lives? I have a okay. I have a little bit of a hair brain theory You mentioned religion how people traditionally would find purpose through religion I've got a little bit. I made this argument in my second book. I I think it still holds So we're talking about purpose, a feeling of purpose is ultimately feeling a sense of direction, feeling a sense of things are improving in some way, that your action is bearing fruit in the future in some shape or form. And my second book I described as hope, like a vision of a better future that is tangible and possible for yourself. For most of human history, most people's actions had absolutely no bearing on the quality of their own future. There were no opportunities. Things didn't really get better. There was no economic growth. There was no job growth. There was no, like, people were hungry and impoverished and insecure their entire lives and nothing changed that no matter what they did. Which is why you needed religion to provide a vision of a positive or better future, right? It's like your whole life is shit. If you're like a random peasant and say the ninth century, right, your entire life is shit and nothing you say or do is ever going to improve the fact that it's shit. But if you believe in this religion, the religion offers you promises and visions of a better future in this case an afterlife. And as long as you stay focused on that religion, that positive afterlife is guaranteed to you. And so it makes sense that from that, it drives a lot of sense of direction and purpose and fulfillment. These days, I think there's probably still a little bit of that, you know, like religion correlates very strongly with life satisfaction and psychological well-being and all that. There might still be some of that left over. These days, I think the reason religion probably correlates so well with all these like psychological outcomes is because of what this paper is saying. Is that generally people who are religious and they're involved in their local religious communities, they have a strong network of friends. They feel like they're part of a community. They've got a little bit of social status among that community. They are able to meet mates. They're able to maintain those relationships. It's like all these basic nuts and bolts things that people struggle with in the 21st century. Old school religious communities actually do those things very, very well. So there's even like, you know, I guess dogma around health and, you know, taking care of them being safe and just in your physical environment, too. But I do think, I mean, the point you make about how purpose isn't necessarily, and I guess this is why it's a useful metric aside from just like happiness or fulfillment or something, but like purpose isn't always pleasant. It's not always fun. It's not, even the status thing, like I kind of smirk that that caveat about like, well, positive social status, I think that's bullshit. I think it's just social status. Like it's, it's, you can feel a great sense of purpose from building up your own social status to the detriment of others. Like that's, purpose doesn't have to be a pro social thing all the time. It can be, but it doesn't have to be, right? Like you can feel a lot of purpose, you know, trying to earn a million bucks and buy yourself a mansion or something. Right. Well, there are a lot of people who derive a lot of purpose out of materialistic things like that. So like all those things like happiness as well, you know, you can be happy doing terrible shit. So, you know, the happiness purpose, like they aren't necessarily good in and of themselves. They are psychological tools that you need to leverage one way or the other. Like ethics is another question in my opinion. Okay. Anyway, sorry for shooting on the, yeah, sorry for shooting on the circularity of the definitions, but it just like, I don't know, like I've just read so many evolutionary psych things over the years that it's like we're, we have an evolutionary mandate to behave in XYZ fashion. So we're going to take, we're going to take this term and we're going to define it as pursuing XYZ. Oh my god, look at all correlates to each other. Like, well, yeah, of course it does. Okay. Because we're all just kind of theorizing here. That's true. It's very much like abstract in the mind. You can run these experiments in your own head and come to whatever you want. I do, I do agree with that. I do agree with that. The larger point I think I wanted to make was in this new year, when you're going out in your setting goals and you're trying to find some sort of direction in your life, yeah, it's probably right in front of you. It's not, yes, you don't need to go out and, you know, reinvent the wheel here. We have it right in front of you. Small, incremental improvements will take you much further than maybe that's cheesy, but I think it's, you know, it's true. I mean, it's, it's boring so it gets overlooked. Yeah. It's not, it's not the big sexy, you know, complete life makeover that people dream about or that you see on television, but it's, you know, those small one percent, two percent improvements each month. That's, that's the real shit. I'll say too, okay, that the, the host, the status thing, the one thing that kind of clicked for me in this was that I do this in my friend group and my social group that I have, and I've talked about this before, is my, my status is gained through, through helping. Like, I've, I've virtue signal before that I'm so helpful, you know, with my friends, whatever. But like, I've noticed that and I think that is within my, like, friend group, like, I'm the helpful one, you know, I'll be there for you that kind of thing. Everybody else has their own thing too. And there's not really a hierarchy. It's just everybody has their own little status thing that they do. And that's mine. Yeah. I make my friends beg and grovel for your attention and attention. Yes, I would hold it. I psychologically, no, I don't. Where do we land on that bullshit, but brilliant, it was okay. We should have a third option. Brilliant bullshit or it's okay. I like the, I mean, I, I, I guess I like the, the idea of it. I like the content of it. I like the general thrust of it. I understand the, the nuances where it is getting a little bit circular or could be circular. Yeah. Yeah. That's a little bit bullshit. Yeah. Okay. We punted once again. So there's a little bit of both. Yeah. Is it everything a little bit of both brilliant and bullshit? That's true. Okay. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Listening to question time. Yeah, we're talking about habits, great and good habits. Kind of on theme for the new year here. Yeah. And it's a fairly basic question that I think has a fairly complicated answer. Why is it so difficult to create good habits and do them on a regular basis, but so easy to fall into bad habits and create more of them in a very short space of time? Well, it is a perennial question. I think it's simply because most good habits are short term not fun and long term very satisfying and most bad habits are short term fun and long term very unsatisfying. That's kind of what makes them both good and bad habits. And ultimately, I think this is just a struggle, a universal struggle of every human on this planet of trying to balance your short term saddest pleasure and satisfaction with your long term interests and health and better judgment. And it's something that I think we all suck at initially and it's something we all have to learn as we go through our lives and get better at as we go through our lives. I don't think anybody has it completely like nails it every single time. So that's the why I guess the next question is the how? Yeah. So to dwell on that for just a second, there's you know, in habit science, there's like the habit loop, right? And you have the cue, then you have the behavior, then you have the reward. Okay. Charles do he did that in his book on habits. And then James Clear kind of elaborated on that for sure. And what you're saying is there's this tension between immediate and long term benefits. Right. And the reward part of that cue behavior reward with bad habits so so often comes almost immediately. So it's reinforced. It's much more easily reinforced for us. Whereas the benefits of good habits are usually long term, you know, eating healthy exercise, sleep, all of that is often delayed. And so we don't see that. So yeah, the how part that's the real question. How do we how do we shift that? Do we shift that time curve? Maybe do we? I've seen some suggestions like having a relationship with your future self like being like that sort of thing. Is there is there anything to that for you? I don't know. I I not really like I don't think about that in that context. I don't think about future and past Mark a whole lot. I mean, for me, and again, this is duehig and clear land on this as well. Like the easiest modification you can make in that loop is the cue, right? It's like just remove the cues as much as possible. So like, let's say you you're a midnight snacker, right? Like the easiest thing to do is to just get rid of the snacks in your house. Like it removes that cue. You can also figure out like what is it that makes you hungry or like what what is the the impulse for the emotion that makes you want to snack at a certain time each day. Maybe it's because you're you're eating too big of a dinner and too light of a lunch and maybe if you eat a larger lunch and a smaller dinner, like it fixes that that craving in the middle of the night. [BLANK_AUDIO] figuring out what are the impulses that are driving the bad behavior is, in my opinion, the most of it, right? Like, for me, the will power is not really a factor as much, or if you are relying on will power, then you've probably lost. It's just, yeah, it's, you're delaying the inevitable. - Yeah, there has to be some sort of like, change you have to make that because just thinking about this stuff doesn't work, obviously, right? Like, you mentioned the environmental stuff. I know for me, cleaning up my diet was just like, it was removing, I just, when I grocery shop, I don't buy junk, or I actually do a lot of delivery and pick up now, so I'm not even in the store and don't grab those. Because you're not fighting the diet challenge at the refrigerator door then, you know, you do it way ahead of time. - Yeah, if you're relying on your own decision-making constantly, plan beforehand, so that you're just not triggered in the first place, I guess. - I'm trying to think like, what else is there? - I'm like in right now. - With that, I recently, so, this is, I've always been proud, a proud non-gamer. I recently borrowed an Nintendo Switch from a friend. Okay, she wasn't using, she's a new mom and she's like, I don't got time for this, so I borrowed it just to see what I was like, oh my god, oh my god, Zelda is so far, oh man, that's such a cool game. What I found there was like, okay, I needed like, stop playing this, whatever. I unplug the thing, I'm like set it somewhere else from the TV completely, so I don't, I can't just like sit right down and do that. So that's like, you know. - In inserting those friction, inserting like strategic friction. - Strategic friction is a huge one. We in near IAL, a good friend of mine on the podcast a few months ago, and I remember he did something, which you can get these plugs. - Oh yeah, the timers. - With the timers on them. So you can put a plug, plug it into your light socket and plug a device into it, and then you can program it so that it only gives power to that device, like certain, you know, say from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. every day. So he attaches video games to that, and so it's like the PlayStation wouldn't even work until 6 p.m. every day. So it just doesn't even give him the option. Like, to change it, he has like climb under the furniture and like redo everything. So being adding friction to the things that you don't wanna do, and then also adding rewards and incentives to the things you do wanna do, again, increasing the reward of the positive habits. So this could be something like having an accountability buddy at the gym, you know, joining a class, instead of, you know, trying to exercise alone, doing a miserable workout, like pick up a sport, a game that you can play, a new hobby, you know, anything you can add on it, like we're animals, right? It's the old carrot and stick. Like we, I almost think of it as like training myself, like a dog, like I use the smarter, instead of like using your enlightened part of your mind to like fight your animalistic mind in the moment, 'cause it's probably gonna lose most of the time, use the smart enlightened part of your mind to like create and send, structure and incentives and frictions around your life, and just nudge yourself in the right direction. - See, okay, but I think a lot of people have heard these things before, and I certainly have, and I think anybody who's been really into like this, the space is self-help or, you know, self-improvement space, they've heard these things. Is that just, is that treating the symptoms a little bit? 'Cause I think it might be, because you, and you mentioned that there are these like, emotional triggers and cues that we have, and that's probably really the root of the problem. - Sure. - And addressing those long-term, I think in the short-term, those things, all those things work. They do, I know they work for me, they definitely work for me. But there's still a little bit in my mind, I'm always like, eh, you know, when that animal does rear its head, like what is actually going on? - I don't think you can even have the space to address that until you've at least modified the behavior in the short-term, right? - Ah, okay. - So like, give you an example, let's use video games as an example, right? Like if you, let's say you're binging video games, which I've done many times throughout my life, it's only until you get yourself to stop binging video games that you actually have the cognitive space to sit there and evaluate, what am I feeling in this moment? Why am I so, why am I being so compulsive around this? - Yeah, what is driving this? Is there a way that I could maybe not be so compulsive around this? Those questions, you don't even have space to deal with those questions until you've like, gotten yourself to stop to a certain extent. - That's a really good point because with the video game, my example, the video game too, I was like, okay, I just need to unplug it and set it aside. And then after that, I was like, oh, why do I need that? Why do I have to force myself to do that? And it didn't get me to thinking about that, it goes back to the perfectionism thing too. I was avoiding work because I wasn't going to be perfect. So, at all. - And the nice thing about video games is that they've actually built into the video game a clear roadmap towards perfection. So, you can collect all the items, you can beat all the bosses, you can get all the rewards and everything and max out your save file and which I love doing, man. But it's funny, it's also having good people around you to not only keep you accountable, but also just be an observer. So, like, for example, at some point and maybe six or seven years ago, I would go in these periodic video game benches and my wife pointed out to me at some point. She was like, you know, when you go into these benches, I've noticed that there's something wrong that you're not addressing. - Oh. - She noticed a correlation between my video game benches and some sort of, I don't know, issue with my family or with my work or my self-esteem or some emotional problem that I was definitely avoiding. And until it got dealt with or resolved in some way, the binge would continue. - Essentially. - Okay, yeah, I've found that to you with other, like, TV or whatever it is, 'cause I'll binge TV sometimes. - Yeah. - God, I feel awful after that. Video games don't feel as bad. Like, you're actually-- - You feel like you're accomplishing something. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So that's another lure of them, too. - For sure, for sure. - That's really good, Mark. - Yeah. - Good job. - Thanks, true. (laughing) - No, that is really helpful, I think. Because I'm like, yeah, but that's, you know, if I'm sitting here, I'm like, I really wanna get at the emotional thing. It's like, well, yeah, okay, you can get at the emotional thing. You need to stop the behavior first. - Yeah, and it's the space. - And it's, I wanna be clear, too, that the emotional thing, understanding the emotional component of the cue or the trigger, it's useful. And you can definitely soften it. But it's not like, like sometimes I feel like people get this false impression of like, well, if you just deal with the underlying emotion, then you'll never wanna binge a video game or drink alcohol or overeat midnight snacks ever again. I was like, nah, no, like, that impulse will still be there. It's just you'll have a much better understanding of what it is where it's coming from. And it will have less control over you when it shows up. - Yeah. - One other little thing I wanna talk about, too, or this though, is the idea of how good habits generally take you out of your comfort zone, right, in a way that bad habits them, bad habits, almost by definition, are like helping you into your comfort zone, into your comfort zone. Good habits, though, often, there's often a lot of friction up front, you know, going to a new gym or something like that. Like when I started yoga a couple of years ago, that was super uncomfortable, right? 'Cause it's not like, I'd never moved that way. I'd never been around, you know, a bunch of half-naked people. Like, you know, and there's all body types and everything like that in there. So anybody can feel comfortable, I felt like. But it was just very, it's just weird, too, you know? Like the language they use and all of that kind of stuff. - Yeah. - I have good habits around half-naked people. - Oh, do you, do you? (laughing) Very, very much in my comfort zone. (laughing) - I need to hang out with you more often. (laughing) - But there is that, like, initial, you know, the starting cost, basically, are higher for good habits. And I don't know if there's a way to, you just got to grind through that or what? I don't know. Same thing with like when I stopped drinking, there was actually some, some initial friction around that 'cause everybody around me. - Right, and people ask, and they, some people judge you, and some people like, come on a minute, just have one drink, yeah. - And then on top of that, too, the drinking, like, you really don't see the biggest effects for like months at a time. So that's one of those that it's like, there's all sorts of things working against you. - Well, I think there's a component here. I've called it before Meadow Emotions, which is like an emotion about an emotion, right? So, you know, going to a yoga class for the first time in your life and doing all these weird poses and hearing all these words, you don't understand. Like, yeah, it is a totally uncomfortable, awkward, strange thing. That's fine. Where a lot of people get tripped up is then how they feel about that awkwardness and discomfort, right? 'Cause a lot of people will exit that experience and they'll be like, that was so weird. I never wanna feel that again. I shouldn't have to feel something awkward, right? Like, this is supposed to be a good thing for me. Whereas some people say like, okay, that was awkward and that was difficult, but I'm really glad I did it. I'm improving, I'm learning. This is part of the process, right? Um, it's similar to when you fail a new habit, like no matter what your goal is or whatever your desired habit is, like, you're going to slip up at some point, right? You're going to eat the burger or miss the workout or whatever. Again, the meta-emotions have a huge role, like that's where they become very significant. So you miss the workout that you're supposed to do. Some people are very harsh with themselves. They judge themselves horribly. They're like, "Man, I fucked everything up. This is why I never get better. This is why I never achieve any of my goals." Whereas some people are like, "Hey, you know, it happens. Nobody's perfect. It's, this is a marathon, not a race. Let's get back on the saddle. Let's do it again next week, right?" And it's, so again, it's, "How much are you judging yourself for the inevitable discomforts and failures versus how accepting are you of yourself?" And then there's also, there's also being too accepting, right? Like it's, if you're missing every other workout and every single one, you're like, "Well, I deserve, I deserve missing this one because, you know, I worked late yesterday or, you know, oh, I deserve missing this one because next week's my birthday." Like, if you're constantly excusing yourself, then that's also a problem. So there is a emotional process around the emotions that you're experiencing, which I think takes a lot of wisdom as well. We covered a lot of that in the self-discipline episode too, so we think to that. But yeah, that's, that's a good point. Self-discipline is self-correction, but there's a balance you got to strike. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Cool. All right. Is there a wisdom of the week of the year? No. God damn it true. No, no. It's the last time I let, I'll leave you up to the outlining the episode. This will never happen again. Oh, no. See, you're in perfection. Yes. And you need to let go of control. And I'm, I really, I'm already over it. That's wise. Don't give a fuck. That's wise. So maybe that's our wisdom of the week. All right, guys. We will see you next time. The subtle art I'm not giving a podcast is produced by Drew Bernie, edited by Andrew Nishimura. Jessica Choi is our videographer and sound engineer. Thank you for listening. and we will see you next week.