The 4nd Law – Make It Satisfying
We are officially one week away from finishing Atomic Habits! The last 6 weeks have been a game changer for me. The act of intentionally studying each section has been eye-opening and inspiring. So while I hope you have learned and grown with this book, I have to thank you for being my accountabil-a-buddy in my own personal study through this book.
Week 1 - Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement, and your systems are more important than your goals.
Week 2 - You are what you repeatedly do. Your actions determine your identity and your identity determines your actions.
Week 3 - You have to make your habits obvious. This can be with predetermined routines and changes to your environment .
Week 4 - Attractive habits lead to action. We have to be intentional not to blindly follow habits of The Close or The Many, but instead create our own habits based on our unique goals.
Week 5 – New habits must be easy. If a new habit is going to become part of your life, start small, think baby steps, because it is better to do less than you hoped than nothing at all.
The 4th and final Law of Behavior Change is: Make It Satisfying. Here’s the thing, no matter how much will power or mental toughness you have, you are not going to repeat habits over the long-run if you don’t receive any satisfaction from your action. Here’s the way James Clear states it:
“What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided” (pg. 186).
In other words, reward yourself for the habits you want to repeat. Simple, right? Well, we are not so simple creatures. There is one major problem with how we are hardwired and Clear offers two strategies as solutions.
The Problem: Instant Gratification
There is a disconnect between what we want and when we want it. We live predominantly in a delayed return environment where fitness, finances, and relationships take time to improve. However, we are wired for an immediate-return environment. This creates something called time inconsistency or hyperbolic discounting (I prefer hyperbolic discounting because it makes me feel smart and fancy so I’m going to use that term).
Hyperbolic discounting simply means that we place more value on the present than the future. The further the reward falls down our future timeline, the less weight our mind will place on it in the moment.
We will choose instant gratification of a slice of pie over the future gratification of being heathy and fit. We choose mindless social media scrolling over reading to learn a new skill. We choose Netflix over adequate sleep. We choose to snooze instead of waking up to journal.
Here’s why: Every action creates multiple outcomes across different time periods and they are rarely in alignment with each other. It normally looks something like this:
Bad habits = Feels good now, feels bad later
Good habits = Feels bad now, feels good later
This is an oversimplification, but the point is, generally the hard thing in the moment is the right thing in the long run. Good habits require effort in the present moment so your future self can reap the rewards of your current self’s labor.
“The cost of your good habits are in the present. The cost of your bad habits are in the future” (pg. 189).
Every time you are faced with a decision, you have the opportunity to cast a vote for the person you believe yourself to be and who you’d like to become (delayed-return). Or you can succumb to the allure of the short-term dopamine hit that comes with immediate-return choices.
What’s interesting about this to me is people know that delaying gratification is what they should do in most cases to reach their goals. My wife and I have had this discussion multiple times over the years. We generally know the solutions to most of our problems.
Want to be healthier or more fit? Exercise and eat healthier.
Want to be wealthier? Spend less than you make and invest consistently.
Want to be more content? Spend less time on social media and more time in your Bible.
The solutions are not rocket science. We all know the basic strategies for long-term success but our short-term desires derail our long-term goals.
Solution #1: Personal Loyalty Program
Here’s a hard truth, at the beginning of a new habit, there is rarely any noticeable improvement. Workout one day and you don’t have a six pack. Read one chapter and you are not an expert. Save $20 and you are not a millionaire. These long-term, delayed gratification goals are easy to lose sight of when the short-term, immediate feedback is either neutral, or even negative.
This is where you can take a page out of a retail marketer’s playbook, create a Personal Loyalty Program. I love this idea and have actually seen it used successfully before. This means attaching an immediate reward to the behavior that will lead to the long-term success.
Here is an easy example of how this could work: Every time you pass up buying that latte, transfer $5 to your Vacation Account.
The key is to make the reward immediate and in alignment with your goal. If your goal is to get in shape and your reward for working out is a double cheeseburger and a milkshake, the reward becomes counterproductive to the goal.
Eventually, once you start seeing some results from your efforts, like the number on the scale going down or the value of your account going up, the habit itself can become more self-sustaining and less dependent on external immediate rewards.
Solution #2: Habit Tracking
This one hit me right between the eyes. I was a baseball player and there were times when we were clearly outplaying the opponent, we had guys on base every inning and it felt like we were winning by 10 runs. In reality, one glance at the scoreboard would show that while we had 15 hits, we were actually losing 1-0. How we “feel” about our performance doesn’t always equate to the outcome. In order to know how you are doing, you have to keep score. If you aren’t keeping score, you have no idea how the game is actually going.
This is where habit tracking comes in.
Keeping a personal scorecard of how you are doing on your habits, your process, your routine. James Clear offers a tracker template at AtomicHabits.com that you can download for free. This is a great tool to track your small wins so you can see your progress even when it is hard to notice elsewhere.
Key Concept: Never Miss Twice
This is my number one takeaway from the entire section. Never miss twice. Whatever the habit is, “Missing one day is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit” (pg. 201).
This is a key separator between the most successful people and everyone else. Successful people are not perfect, in fact, they fail much more than the rest of us. What makes them different is that they rebound quickly when they fail or fall out of a habit.
Jerry Seinfeld writes a joke every day. He has been doing this for decades and, as legend has it, he hasn’t missed a day in over 30 years. He says what motivates him is he never wants to “break the chain.” This goal is noble but unrealistic for most.
We are not perfect and we never will be. So the expectation of perfection with your habits can be self-defeating. “The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all” (pg. 201).
I think about my writing. It is laughably far from perfect. In fact, I am sure there are numerous grammatical errors in every one of my posts. Do I like that my writing is not perfect? Of course not. It makes me self-conscious that people are going to think I am a fraud, an imposter, or even worse, stupid.
Thankfully, I have faced my fear of hitting the publish button enough times now that I am not all that concerned about having “the perfect post.” I am more concerned about showing up, even when it is not my best day. This is another key, show up on your bad and busy days.
Doing less than you hoped is better than doing nothing at all.
Take Seinfeld for instance, he doesn’t really care if the joke of the day is good or bad, it’s just about the discipline of writing the joke that matters. Every time he writes a joke he is casting a vote the he is the type of person that never misses a day of joke writing.
The days where you refuse to go backwards, you show up and take painful, imperfect baby steps forward are the days that keep your momentum and your compounding interest moving in a positive direction.
Final Thoughts
Generally speaking, the most important and beneficial habits we will have are the ones that are the hardest now and the most valuable later. It is important to incentivize yourself by making your habits immediately satisfying to help you overcome the challenge that is delaying gratification.
You have to know the score of the game. Tracking your habits on your eating, your social media usage, or your Netflix time might surprise you compared to how you perceived you were doing. Using a habit tracker can be a great way to keep score and understand how you are doing within your own process.
Finally, perfection with habits is impossible. Therefore, adopting a “Never Miss Twice” attitude can help with the long-term sustainability of your desired habits. Missing one day does not mean you are a failure because it’s not about perfection, it’s about getting back on track when you stumble and fall.
We only have 1 week left! I hope walking through Atomic Habits has been a blessing for you as we near yearend. As you begin your new habits, shoot me an email or a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear what you are learning and how you are using it in your own journey!
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