Atomic Habits — Part 15

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[doge] My dad said he quit smoking when he got three 100 points in the junior high school exam. He passed the exam, but he didn’t quit smoking.
[doge]我老爸说初中考三个100他戒烟考到了但是烟没戒
Sister is really great! I bought Atomic Habits after watching my sister’s video and finished watching it in my spare time [call]
姐姐真的好棒！看姐姐的视频买了Atomic Habits，利用空余时间看完啦[打call]
I like carrying things the most. According to this reward method, I can make my dad bankrupt [eating melon]
我最喜欢背东西，按照这个奖励办法我能让我爸破产[吃瓜]

Transcript

0:00In the 1990s, a public health worker went to Pakistan.
0:04The problem there was not knowledge.
0:07The problem was consistency.
0:09We tend to repeat a behavior
0:11when the experience is satisfying.
0:13Hi everyone, welcome to Read With Selina.
0:15Today we're going to talk about
0:16Chapter 15 of Atomic Habits,
0:18The Cardinal Rule of Behavioral Change.
0:21If you want to know what the first 3 laws are,
0:23I highly recommend you
0:24to check out my previous videos,
0:26especially the video on Chapter 3 of Atomic Habits.
0:29It gives you a really nice framework of
0:31the 4 steps of the habit loop
0:33as well as how the 4 laws correspond to these steps.
0:36In previous videos,
0:37we learned how to initiate a good habit
0:40by applying the first 3 laws of behavior changes.
0:44And once we initiate a good behavior,
0:47how do we make sure that a habit can stick?
0:49That's exactly what we're discussing today.
0:52In this chapter,
0:53you're going to learn
0:53why can't we consistently perform a good behavior
0:57even when we know it is good for us
0:59and we have performed it a couple of times?
1:01How come it's so hard
1:03to make some good behaviors a consistent habit?
1:06And we're going to talk about
1:08the underlying biological root of this problem and
1:11its explanation both in evolution
1:14as well as in behavioral economy.
1:16And then I'm going to show you
1:17how to use this tendency to your advantage and
1:20ensure that your good habits do stick.
1:23Alright, let's first start with a story.
1:25In the 1990s,
1:27a public health worker went to Pakistan and
1:29discovered that a lot of local people
1:31are suffering from infectious diseases because
1:34they don't wash their hands frequently enough.
1:37And it is not that these people
1:38had never been exposed to hand washing.
1:40Most of those people that
1:42don't wash their hands consistently
1:43did know that washing hands is good for them.
1:46If only they'd washed their hands
1:47more frequently,
1:48they could have eliminated a lot of those diseases.
1:51But even though everyone said that
1:53hand washing was important, nobody actually did it.
1:56The problem there was not knowledge.
1:58The problem was consistency.
2:00So in order to cultivate
2:02a consistent habit of handwashing,
2:04those public health workers
2:06distributed free soap to a lot of local residents.
2:09These soaps are Safeguard Soaps
2:12and are considered to be premium
2:13because they smell better than normal soap
2:15that these people were used to using.
2:18They foam really easily and
2:19people can lather the suds on their hands
2:21Because of those 2 factors,
2:23using those soaps made
2:25hand-washing a slightly more enjoyable experience.
2:30And the impact of giving out free Safeguard soap was stunning.
2:33Within a few months,
2:34the researchers saw rapid shifts
2:36in the children in the neighborhood.
2:38The rate of diarrhea fell by 52%
2:41and the rate of pneumonia fell by 48%.
2:45Impetigo, a bacterial skin infection fell by 35%.
2:49The team did not induce a behavioral change,
2:53but rather a habit adoption.
2:54Because of the instant gratification from
2:57the experience of washing hands with safeguard soap itself,
3:01people were able to cultivate this habit of using soap
3:05to wash their hands ever so often.
3:07And this impact lasted even after
3:09the team has left the country.
3:11Years later, when they revisited the country,
3:14they noticed that those homes that
3:16they've distributed free soaps to
3:19had washing stations with water and soap.
3:22Even without the team's intervention,
3:23the local people were able to sustain the practice
3:26because they've developed the habit.
3:28The takeaway from the experiment is that
3:30we tend to repeat a behavior
3:32when the experience is satisfying.
3:34The nice scent as well as
3:36the sensation of using the soap provided
3:38the users with instant gratification.
3:40And because of that,
3:42they were more likely to repeat the behavior over and over.
3:46So in order to sell more products and
3:48encourage users to use them,
3:50a lot of brands employ the same tactic
3:52and try to make their products
3:54immediately gratifying to use.
3:55Before Wrigley, chewing gums were chewy,
3:58but not tasty.
3:59Wrigley revolutionized the industry by
4:02adding tasty flavors to the gum,
4:04such as mint or fruit juice.
4:07This made chewing gum much more fun to use
4:10and sales skyrocketed.
4:12The same marketing strategy
4:14was employed by other products as well,
4:16such as P&G when it invented Febreze.
4:20When Procter and Gamble experimented with Febreze,
4:23the initial formula was able to take out odor
4:26from fabric but was scentless.
4:29And soon enough they realized that
4:31people were not really using it because
4:32a lot of people that had odor
4:34could not smell it themselves.
4:36They were desensitized.
4:38People do not crave scentless.
4:40Scentless is a neutral feeling that nobody desires.
4:44The reason why people would
4:45continue using a product over and over is
4:47because of the reward that it brings them at the end.
4:50After that realization,
4:52Procter and Gamble reformulated the product
4:55and gave Febreze its own distinct scent.
4:58It was no longer used as a product to merely take out odor,
5:02but was used by many people
5:03as the closing ritual after cleaning.
5:06And the scent itself signifies to people that the room is clean.
5:10And after putting in hard work into cleaning,
5:13people start to crave that scent
5:15as the reward to signify that cleaning is finished.
5:18And as people continuously tied
5:21the Febreze scent with having a clean house,
5:24they began to crave the scent.
5:26And the same thing happened with toothpastes.
5:28Now the type of toothpaste that
5:30we're most familiar with probably tastes
5:32like mint or green tea.
5:34It has some kind of scent
5:35and also gives you this cool tingly sensation
5:38after you use it.
5:39But when it was first made,
5:40toothpaste was scentless.
5:42And the reason why toothpaste brands added
5:45those extra features to the product
5:47was also to encourage people to develop
5:49the habit of brushing.
5:51Before, after you used toothpaste to brush your teeth
5:54you would not feel any sensations in your mouth nor scent,
5:58so you couldn't really tell the difference
6:00whether you've used it or not.
6:02Versus now, after the flavor
6:04and the cooling sensations were added,
6:06you can feel the difference after you brush.
6:08As that behavior is repeated,
6:10people started to gradually associate
6:12that tingling sensation
6:14as well as the taste of mint or green tea in their mouth
6:17with having a clean mouth.
6:19And whenever they don't brush
6:20and are missing the sensation in their mouth,
6:22they start to feel that their mouth is
6:24unclean and they crave brushing.
6:26Even though the flavors did not enhance
6:28the functionality of the toothpaste,
6:30it was very effective in providing instant gratification,
6:34which is the key to ensuring that we repeat
6:38the process and develop an automatic habit
6:40And you may wonder:
6:42how come even though we know the health benefits
6:45of brushing our teeth,
6:46we're still unable to form a habit out of it?
6:49And the answer comes from
6:50the Cardinal Rule of Behavioral Change.
6:53What is immediately rewarded is repeated.
6:55What is immediately punished is avoided.
6:58Good habits like washing our hands or
7:00brushing our teeth have health benefitsfor us long term
7:04but do not have any immediate reward.
7:06In contrast, in the short term, it requires effort,
7:09which we are unwilling to commit to.
7:11Our brains evolved to adapt to the more primitive world,
7:16where everything you do has
7:18an immediate consequence.
7:19This kind of environment is also called an
7:21“Immediate Return Environment.”
7:23Most of your decisions have an immediate impact,
7:25such as how alert you are to predators,
7:27how fast you run,
7:28whether you can find food,
7:30where you choose to take shelter tonight.
7:33Therefore, you are constantly focused
7:34in the present rather than the future.
7:37In the modern world however,
7:39a lot of our actions have consequences in the longer term.
7:42If you perform extremely well at work,
7:44maybe you'll get a bonus at the end of the year.
7:46If you work out today,
7:48maybe in several months you will get more fit.
7:51If you learn a new language,
7:53maybe a couple years later,
7:54you will land a higher paying job.
7:56The reward comes much later than
7:59the work that you put in.
8:00Our brains, however, have not evolved to
8:02adapt to this delayed return environment.
8:05Instead, it prefers quick payoffs rather than long-term rewards.
8:09In behavioral economy,
8:10this tendency is called Time Inconsistency.
8:13We tend to have a bias for gratification
8:15that comes sooner rather than later.
8:17You've probably heard of
8:19the “Stanford Marshmallow Experiment.”
8:21The researchers would put young children
8:23in a room and have a marshmallow right in front of them.
8:27They will tell the kids that
8:29they can either have the marshmallow now
8:31or they can get 2 marshmallows
8:33if they can only wait for 15 minutes.
8:35And as a result, a lot of the kids
8:37really struggled during these 15 minutes of waiting,
8:41and some of them decided to
8:42have the marshmallow right away.
8:44Without time inconsistency,
8:46we would always want to have 2 marshmallows;
8:482 rewards rather than 1.
8:50But because people are prone to receiving instant reward,
8:54having 1 marshmallow right away for most kids
8:57would seem to be a more enticing option.
9:00The issue is that with our bad habits,
9:03reward usually comes instantaneously and
9:05we pay (for) the consequences much later down the line.
9:09And the situation is reversed for our good habits.
9:12We usually pay the cost upfront
9:14and don't receive the reward until much later.
9:17And when we make plans for our future self,
9:19we always like to envision the version of ourselves
9:21that's fit, healthy, happy...
9:24But when it actually comes to the
9:26present moment of decision-making,
9:27we act as our present self
9:29who wants to be entertained, full,
9:31and not suffering from any pain.
9:33We no longer act as our future self
9:35who wants to be fitter, wealthier, or happier.
9:37Knowing that we have this tendency for instant gratification,
9:40how can we make the most out of our tendency
9:43for instant gratification
9:44instead of working against it?
9:46The key is to give yourself a sense of accomplishment
9:48The feeling of success is a signal
9:50that your habit paid off
9:52and that the work was worth the effort
9:54And how do we give ourselves
9:55that sense of accomplishment?
9:57Ideally we will be able to see
9:59the outcome of our efforts right away.
10:02If we work out,
10:03we will want to see our body
10:05immediately becoming more fit.
10:06But that never happens.
10:08So it is important to find ways
10:10to give ourselves that sense of satisfaction.
10:13That can take a little bit of creativity and ingenuity.
10:16I'll give you the example of my experience with learning English.
10:20Hopefully there's something from my story that
10:22can inspire you to come up with your own strategies.
10:25When I first started to learn English,
10:27most of my time was spent on imitating tapes.
10:30I would try to copy everything down to the T
10:33intonation, the way of pronouncing each word,
10:35their emotions in the sentence...
10:37I would try to copy 100% the person that I imitated.
10:40And that effort paid off really quickly.
10:43You would notice if you're learning a new language
10:45that it usually does not take so many times to
10:49get the pronunciation right.
10:50Especially if you have a good teacher
10:53and if you follow the methods correctly.
10:55I was a beginner so my level was not high
10:57but it would usually take me about 20 times of repetition
11:00to get everything precisely.
11:02So every time I repeated a sentence
11:0420 times after the native speaker,
11:07I would immediately see an improvement
11:09in my entire pronunciation of that sentence.
11:12And that to me was the instant gratification
11:14If you have any experience learning a foreign language
11:16you will know that seeing some kind of improvement
11:20in only a few minutes
11:21is extremely, extremely fast.
11:24And to me, hearing myself speak a foreign language
11:27in a native accent was very rewarding.
11:30In addition to that,
11:31after I repeated the same process for a couple of passages,
11:35patterns started to form in my brain and
11:37I was able to read articles or sentences
11:40that I've never read before
11:41with a pronunciation that sounded very authentic.
11:44And that was very noteworthy to a lot of people
11:47around me and they started commenting on
11:50how "well" I spoke English,
11:51even though I didn't really know
11:53so many words or grammatical structures,
11:56I was not able to carry out a conversation fluently in English
11:59or discuss any complex subjects with
12:01someone for an extended period of time.
12:04My level was basic, but because I sounded so good,
12:06everybody thought that I spoke the language really well.
12:10So that kind of just put me on an “altar”
12:12where I felt like, "oh wow, I am this person that
12:15spoke amazing English,"
12:16and that gave me a lot of motivation to continue on
12:18so that I can defend my throne.
12:19I've shared some stories about my experience learning English
12:23and having my dad as a coach for me
12:26in the previous video too.
12:27Feel free to check it out if
12:29you're interested in learning more about my stories.
12:31Part of the pact that I had with my dad was that
12:34every time I finished reciting 1 article,
12:37he would deposit 100 RMB in my bank.
12:40He would put this money in a bank
12:42and that money will be used to fund my college tuition.
12:44And because at the time I wanted to go to a US college,
12:47we did the math and
12:48then we somehow came to a conclusion that
12:50I needed to recite 200 articles in order to
12:54have enough money for school.
12:56I didn't actually have a bank back then,
12:58and he didn't transfer any money,
13:00but that was an oral contract that
13:03we had mostly just to incentivize me to work harder.
13:06And of course, if you do the math today,
13:08you'll realize that
13:09there's no way the money was sufficient.
13:11But for a kid at the time,
13:13100 RMB sounded like a very good number.
13:16So I happily agreed to the deal.
13:18And a lot of times
13:19when I felt that I was losing motivation,
13:21I would think back on the 100 RMB that I could make
13:24by simply putting in a couple more minutes into the article.
13:28And also by giving my work a monetary amount
13:32and keeping tabs of that amount increasing,
13:36we turned this very abstract delayed reward
13:39into something that is concrete and quantifiable.
13:42Something that I was able to track.
13:44And seeing that number grow every day itself
13:47gave me a lot of sense of accomplishment.
13:49Habits of Avoidance.
13:50This means that you want to cultivate
13:52the habit of not doing certain things,
13:54such as if you want to quit smoking or eat less sweets
13:58or resist the temptation of binge shopping.
14:00And this is extremely hard
14:02because not doing something
14:03does not provide people with a feeling of satisfaction.
14:07You won't realize anything happening
14:09because you are abstaining from a behavior.
14:12So what James suggests here is that
14:14every time you are successful
14:16at resisting the temptation,
14:18do something to make avoidance visible.
14:20What he means is that
14:22you can make doing nothing satisfying.
14:24If you want to encourage eating out less and
14:27cooking at home more,
14:28every time you're successful at cooking at home,
14:31you can deposit the money that
14:33you would have spent on* going to the restaurant
14:35into a dedicated account.
14:37And you can use that account to fund a goal that
14:40requires more money, such as going on a trip.
14:43That way, you wouldn't feel deprived the next time
14:46that you abstain yourself from doing a certain action,
14:49but would instead see the tangible benefits of that action
14:53contributing to a different goal.
14:55The author suggests that the short-term rewards that you pick
14:58should be consistent with
15:00the desired identity that you want to cultivate.
15:03For example, if your goal is to have more financial freedom,
15:07then the reward of hard work should probably
15:09not be binge buying some luxury products,
15:12but instead you could reward yourself with
15:15taking a long walk or taking
15:17a bubble bath because
15:18these are actions that only take up
15:20free time but not money,
15:21and giving yourself more quality time
15:24is consistent with your goal of gaining freedom.
15:27Another example,
15:27if your goal is to become more fit and lose weight,
15:32then the short-term reward should not be
15:34to reward yourself with a box of
15:36ice cream after a hard workout
15:38because that would send our brain confusing signals.
15:41And eating that ice cream would
15:42cast a vote against our identity.
15:44A good short-term reward for that purpose
15:46could be getting yourself a massage because
15:48that is part of taking care of your body
15:50and is consistent with your goal
15:52underlying working out,
15:53which is also to make your body more healthy.
15:56And eventually,
15:57as you repeat the habit over and over,
16:00the identity itself becomes a reinforcer.
16:02Just like the story that I told about language learning,
16:05once I had this identity of
16:07"oh, I speak English pretty well,
16:09I'm good at English,"
16:10it started to reinforce itself and
16:11pick up momentum on its own.
16:13That identity makes me want to put in more work
16:16so that I can continue to be great.
16:18And the more a habit becomes part of your life,
16:20the less you need outside encouragement
16:22to follow through.
16:23Incentives can start a habit.
16:25Identity sustains a habit.
16:28And as we talked about in the third chapter,
16:30identity needs evidence.
16:32And evidence is built through actions.
16:34And eventually,
16:35the rewards that these good habits
16:37are supposed to bring,
16:38like feeling more healthy or being able to
16:40speak another language better
16:42would eventually arrive.
16:44And once those rewards are there,
16:46it does become easier to
16:47sustain the behavior just on those rewards
16:50rather than the secondary rewards,
16:52which are the short-term rewards.
16:54They themselves become sufficient to
16:57keep our habits going.
16:59At the same time,
16:59building a new identity takes time and
17:02a new identity is supported by
17:04corroborating evidence,
17:05which requires us to put in the actions over and over.
17:09Therefore it makes sense to
17:10utilize immediate reinforcement as a short-term strategy
17:14that sustains our motivation
17:16until the long-term reward arrives
17:18and our new identity is established.
17:20Alright, in this chapter,
17:21we learned that in order to make a habit stick,
17:23you need to feel immediately successful,
17:26even in a small way.
17:28In the next chapter, we're going to
17:29learn ways to track our habits,
17:31as well as how to recover quickly when
17:33your habits break down.
17:34If you enjoy the content,
17:35please give this video a like
17:37and share it with someone that
17:38you want to develop a better habit with,
17:40and make sure to subscribe to the channel
17:42to get notified on the latest releases.
17:45I'll see you again soon.

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