YouSaid · the spoken record

James Clear

lines on the record: 150
first: 2025-12-11
most recent: 2025-12-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“There is no right answer, but it's interesting that as soon as you realize it's a finite number, and as soon as you realize that trade-offs are always going to be a reality, you have to deal with that in some way. I've decided that right now while my kids are young, like, I'm going to turn the career burner down. And that's fine. It's not going to be how it was for the last 10 years, but that's okay because they're only five once. They're only turning six once. They only go to second grade once, and I want to be there for all that. So there are always trade-offs.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Order than others. Like, if you want to travel the world and see a bunch of places and party in a visa, you're probably not going to do that in your 60s. You can. There's nobody's saying you can't, but some things are probably better sequenced in other spots. Obviously, there's, especially for women, there's a certain limit on if you want to have a family, what decades that happens in. So, yeah, it's just a matter of sequencing and prioritization. If you look at the tapestry of your life, what do you want the big movements to be? And where do those seasons need to slot in? Yeah,”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The stove, yeah, yeah, the stove top. So you can choose, you could have three going on at kind of like a mid-level, but if you really want them to do well, you can only have two on at the same time. And, you know, who knows? I don't know if it's true or not or whatever, but it's an interesting idea. And what it does is it gets you to realize, yeah, a fundamental part of life is trade-offs. And you cannot be good at everything at the same time. So this is true across projects. If you choose try to do seven things at once, spreading yourself thin in seven different ways, very hard to be excellent. For me, what I think about is life has a series of seasons and life has a series of sequences. So let's say it's not always exactly ten years, but let's say the big movements in life are roughly 10-year buckets, right? So for me building my first business, that was kind of like a 10-year thing. And eventually it led to the launch of atomic habits. You maybe get five or six of those in your adult life. Some of those things make sense to do in a different way.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. So, this is not my concept. This is the idea that I came across called the Four Burners Theory. And it breaks life into these four burners on a stove. So you have work and career as one. You have family, friends, and then personal health or yourself basically is the other. The idea is that for the burners to really be going well, you can't have all four on at the same time.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think there's lots of inflection points in life. So having kids is one of them, starting a new job, moving to a new city. It can be big stuff like that. I just talked to a mother who her kids moved out, so she's now an empty nestor. She's like, last 25 years I've been parenting all these kids and now finally they're all out. But it feels all in some sense it almost feels like a loss of identity. You know, like I thought I was one thing and now it feels like things have shifted. But also it just signals an inflection point in life and a new season that you're in. And when your seasons change, your habits often need to change with it.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I kind of feel like my writing habit is maintained that whole time it just changed shape, but that's fine, it just needed to shift based on the season. But I don't know, people they get so attached to one form of a habit sometimes that they don't realize that it's no longer serving them. And I think that's one of the trickier things to give up, is a habit that used to be good for you, that used to work well, but no longer serves you in your current season. I find that I'm kind of a slow learner with that.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great point, and I think this is probably one of the most overlooked things with habits. A lot of the time when someone sits down and they want to build a new habit, they don't say this, but what they kind of assume is what it would mean to be successful with this habit is that I do it for the rest of my life, and that if at some point I'm not doing it, then that must mean that I failed or I quit on it. But that's not how it is at all. Like, things have a season, you know, and so habits have to change shape over time Let's take my writing habit, for example. The habit that launched my career was I wrote a new article every Monday and Thursday and I did that for three years.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Spending your time in the highest and best way. And the only way to figure that out is to have time to reflect and review, time to think. So you need enough time to think to figure out what should I be focused on next. And so I think that it's almost reflection and review is almost like the meta habit that is above all others. Because if you give yourself time to reflect and review, then you can troubleshoot your habits and figure out how to adjust them.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, what are those things that you do that are upstream from other good things happening? I think those are good anchor habits to start and focus on. If I could add another one for myself, I would say it's a little bit of time. It's really just time to think, but it's time to reflect and review. There's this interesting thing that happens if you have a really good work ethic, if you have a strong work ethic and working hard has gotten you far in life, it kind of becomes a crutch. You know, for a long time, I was like, if I ever had a problem, I was like, well, I'll just work my way out of it. You know, I'll just work harder on it until I figure it out. And that's great. That's really powerful for a lot of things. But at some point, it breaks. You can maybe, if you really try, maybe you can work 10% harder or 20% harder, but there's some limit. But if you work on the right thing, well, you could get 100x the result or 1,000 x the result. And so if you just keep your head down and work hard, it's very unlikely that you'll be spending.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Those are the two things that are part of a good day. And what happens is they're upstream from a lot of other good things happening. For example, if I get the workout in, yeah, I feel good. I get the benefits of the workout. But I also have a post-workout high for like an hour or two. So my focus and concentration is better. I sleep better at night because I got the workout in and now I'm tired. I tend to eat better when I work out. It's when I'm not working out that I eat terribly. I don't know. It's kind of like I don't want to waste it or something. So at no point was I trying to build better focus habits or sleep habits or nutrition habits. Those just came kind of as a natural consequence of getting the workout in.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there's some things that you can do. I don't think to your point earlier about sometimes the riskiest things just take a long time making the decision. Maybe you should just pick one and work on it and then you can get on to the next one. But I do think there's some level of strategy, which is a good place to start is by asking yourself which habits are upstream from other good things happening. So for example, I know that if you were maybe the question to start with is when you live a good day, when you feel dialed in, when things are like rolling along well for you, what tends to be part of that day? Sleep. Okay. So that's, you know, I would say for me, sleep is definitely one. I would say getting my workout in and usually reading and writing are a part of it, but I think I could just boil it down to reading if I just read like 10 pages. That often sparks the writing. Reading is like the fuel for writing for me. So I could say get a workout in and read for five minutes or ten minutes.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it can be very helpful, and it can also be very harmful. So it's just sort of a sense of how you use it. I tend to find it better if you compare small things. So if you compare marketing strategies or squat form or writing style or the first sentence of each chapter, like how do I have a good intro. If you compare tactics, then that can be really helpful for building skills and for developing your ability. If you compare big things, marriage, net worth, you know, things like that, that's just kind of a recipe for ending up unhappy. Because they, as the scale gets bigger, things get more vague. There's so many things involved in marriage. And so, you know, or net worth or whatever. You just see one little slice and you are trying to compare these two big things, but you don't even know what the full picture is. And so comparison is like the teacher of skills when it's applied narrowly, but it's the thief of joy when it's applied broadly.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that works best when you find that thing. Sometimes we call it your strengths. Sometimes we might say it's what you're encoded to do. But when you find that thing that is well aligned for you. And if you do find that, then you can have both of those.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And at no point in that process, when it was just an acorn, it wasn't criticizing itself for not being a sapling. It was just a sapling, it wasn't criticizing itself for not being an oak. It wasn't dissatisfied with where it was at. And nobody came over and was criticizing it for, oh, I can't believe you're not a full grown tree yet. But it kept growing the whole time. So simultaneously you have this thing where it was both perfect at each stage that it was at. Nothing was wrong, and yet it continued to grow. And the reason is because that's just what an oak tree does. That's what it is encoded to do. It is encoded for growth. And so when I look at myself, I think if I put myself in the right position, that's how I feel about it. I am perfectly happy with where I'm at at each stage, and yet I am encoded to grow, right? I'm encoded to keep going. And so I can both be driven and be satisfied. I can both be appreciative of the moment and still moving forward.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You have to be dissatisfied to be driven because to me I felt like there's where I'm at right now and there's where I want to be. And so there's this gap. And that gap is dissatisfaction. That gap is you want it to change. You want it to close. And it's also what is motivating and driving you is to try to close that gap. And so the healthiest answer, maybe the answer is yes, I don't know. But the healthiest answer that I've come up with is imagine like an acorn falls from a tree. It manages to take root.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's some implicit promise internally that once I get to this goal then I'll be happy. You know, once I write a New York Times bestseller, then I'll feel better about it. Once I achieve this certain number on the scale, then I'll be happy with my body. Once I get to a million dollars in revenue, then I'll be happy with the business. And so you're kind of constantly pushing happiness off to the next milestone and thinking that once you get there, then finally you'll be satisfied. But I think, in fact, the better way to do it is to fall in love with the process, to fall in love with the lifestyle, then you can be happy along the way and still achieve the goals as you go, still achieve the milestones. For a long time, I wrestled, I had trouble with this question of do I have to be dissatisfied if I want to be driven?”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everybody wants the results. Let's say you have a hundred people apply for a job. You got a new job opening. Presumably every candidate has the goal of getting the job. The goal is not the thing that determines the outcome, so the person who wins and the ninety nine people who lose, they have the same goals. You look at the Olympic Games. Presumably any event, everybody who's competing has the goal of winning the Olympic medal, right? Of winning the gold. So the goal is not the thing that makes the difference. So again, winners and losers have the same goals. So if they have the same goals, they cannot be the thing that make the difference in their performance. It has to be something else. Maybe having a goal is part of it. Maybe it's necessary, but it's not sufficient for the outcome that you want. And for that, what you need is a system. You need a collection of habits that are going to make the difference and accumulate into a bigger outcome.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then they decide, oh, this is what I want to do, but it's actually outside of how they want to spend their days. And it's not going to work out well because it goes back to our point previously about is this fun? If they don't want to spend their time that way, you're just grinding for a little while and eventually it's not going to work. That's the key for building systems that really work. Is this how you want to spend your days? The person who wants to live the lifestyle is much better positioned to get the result.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, to want the outcome without the lifestyle is torture yourself. And what really matters is not do you want the result, anybody would like the result if you just hand it to them. The question is, do you want the lifestyle? One of the little things I try to do whenever I have a new business project I'm thinking about or something I'm excited about potentially doing, the first question I ask is how do I want to spend my days? And so then you like draw a box and inside that box, how can we make the most money, reach the most people, make the biggest impact, you know, make the contribution that you want to make, but not outside of it. And what happens a lot of the time is people do that in reverse. They start by asking, how can we make the most money or reach the most people or make the biggest impact?”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do think some of it is personality and like what's exciting to you to think about. Some people are very future oriented and like thinking about what the systems are and what that would lead them to and so on are more process oriented. But there are a number of questions that you can ask that can help you figure out what systems you should be focused on. So like a couple of the ones I like, one question is can my current habits carry me to my desired future? You have a bunch of habits you're following right now. What path are you on? Can your current habits take you there? And they could be either way. Like sometimes the answer is yes and what you need is patience. You just need to keep staying on the path. But sometimes the answer is no. And then obviously something needs to change. You know, you're hoping for one outcome, but then you're following a different lifestyle.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Goals are best for people who care about winning once. Systems are best for people who care about winning repeatedly. If you really want to make progress again and again, if you want to get to the top and stay at the top, you need some process for staying up there, some collection of habits that's going to keep this machine running. So this is why I say in the book we don't rise to level of our goals. We fall to level of our systems.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Strategy matters, luck, randomness, those misfortune, those things can influence the outcome. But by definition, luck and randomness are not under your control and your habits are. And the only reasonable rational approach in life is to focus on the pieces that are within your control. So I think goals can be good for setting a sense of direction. They're good for clarity, you know, especially if you have a team, get everybody rowing in the same direction. Once you've decided what the goal is, you should basically set it on the shelf metaphorically speaking and spend the vast majority of your time focused on building a better system. How are the habits we're executing each day moving us closer to this outcome that we want? And so where I've come after talking about this for five or six years now since the book's been out, where I've come down on it is”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was very gold driven for a long time. I mean, I probably still am. I don't think there's any way to get around the fact that we all have goals and think about the outcomes we want and so on. But a goal is about the outcome that you want to achieve, and a system is about the process for getting there. And so your goal is the target, the outcome, the thing you're shooting for. Your system is the collection of daily habits that you follow. And if there is ever a gap between your goal and your system, if there's ever a gap between your desired outcome and your daily habits, your daily habits will always win. And so almost by definition, your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results. You know, if you want to see where you're going to end up, just follow the trajectory of your habits. What's the process you've been running for the last six months or year or two years? And they've carried you almost inevitably to the outcomes that you have right now. Now, I'm not saying that habits are the only thing that matter in life.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the ones that matter to me the most are the ones that I hear from somebody and they say I finally feel better. I feel different. I look in the mirror and I'm like proud of who I am or my kids tell me that they're excited to see the change in me or things like that. And that's what's always been about. It's always been about becoming the type of person that you want to be. And so I think anytime I hear stories like that, I think it's exciting.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not a single one. There are lots that I'm proud of or really excited by once I'm surprised by I heard from a guy the other day he was the head coach at St. Olaf's University in Minnesota and men soccer and when he came in their record was something like five and thirteen and they were near the bottom of the standings and he was like I read atomic habits right around the time I took this job and we came up with systems for everything we did. We taught our players systems for how they tie their shoes and cleats to get ready for the game. We taught them systems for how they prep for practice. We taught them systems for their role in the field and gradually they improved each year. Five and thirteen then they went like eight and eight and then the next year after that they won the conference and then the year after that they went to the NCW Suite 16 and then five years later they won the national championship of course stuff like that's awesome to hear about right you're like they went from they went from”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think in particular we are Are scared, particularly the bad haircuts, I think, the ones that linger for just a little bit, but not that long. It's like it's going to take you a month to fix this if you get it wrong. But like, that's fine. A month's going to pass anyway. And so it's not that big of a deal, but we act like it's a bigger deal than it is.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really, what we're getting at here is the choice reversible or is the choice irreversible? If the choice is easy to reverse, speed is most important. You should move fast. If it's hard to reverse and you got to live with it, then you need to think carefully before you make the call. And I think probably what you're seeing through some of your experiences is that most decisions in life are hats and haircuts. It's very rare that you end up with a tattoo.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so speed is perpetually undervalued, that's for sure. Life is short, and so the sooner that you make decisions, the sooner you get information. Now I will say I have a little framework that I call hats, haircuts, and tattoos, and this is how I kind of think about it. So a lot of decisions are like hats. You try one hat if you don't like it, take it off, you can try another. It's just real quick. You get some information. Speed is most important. Move quickly, get some information, learn something. If it was wrong, it's not that big of a deal. Just take it off and put a new hat on. Haircut is a little bit trickier. It's a decision that you have to live with for a little bit. You're okay if you get a bad haircut, but you're going to have to live with it for a month or two. It's going to take a little bit of time for it to grow out. And so it's probably not a big deal to be scared of getting a bad haircut. I think a lot of people probably talk themselves out of it. It's like, you'll be fine in a month. It's fine. Tattoos are trickier. You get a tattoo, you got to live with that choice. It's permanent. And so if a”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is achievable even when you're tired, even when you're exhausted, even when you don't have much time. Now you can show up and feel like you're succeeding. And then you can progress from there. One of the most motivating feelings to the human mind is feeling of progress. If you feel like you're making progress, even if it's smaller than what you ultimately hope to do, you have every reason to move forward. But often we become like a victim of our expectations we spend all this time optimizing the perfect plan and then expect things to go perfectly out of the gate, and you had it so built up in your mind that once you don't hit that mark in the first or second or third day, it falls apart.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This process called habit shaping, which is basically like that. If you want to run a half marathon the first day, the step might be to put on your running shoes, and then the second day the step is to walk outside the front door. And the third day the step is to go around the block. And you're just gradually shaping into this larger habit. But there's this thing that happens when people think about building better habits. I think particularly ambitious people, it's very easy to get excited about all the changes you can make. You start thinking, even if you don't say this explicitly, you think like, what would peak performance look like? You know, if I could really get my habits dialed in, what could I do? And you start imagining five, six, seven things that you would do and what all of them would look like in their perfect form and so on. And I think instead of asking ourselves, what could I do on my best day, it's better to start by asking what can I stick to even on the bad days? And that becomes your baseline. That becomes the first step. And now that you have this floor,”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's that quote from Ed Lattimore where he says, the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. There are a lot of things in life that are like that. And so by trying to make it easy to master, easy to get started, then you're in the game. Now you're in the arena. There's all kinds of things you can improve from there.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People and they resist it a little bit, you know, they're like, okay, buddy, like, no, the real goal isn't just to take my yoga mat out. You know, no, I'm actually trying to do the workout. So some kind of mental trick and I know it's a trick, then why would I fall for it, basically? But there's this guy I mentioned in Atomic Habits. His name's Mitch. And he went to the gym, and for the first six weeks he had this strange little rule for himself where he wasn't allowed to stay for longer than five minutes. So he'd get in the car, drive to the gym, get out, do half an exercise, get back in the car, drive home. And you're like, this sounds silly, right? Clearly this is not going to get the guy the results that he wants. But what you realize is that he was mastering the art of showing up. He was becoming the type of person that went to the gym four days a week, even if it was only for five minutes. And so I think this is kind of the deep truth about habits, which is a habit must be established before it can be improved. It has to become the standard in your life before you optimize and scale it up into something more.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Walk into the rooms where you spend most of your time each day, your office, your living room, your bedroom, and then look around and ask yourself, what is this space designed to encourage? What behaviors are easy here? What behaviors are obvious here? And the good habits that you say you want to build are those the path of least resistance? Is that the obvious thing in this environment? And if not, maybe you can make some adjustments to try to make the good habit easier and the distractions maybe a little bit harder. So that's first thing, prime the environment to make the action easy. Second thing is if there's like one principle that is probably the single most important for building habits, it's make it easy. Just scale it down and make it easy. I refer to it sometimes as the two-minute rule. So take whatever habit you're trying to work on, you scale it down to something that takes two minutes or less to do. Read 30 books a year becomes read one page. Or do yoga four days a week becomes take out my yoga mat. Sometimes I will mention this.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The office. It's right there in front of me. I got to pick it off the keys to log onto the computer. And so it's like, remember, this is what you're writing about right now. So it's just trying to make it easy to get in. I have a bunch of readers who do stuff like set they're running out running clothes out the night before so they're right next to the bed you got your clothes and your shoes there i one woman i just talked to uh her at an event she came up after her and she said i actually sleep in my running clothes and just get out and get her shoes on and goes right out the door but you're trying to prime the environment to make the action easy okay so how can you set up the spaces that you're in to prime those habits i think one really interesting question to ask”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there's multiple things. So, first thing is try to prime the environment to make the first action easy. Prime the environment to make the first action easy. So let's say writing, for example, I find that for myself, the biggest point of friction is choosing what to write about. Once I've actually finally settled, this is the thing I'm writing today, then I can get into it and I'm off and running. But I'll sit there for two hours just debating whether it's the right thing to be focused on writing or not. Should work on this chapter? Should I work on something else or whatever? So what I've started to do is sometimes I will write the first sentence of what I'm going to write and just leave it on the Google Doc right there and then leave and the next day when I come back I'm already in, right? Like it's already the first sentence is already written so now I'm just writing the next piece of what's coming rather than trying to choose what to write about. Another one that I've done sometimes is I will write. Sometimes I'll write the topic or I'll write the sentence on a post-it note and I'll put it on top of the keyboard. And so when I come in.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it's easy to be kind of disappointed that you weren't able to do the whole thing that you wanted to do, but you didn't throw up a zero. And if you don't throw up a zero, you maintain the habit. And if you maintain the habit, all you need is time. And so the bad days are more important than the good days in that sense. You need to figure out how do you show up even when it's not optimal.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so many things in life are like that. Can you master that little moment? And if you can, and you can still get started, that's when you gain an advantage. Everybody works out in the good days, but on the days when you feel stressed and tired, on the days when the weather's bad and it's kind of inconvenient, on the days when you don't really feel like it, can you show up even if it's in a small way? One of my little mantras that I try to keep in mind is reduce the scope but stick to the schedule. So the normal scope might be I write for thirty minutes, and then you look up at the clock and I only have fifteen. And sometimes what happens in your head is you're like, oh, I don't have enough time to write today. Or you're like, oh, I was planning to work out for 60 minutes. And you look up and you're like, time got away from me. I only have 20 minutes now. I don't have time to go to the gym. It's easy to talk yourself out of it, but reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule. It's like, well, I only got 20 minutes instead of 60, so I'll just get in there and do a couple sets of squats, and that's it. And I've had so many workouts that have been like that where you're like almost.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So much of it is about mastering the art of getting started. It's making it easy to start in a way like probably seventy percent of what's in atomic habits are different strategies and different ideas and different tools that help you get started or make starting easier. This trainer who I've been working with now, he came over the other day and he told me, yeah, I had a class in the morning. Eight people were supposed to come, but it was like, it was a pretty gross day. It was like rainy and wet and kind of cold. And only two people showed up. And I was talking to him about it, and I said, what's interesting to me about that is how little of an edge you need to gain an advantage. You know, really what we're talking about there is you just need to be okay with being inconvenienced or uncomfortable for like five to ten minutes, getting dressed, getting through the rain, getting to your car, getting to the gym. The workout is the same that it's always been. It's the same. You're in the same gym that you are in the summer when the weather's beautiful or whatever. So it's really, can you handle that like five minutes of inconvenience?”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Conditions for success, and it makes sure that I get down there and I do it, and then every time when I get done with the workout, I'm like, I'm glad I took the time to do that. And so nothing really needed to change with the workout. That was not the problem. The problem was I didn't have the right conditions to start the workout. And so I think this actually reveals a really deep and important thing about habits, which is”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The question that you asked is very similar to one that I ask myself a lot, which is am I creating the conditions for success? So I had a really good stretch of training in the gym, and then about two and a half years ago, I was in pretty good shape, and then I had a year where it was just like really inconsistent. I missed a lot of workouts, things sometimes would go well, sometimes it wouldn't, whatever. And after that year, I was like, okay, so I got to change something. And on the surface, you look at it and you think I'm having trouble with the workouts. You think there's some problem with exercise. But that was actually not the problem. The problem was I wasn't creating the conditions for success. And so there were lots of other things that were intervening in like making interrupting my day and making it easy for me to miss. So this last year I hired a trainer and he shows up at 11 a.m. every, you know, four days a week. And when he gets there every single time, it's a hassle because I'm in the middle of something. Every time I've got something going on and I kind of am like annoyed by it that he's there. But we're creating.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“David Epstein, who's the author of Range and Sports Genius friend of mine, he told me once grit is fit, grit is fit. And what he means is that everybody wants to be gritty. They want to persevere. But the way that you display that grit and discipline and perseverance is in areas where you are well suited, where it's a good fit for you. If it's a good fit, if you're well suited for it, if you're having fun, if you're interested and engaged, then you're way more likely to stick with it. And so in a lot of ways, I feel like the biggest hurdle to clear, and this is true maybe for life in general, but definitely for habits because everybody wants to be consistent with their habits. Everybody wants to stick to them. The biggest hurdle to clear is, are you interested? Are you engaged? Are you having fun? And so the more that you can get closer to that, the more fun it can be, the more likely you are to persevere and stick with it.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that doesn't mean that your habits will be like the most fun thing that you do each day. You know, it's not like it's always going to feel like going to a concert or something, but it does mean that pretty much any habit can be more fun than the default, you know? So you might as well take a little bit of time to figure out what is the fun version of this. And ultimately, I think the reason why this matters is that if you're having fun, you're more likely to stick with it. You're more likely to persevere. The person who's having fun is actually the person who's dangerous. Like, you don't want to compete with them because they're having a good time. When it gets difficult, they're way more likely to stick with it. The person who it felt like a hassle at the start was kind of, you know, annoying. They sort of have a negative frame around the behavior to begin with. Well, as soon as it gets difficult, they didn't want to do it in the first place.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think there's anything that I regret. If I could add something, I would add something. I would add this simple question, which is what would it look like if this was fun? What would it look like if your habits were fun? Like the most common New Year's resolution is to do some form of exercise. So, you know, I feel like a lot of people are going to the gym in January because they feel like they should go to the gym or a society wants them to go to the gym, you know, or there's some kind of social pressure to go to the gym. But if we were to come up with a list of what it means to be active and fit, you know, and healthy, we could come up with a long list of things. Go to the gym and lift weights. You could kayak, rock climb, do yoga, pilates, whatever. We could probably sit here for like 15 minutes and come up with a real long list. And for most of your habits, if it's an important habit to you, I think it's worth it to take 10 minutes and write that list out and then look at it at the end and say, what would this look like if it was fun? Which are these options is the most fun to me?”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, of course. In a way, I had to learn the concepts to write the book. Like I had to build writing habits to write the book. The fact that I have struggled with habits and failed with them, the fact that I've tried things and it hasn't worked out, the fact that I have eventually broken through and been able to build habits, all of that made the book better because you realize how hard it is to have something practical to say. I actually think I have this little theory that a lot of books are branded as how-to books, but they're actually what-to books. They tell you what to think. You should be confident. You should believe in yourself. You should take XYZ action. But they don't actually tell you how to do those things.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So badly want our outcomes to change. We also badly want our results to change, but the results are not actually the thing that needs to change. It's like fix the habits and the results will fix themselves, change the inputs and the outputs will shift automatically.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Answering emails or browsing social media or playing a video game or whatever. And it was really the initial habit of pulling out the phone that shaped what that hour did. So the influence of our habits is enormous. In a lot of ways, your results in life are kind of a lagging measure of the habits that precede them. Like your knowledge is a lagging measure of your reading and learning habits. Your bank account is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Even silly stuff like the amount of clutter in your living room is the lagging measure of your cleaning habits. And so we all”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We all have habits, we all need habits. You know, it's one of those really, it's an interesting concept because it is both universal in the sense that we all have them, we all need them, but it's also highly individual. Your habits feel like your habits, not mine. You know, and so it's both universal and specific. And that's an interesting contrast. And I think it leads to one of the reasons why people are so interested in the topic. We all have them. We all need them. We all feel like they're our own. And we want to come up with our little version of them. But the habit also is like an entrance ramp to how you spend your time in other ways. Like the habit of pulling out your phone, that habit might only take two seconds to do, then it might dictate what you do for the next hour.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If I could add something, I would add this because you really want to make progress again and again. If you want to get to the top and stay at the top, you need to be able to”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are four different stages that every habit goes through craving response and reward. So, first, I want to make it obvious. Easier does to see or get your attention and more likely you are to act on it. The second is about the craving. It's all about making it attractive. And the more engaging or exciting it is, the more likely you are to stick with it. The third is to make it easy. The easier a habit is to perform, the more likely it is to happen. And then the fourth and final one is to make it satisfying. And that's about increasing the odds that you do it next time. And there's some tools that we can go through. But one of the big takeaways from atomic habits is it's easier to build a new habit if you stack it on top of the habit you're already doing. So let's say that your current habit is you make a cup of coffee. And the new habit that you want to build is you want to start meditating. So then you could say, all right, after I make my morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for 60 seconds. And you can do it for anything. There's also a framework that I call hats, haircuts, and tattoos. The secret to winning, habit shaping, and real lesson of getting 1% better every day. And we can talk about all of them”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because people always need more practical help with implementing their habits. And I have different strategies and different tools to habit to stick, including one principle that is probably the single most important for building habits, but so much of it is about mastering the art of getting started.”
2025-12-11 · The Diary of a CEO · Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT