Atomic Habits: A Torah Take

okay good evening and welcome to once again our uh program of for a series of four talks torah take on motivational books we've done this for several years now and uh grateful that the other rabbis of our show will be speaking and lending their wisdom and insights and what they've gained from some of their favorite books and i want to talk to you tonight about a book that we've shared before atomic habits james clear spoken shabbat shiva a few years ago and in fact you could find it online you could watch it was back in the day that shabushuba was being streamed so it is on youtube for the full length it's an hour and a half but before you panic we're trying to change our habit of not speaking celenti so we're going to do a more condensed version and remind a review and add some new ideas and new notions to try to inspire ourselves this is the time of year it's l we're counting down counting up towards a better version of ourselves and it begins with change begins with changing our habits and forming more positive and better ones the reality is that we are incredibly we are creatures of habit i'll never forget when we moved we used to live in captiva we moved to thornhill green many years ago and it was a few weeks after we had moved not hours or days and i was driving back from somewhere i was driving home from somewhere probably was on the phone talking and all of a sudden i found myself in the driveway of our previous home i started to get out of the car and then i said one second what am i doing here we don't live here anymore and i realized at that moment to what extent were creatures of habit that my feet and my hands the gas pedal on the steering wheel took me out of habit to where i'd been used to going for years and therefore since i was so thoughtlessly going through life momentum carrying me i ended up at a different destination than i was meant to be and that's a metaphor really for what happens to all of us that throughout our lives if we're not paying careful attention if we're not mindful if we're not thoughtful and we're not aware if all we're doing is allowing our habits to drive us in life we'll get to destinations different than where we meant to go different where we're meant to be so habits are a double-edged sword so much of our day is pre-programmed predetermined by the habits that we formed we are at all stages of life here and we have all kinds of habits that we've developed over time from the most mundane things to how we brush our teeth or get out of bed or get dressed to much more meaningful things like our punctuality or lack thereof our attitude or approach towards time we've developed all kinds of habits and habits are a double-edged sword because if you develop good habits then it's fantastic to be a creature of habit if you can't go to bed without flossing your teeth no matter what time you come in then that's a great habit whereas if you procrastinate and are lazy and snooze 15 times it's a bad habit habits are not necessarily good or bad they all depend on the habit that we formed and the fact that we're such creatures of habit can work to our advantage because if we form good habits the right habits that we could be creatures of of good habits so that's our topic for tonight a more condensed version but a review of some of the most salient some of the most powerful and potent points from this incredible book atomic habits james clear it's an enormous amount of research in science it's based on enormous amount of wisdom and real life practice that i can't encourage you strongly enough to read the book and the reason we do this series gaza rabbis tell us that that there's a lot of wisdom in the world at large and while if one looks in the torah if you look through our sacred torah it is the blueprint of creation and everything is in it that's what we'll see tonight that all the wisdom that is communicated through more contemporary terms and vocabulary and some of these motivational books it's already been part of our timeless torah and wisdom forever since the torah was given but the generation that we're in the time that we live in sometimes we need a different language different vocabulary a different communication to get it across and so wisdom there's a lot of science and research there's a tremendous amount of motivation but what we'll see tonight a torah take on this book is that it was all in the total long before and we'll see the way the two the way the two come together so before we even get to the book right i should i'll open with in insight again we can't do justice to an entire book in a few minutes this evening um but some of the most powerful points that i've taken out that i'm still trying to to work on myself pasuk says and say if it's based you have to destroy and eradicate all of the places the non-jewish that the idolatrous nations served as we enter the land of israel when we conquer and when we inhabit that land there'll be all kinds of corruption contamination all kinds of influences that if we're not careful to eradicate and to purge if they're allowed to remain they can easily and we've seen the impact of the jewish people not only in israel all around the world when we are exposed to spiritual contamination we're vulnerable so torah tells us get rid of it and the question is why the redundancy the double language you must destroy even the translation is you must destroy but that's not what it says you must destroy destroy you must really destroy you must super destroy russia in the words tells us destroy and again destroy and says rashid is teachers then not only do you have to destroy what's on the surface what you see you have to get down to the roots you have to understand where it comes from you have to uproot i'm sure you have this experience you can cut weeds all day long but if you don't pull out the weeds if you allow the roots of the weeds to remain they'll continue to grow and revisit and recur over and over again so that idolatry you can't just eliminate or remove it on the surface level but after you have to dig deep in the root and you have to uproot it where it is this fast semester the great gary rebecca are you laying the author of gair he says based on this rashi a life lesson and this is one of the early teachings of the book atomic habits we have all kinds of bad character traits qualities things that we're trying to change about ourselves we have negative habits some people fly off the handle get angry in a fit of rage easily some people grow impatient some people are stingy some people are arrogant some people are jealous or envious we have all kinds of character traits that we need to work on no one is perfect no one is perfect but footner says that after the creation of earth the second greatest most magical most miraculous creation of the world is the creation of a new habit the ability to change your character traitor habit is almost no less miraculous than the creation of the world itself that's how difficult it is it's been said by many of the bali musser that changing ourselves if you're a person who always runs late perpetually runs late predictably runs late to become punctual to have a time awareness is harder than learning all of shas it's harder than knowing all of torah so sometimes we minimize the people around us not ourselves for ourselves we always can explain and excuse and justify but for others we sometimes minimize like just change that just just stop eating that just come on time just don't raise your voice just don't feel angry or jealous but it's almost it's not impossible it's extraordinarily difficult so says this fascemas this is a clue this is a hint this is a fundamental idea in change and in changing a habit we have to have a self-awareness it's going to be our topic of shabba shubha this year the conversations we have with ourselves our relationship with ourselves it's going to be our topic we have to know who we are what we have to work on we have to identify it then how do we make the change how do we become the people we hope and are meant to be says this fascinas you can't just eliminate the behavior you can't just change the superficial habit you have to get to the root you have to get to what's driving it why why you always like where does that come from what's the cause is it genetic is it learned is it a habit is it a fear is it a disregard for other people's time is it laziness you have to get to the core valemis that's why we have the double language you have to get rid of the habit the practice but then you have to get to the core what's underneath it what's driving it where does it come from why is it happening and we need divine assistance that's why it's we do our part and hashem will help us until match us and we'll be able to do it and here's one of the early lessons the fundamental lessons of the book atomic habits you should buy it i'm not trying to read to you from it in a way to steal from james clear he writes the following i'll share with you some excerpts from the book as we go again torah principles communicated in a contemporary way and i think a very compelling way and motivational way in this book atomic habits you right true behavior change is identity change you might start a habit because of motivation but the only reason you'll stick with one is it becomes part of your identity so maybe you were inspired by the cinema you take up daffy only maybe you're inside inspired by sitter snippets so you think about hashem for the first day or two days or the first week maybe you read a book or you saw a video or you heard a speaker and inspired you to not get angry or to lead a much healthier life or lifestyle motivation will help you start a habit but the only way that you'll keep that habit is not when you see it as an expression of being motivated but when there's a core identity change what does he mean anyone can convince themselves to visit the gym or eat healthy once or twice but if you don't shift the belief behind the behavior it's hard to stick with long-term change improvements are only temporary until they become who you are so you can't say i'm still the old person but i'm working on changing you can't see yourself in the paradigm or in the in the mode that you were you have to see the core identity has changed for the example the goal is not to read a book the goal is to become a reader the goal is not to run a marathon the goal is to become a runner the goal is not to learn an instrument the goal is to become a musician you see the difference between focusing on the verb the action the behavior versus saying the noun my identity i'm a runner i'm a patient person i'm a learner i'm a person of faith in conversation with hashem i'm patient i'm generous it's not just i gave generously i am generous i didn't go for a run so i've got an app on my phone that tracks my habits and i ran and i saw i'm picking up a pace and i'm running more if all you focus is on the behavior but you don't fundamentally transform who you are you can't change your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity what you do is an indication of the type of person you believe that you are consciously or non-consciously research has shown that once a person believes in a particular aspect of their identity they're more likely to act in alignment with that belief for example people who identified as being a voter were more likely to vote than those who simply claimed voting was an action they want to perform similarly the person who incorporates exercise into their identity doesn't have to convince themselves to train doing the right thing is easy after all when you're behaving your identity are fully aligned you're no longer pursuing behavior change you're simply acting like the type of person you already believe that you are so you're not trying to focus on the behavior i'm not on a diet but rather i'm a healthy person who eats a healthy lives in a healthy lifestyle i'm not going for a run i'm a runner it also works in the inverse which is it's position to be a runner who doesn't run it's postness to be a person with a healthy lifestyle who eats like a pig it's postmates to be a patient person patient person who flies off the handle so when a person can transform their identity how we see ourselves fundamentally who we believe we are and what we're capable of then we can become we can become that person so literary points out on the rambam and elsewhere that we have a concept before chuva before chuva before change before repair before transformation there's an idea a thought called hirohorchufa here herchuva doesn't just mean i fantasize or contemplate or plan or have a vision for chuva it means fundamentally i see myself as different you can't have chuva without here herchufa here horchuva means i see myself as changed identity change not just behavior change but identity change he points out you have this problem the opposite direction many people walk through life with a cognitive slumber blindly following the norms attached to their identity right so if you have a i'm a runner i'm going to run if i'm generous i'm going to give generously if i have a lot of ammuna then i'm going to feel hashem's presence in difficult times if i'm a governor then how could i skip davening if i'm a person who's on time i'm punctual how could i run late but the opposite is also true in the most negative and damaging and destructive destructive way people say i'm terrible with directions then you're going to get lost i'm not a morning person so then you'll never be productive in the morning i'm bad at remembering people's names i'm always late i'm not good with technology i'm horrible at math there are a thousand different variations if our identity is intertwined with something negative then our behavior is going to match this is fundamentally important when it comes to parenting you know we're told you never tell a child you're a bad child you're a good child that's bad behavior it's beneath you if you're a good child then you're going to do good things but if a child is told you're the clown or you're the jealous one or you're the impetuous one or you're the then they're going their behavior is going to match what they've been told their identity is that's why it's so important to shape that identity as parents to give that belief and to lift to give the identity passage says which is read at the end of it doesn't say wanted to get rid of these hooligans in the neighborhood he just wanted to sit and learn and all they did was uh make a lot of noise and disturb the neighborhood and he dominated he wanted them to die and burya much more maternal compassionate says to husband ramayana it says may sins be removed not sinners we don't dive in that people they don't have that identity you're not a sinner you're a good person who maybe made a mistake whatever identity we paint or whatever vision we have for our children is what they're going to become the same is true for ourselves what's our identity how we see ourselves is whom we're going to become all of this i didn't share this is all an addendum to that shabbat shiva russia so it's worth watching it and this is this is new as well but i'll share with you another one of my favorite insights regarding this and then we have to move on there's so many great points uh and principles from atomic habits yosef azadek great yosef is sold by his brothers putting a pit ready to die sold into slavery abandoned isolated all alone falsely accused by his master and the great yosef he's in the home and his master's wife is relentlessly pursuing him seducing him tempting him literally throwing herself at him the torah tells us there was a particular day was a pagan holiday potiphar and all the members of the household would be at the church worshiping their idol mrs potiphar feigned sick i can't go to church today stayed home and why this was her opportunity yosef was born down he was ready to give in he was going to grossly violate moral boundaries and the torah tells us that he came to do his words lassos malato to do his work that day and rashi tells us can be understood in one of two ways can mean to do his work running the finances of the home could mean a euphemism he came to work that day meaning he was going to to work with mrs potiphar and what happens in the last moment i won't describe it to you because we're in front of an iron code and i don't need to paint the picture for you even the torah essentially does and he's about to give into this temptation which takes super human strength not to he's alone he's away from his family he's suffering and struggling she's been relentless in this pursuit she's a beautiful woman he's an attractive vigorous young man and how does he how does he draw up the strength and the courage what gives him that conviction not to give in rabbis tell us no shell of he saw the image of his father my brother has a theory that yosef who at this point he's older than when he was last with his family and he hasn't had access to a mirror and now he's in her bedroom and maybe he sees his reflection in something and the mustache yosef at this point a little bit older than he was sees his own reflection but he doesn't see himself does he see he sees his father and the classic understanding is the muslim means he sees his father his father is looking at him and says yo if you're better than that you've got this you're strong enough walk away overcome you don't have to that's the classic understanding but i want to tell you another interpretation of he didn't see the image of his father whose image did he see he saw an image of himself but it was the yukna it was the image of himself shall aviv it was the image that his father had always painted for him of who he could be to yuk no his own image but shalom the one that belonged to his father as joseph grew up yaakov would say yosef you're at sadiq yosef you're a good boy yosef you've got this yosef you're strong yosef you have conviction you have courage your tenacious resolve do you know who you are do you know your potential do you know who you could become and that moment of truth his identity kicked in and the behavior matched and that's what james clear says don't focus on changing your behavior only more fundamentally abed to abdul don't just change the behavior that's abaid change your identity i'm a runner i'm a learner i'm a governor i'm punctual i'm patient i'm generous i'm generous about lawrence kellman to uh kindle a soul his book about parenting told the story when he was here many many years ago he says the following story it's an amazing story amazing story his family is on its yule in israel and his young son says i have to go to the bathroom so every parent has been through this experience panicking looking for a bathroom and they're driving driving driving in some obscure area of israel in desert there's no bathroom it finally finds a spot and there's a civilization and he pulls over and he takes his son and by this point is in the last moments doing the dance in the car trying to hold it in he grabs the sudden he's about to run in so his child finally can go to the bathroom the child stops at the entrance it says abba i i can't go in there he says you can't go in there you've been crying you've been screaming you've been dancing you've been holding it in been telling me how badly you need to go he finally found the place what do you mean you can't go in there his son's name is kadosh kadosh means holy the spot that they had found was a bar and the sun said that's a bar and i'm kadosh i can't go in there i can't go in there an amazing story an amazing moment where kalman understood that as parents the picture we paint for our children the identity we give them the behavior will match it's true for our children and it's true for ourselves to focus not only on the behavior to focus on our identity how do we see our own identity do we believe in the best version a better version of ourselves or do we accept and do we give in and concede to a less version with ourselves he goes on again we know the time because we have so many other other points to get to but just to drop more your identity emerges out of your habits you're not born with the present beliefs every belief including those about yourself is learned and conditioned through experience your habits are how you embody your identity when you make your bed each day you embody the identity of an organized person when you write each day you embody the identity of a creative person when you train each day you embody the identity of an athletic person whatever your identity is right now you only believe it because you have proof of it if you go we'll find and replace to synagogue every shabbos for 20 years you have evidence you're religious if you study biology for an hour every night you have evidence you're studious if you go to the gym even when it's snowing you have evidence that you are committed to fitness so in other words the habits we form become the evidence of our identity but the inverse the opposite can also be true if we change our identity then we can change our habits to match and to conform to that identity that we still have so putting this all together habits are the path to changing your identity most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do each time you write a page you should not just go through the behavior and the habit but see it as contributing to fashioning this new identity you wrote a page it's evidence i'm a writer each time you practice the violin it's evidence i'm a musician each time you start a workout that's evidence i'm an athlete each time you encourage your employees that's evidence that i'm a leader so identity informs habits but the way we change our identity is by changing habits which are the belief system that become compelling evidence for the identity so decide the type of person you want to be and then prove it to yourself with small wins and small victories which we'll get to in a moment the incremental way to change so who do we want to be want to be more patient more punctual want to have more faith more amunah want to become a learner and focus on studying torah want to become a better spouse a better parent how do we see our identity and then take on those habits which will be evidence of the change of the identity that we've just that we've just taken on okay next the next point he makes is one of the greatest impacts on habits that we form and that we want to change that we can become the people that we dream and believe and are meant to be is our environment the impact on the people around us the context in which we live the environment in which we place ourselves we pick up habits and the people around us he writes we copy the way our parents handle arguments the way our peers flirt with one another the way our co-workers get results when your friend smokes pot you give it a try too when your wife has a habit of double checking the doors locked you pick it up as well people imitate the behaviors around us he quotes countless pieces of evidence to this point to make your habits more attractive you can take the strategy a step further join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior and where you have already something in common with the group so understand the impact of the people around us there's countless evidence of people's health and wellness and whether they gain weight or lose weight by who they hang out with and their patterns of behavior i think this is very relevant in our community i don't mean boca raton but i mean the total community where food plays such a fundamental role in meals and chambers and yantef and the culture and the environment and the habits that we create in that area in that arena so who we choose to hang out with socially where we darven and shul which section which row who we sit next to all of these for a work environment where there's a cafeteria and you break out and sit and have lunch with someone who we choose to expose ourselves to to be to be with has an enormous impact on us nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to the tribe it transforms a personal quest into a shared one previously you were on your own your identity was singular you are a reader you are a musician you are an athlete but when you join a book club or a band or a cycling group your identity becomes linked to those around you growth and change is no longer an individual pursuit we are readers we are musicians we are cyclists the shared identity begins to reinforce your personal identity that this is why remaining part of a group after achieving a goal is crucial to maintaining your habit friendship and community that embed a new identity and help behaviors last over a long run that's what yiddishkai is all about it's a platform for community micro community community within community and small breakout communities you go to daily minion you're part of a community of governors you're part of a da fiomi you join the mky club you join uh whatever uh uh area of learning or project or goal it has an enormous impact again he has a lot of evidence from research we don't need it we have the rambam the raman tells us it's natural for a person's character and actions to be influenced by friends and associates and we follow the social norms of behavior the people around us talking down and we're going to end up talking that's the bottom line people share gossip in los angeles then we're going to if people are unhealthy then we're going to allow ourselves to become unhealthy as well and therefore writes the rambam the fear of understand that when we choose our friends we're choosing our identity if we want to change our identity sometimes we need to change our friends that's a whole subject that we're not getting into how do you do that respectfully kindly how do you break up or drop a friend who's a negative influence shouldn't we be kind and compassionate and patient and who should they be friends with that's a whole separate conversation and an important one for the purposes of this conversation how we form better habits and become the people we want to and dream and believe we can we need to consider enormously the influence and the impact of the people around us even before the rambam long before the rambam a thousand years before the rambam our rabbi said this in pirkei elvis it's a mishna in the first chapter of us is north of israel keep distance from an evil from a wicked neighbor and don't become attached to a russia a wicked person and altas it's a very interesting mishna distance yourself from a bad neighbor and don't attach yourself to a wicked person who's worst a wicked person or a bad neighbor a wicked person bad neighbors just a bad neighbor they're maybe a good person but they're a bad neighbor so why does the mishna caution us to be even more extreme when it comes to the wicked person don't attach yourself when it comes to the bad neighbor stay far away why would we be cautioned to be even more vigilant to stay further away when it comes to the bad neighbor and the answer is you know which one is more dangerous the russia you look at you say it's a rush i've never come close i have no interest i'm repelled repulsed i don't want to hang around to russia a wicked person but a bad neighbor is not necessarily a bad person but just a bad neighbor it could be a bad influence and therefore a person has to be even more vigilant to keep their distance so the rambam the mission and perky avas remind us remind us of the impact of those around us so james clear atomic habits he says we tend to imitate the habits of three social groups the close to our family and friends the many the tribe and the powerful those with status and prestige and we have to have awareness of that these are the three influences the close family tend to blend together and follow each other habits husband and wife and so on pick up each other's habits the many which is the tribe the masses tend to pick up contagious and then the powerful people watch this was imagine the impact of social media and media and watching people want to be like them and imitate them and so on one of the most effective things we can do to build better habits to join the culture where our desired behavior is the norm as we saw and we have something in common with that group this is in fact the entire essence and purpose of torah and mitzvos the whole purpose of torah is to be a platform to create community to connect to be influenced positively in our behavior and our actions in the people that we are and the people that we are with the next point he says on atomic habits lesson number three at least for tonight again we can't do justice to the entire book is the importance of self-awareness if you live with a distorted view of yourself if you live in fantasyland if you look i once at on rosh hashanah i talked about the people who say uh they see a picture themselves they say ah i hate that picture i look terrible in that picture that's how you look people hear their voice on a recording oh i can't listen that i hate the way i sound in that record that's how you sound we tend to live you know those funny mirrors you know funny mirror you can look at makes you look much thinner than you are or distorts you look different than you are our mind produces funny mirrors of our lives we see ourselves the way we wish we were rather than the way we are and real change begins when we have self-awareness when we understand and admit who we are and what we look like and we understand who we are when we have that level of a self-awareness that's why you're slavic writes in the mishkan in the tabernacle you had the keor the basin where the priests would wash was adjacent was next to the mizbeh what was the cure made out of what was the the base of the basin the copper where did it come from the mirrors that the women beautified themselves in mitzrayim in egypt when the men withdrew and said how could we bring children into this horrific cruel world the women beautified themselves seduce their husbands and are responsible for our continuity responsible for the entire existence of the jewish people and when moshe rabbenu wanted to incorporate these mirrors which were donated by these righteous women moshe albania said ah it's disgusting the mirrors are instruments of vanity how could it find a place in the holy holy mishkan the tabernacle and god said moshe those are the most precious to me those are the most beautiful to me and there are many explanations what was going on in this conversation between god and moshe where salvation writes something so powerful he says you know why those mirrors are critically important important because what's the calling doing when they approach them the altar is a place of ascent they're trying to grow trying to elevate trying to improve trying to be better you know what the prerequisite is to it you have to look in the mirror before you can improve or grow before you can better yourself you have to look in the mirror and admit who you are if you have a distorted view of yourself if you live life looking through the funny mirror if you see yourself the way you wish you were rather than the way you are how could you ever grow or change you don't have an accurate baseline of where you start so cedric celavec first you have to look in that key or when you wash you look in that mirror and then you can go get atonement then you can approach him as bae then you can go change that is the purpose of mitzvos it gives us a identity a self-awareness it is the mirror through which we see ourselves and that's what he writes in atomic habits if you're having trouble determining how to write a particular habit ask yourself does this behavior help me become the type of person i wish to be does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity with enough practice your brain will pick up on the cues that predict certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it once our habits become automatically stop paying attention to what we're doing process of behavior change always starts with awareness you need to be aware of your habits before you can change them how many people when you say to them you know you're always late they say what are you talking about i'm on time so keep a spreadsheet let's keep a spreadsheet let's follow carpool minion meeting for coffee let's see what time we said we're going to be there let's see what time we we're there right what gets measured gets managed one of my favorite quotes from peter drucker the management guru what gets measured gets managed keep a spreadsheet mark yourself see whether your habit conforms to what you think oh i barely ate anything today really let's take a look let's think out let's measure let's record what we eat oh i get enough sleep really what were you doing deep into the night what device were you playing on when you're supposed to be falling asleep how much did you really get what gets measured gets managed you can't change a habit unless you're honest about it you got to look in the mirror of the kior before you can approach the mizbayach of change pointing and calling raises your level of awareness from an unconscious habit to a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions the habit scorecard is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior he actually has a link online if you google james clear he provides a habit scorecard so that we can give ourselves an anonymous and honest report card of our habits of our habits really i'm very generous you can't imagine when i give away rabbi i'm sorry i can't contribute to this sucka because you don't you don't know how much i do for my family how much i give to these other places really let's see your tax returns let's see your tax returns you know i love to say you know what the real mirror is when you want to change habits what doesn't lie there are two things that don't lie we have enormously distorted views of all this but the two things that don't lie and they are our calendar and our credit card statements how much time do you really spend with your spouse or your children in dominating or in learning what are we really spending our time on when we say i don't have time to do that x y or z your calendar doesn't lie you know what's a mirror when that thing that we quickly swipe away because we don't want to see it pops up on the phone that says here was your screen time for this week we get rid of it quickly because no one wants to look at and be honest what the screen time was for that week our calendar is a lie and our credit card statement doesn't lie look at your budget this is what you claim to care about let's see what we really care about let's see how we really spend our time the habit scorecard a real scorecard of who we are this is the point of tefila of davoning refers writes hit pale from which trilas derived originally meant to deliver an opinion about oneself to judge oneself an inner attempt at so doing such as hitpa'el is reflexive it's something we do to ourselves that root pay ayan lamid is to judge davening is a conversation with god but hashem is our mirror here are hashem's values here's the formula for meaningful life we take three steps forward and we look into a mirror how am i really doing who am i how have i improved myself what needs to change we're accountable and we're honest with ourselves we're judging ourselves in our relationship with hashem and our relationship with the world around us in english we call it feel a prayer but this word only incompletely expresses the concept to pray to ask for something is only a minor section of tfilo the real point of thrill of the purpose of tuila is to judge ourselves to evaluate ourselves to become better so atomic habits a person has to know themselves you can't change a habit if you don't look in the mirror you have to look in the key or before you can approach them is baa we have to be honest and keep a real scorecard of who we are and what we want to change this elo what are we going to work on what is this 40 less than 40 days now yes i'm kipper 36 days 37 days 35 days what is the challenge we're going to give ourselves we're going to be more punctual more generous we need a diamond with more concentration are we going to show greater patience are we going to spend more time with the people we claim we love are we going to study more torah what change are we going are we going to jump out of bed and be on time are we going to get more sleep are we going to eat more healthy what change we can have more kavana are we going to show more faith what is it that needs work let's have an honest score card and then let's track it measure it because only what gets measured gets managed next we're in the home stretch because some of you are struggling with the habit of keeping your eyes open so the gemara next point it's okay i would be in this if i weren't standing up you'd have to wake me up to finish a very important principle torah tells us in tremendous wisdom when you try to take on too much you take on nothing measured calibrated slow incremental if you try to do too much you'll do nothing tafasta maruba if you grab many you won't grab anything it'll all fall and slip right through your fingertips and this is perhaps arguably the most important most powerful i found maybe the most practical insight of this book at tom mccabbage james clear he talks about the notion of one percent better every day incremental change it's so hopeful it's so hopeful because when you talk about radical change it's overwhelming it feels impossible you feel deflated before you even start some radical change but if you think about a one percent change it's doable you can accomplish it you can make it can make it a reality small goals small goals so he says the following he says habits are the compound interest of self-improvements same way that money multiplies through compound interest the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them they seem to make a little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous it is only when looking back two five or perhaps ten years later the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent this can be a difficult concept to appreciate in daily life we often dismiss so small changes because they don't seem to matter very much in the moment if you save a little money now you're still not a millionaire if you go to the gym three days in a row you're still not you're still out of shape if you study mandarin for an hour tonight you still haven't learned the language we make a few changes but the results never seem to come quickly unfortunately the slow pace of transformation also makes it easy to let a bad habit slide if you eat an unhealthy meal today scale doesn't move much you work late tonight and ignore your family they'll forgive you procrastinate and put your project off till tomorrow it's usually time to finish it later a single decision is easy to dismiss but when we repeat one percent errors day after day by replicating poor decisions duplicating tiny mistakes and rationalizing little excuses our small choices compound into toxic results it's the accumulation of many missteps a one percent decline here and there that eventually leads to a problem the impact created by a change in your habits is similar to the effect of shifting the root of an airplane by just a few degrees and i love this analogy this metaphor imagine you're flying from los angeles to new york city pilot leaving at lax adjust the heading just 3.5 degrees south where will they land la to new york l.a to new york and the pilot changes just 3.5 degrees the nose of the plane at takeoff they'll end up in washington dc instead of new york such a small change is barely noticeable takeoff the nose of the airplane moves just a few feet but magnified across the entire united states you're hundreds of miles apart similarly a small change in your daily habits can guide your life to a difficult destination making a choice that's one percent better or one percent worse seems insignificant in the moment but over the span of time it has an enormous enormous change so he says for example the two-minute rule even when you know you'll start small it's easy to start too big when you dream about making a change excitement inevitably takes over you end up trying to do too much to fast low to faster most effective way in order to counteract this tendency is to use the two-minute rule when you start a new habit it should take less than two minutes to do read before bed each night becomes read one page do 30 minutes of yoga take out the yoga mat study for class open my notes fold the laundry fold a pair of socks run three miles put on your sneakers the idea is to make your habits as easy as possible to start anyone could meditate for one minute read one page put on one item of clothing put one item clothing away and just that we discussed a powerful strategy because once you start doing the right thing it's much easier to continue the new habits should not feel like a challenge the actions that follow can be challenging but the first two minutes should be easy so two minutes to change that habit small incremental to fasta meruba low ta faster if you take on if you take on too much too much so here's another uh way that he says another example when someone wants to make the world a better place to think of a grand all-encompassing scheme creating an organization that promotes world peace or justice someone wants to make themselves a better person somebody thinks in terms of doing something major extruding act of kindness or piety they minimize and question the value of small actions however personal development comes through specifically small deeds consider the amount of the active ingredient medication perhaps it's one milligram a large amount of that ingredient would cause damage rather than heal might even kill the person so a person needs to do small small changes one percent one percent change and he talks about that he talks about beautiful ways we saw that faster maruba lo i'll give you another example revolver volvo the great mashiach we love to quote he says the author of aleishore traveled to israel's border with egypt to encourage the israeli soldiers and air force pilots described their vulva the best way for a pilot to avoid enemy radar is to fly low which helps the plane remain undetected by enemy radar so revolver heard that and he said wow what a lesson for life how do you protect yourself from the yatahara fly low below the radar when you announce some big 100 change i'm never doing this again i'm always doing that again i'm gonna radically change that the enemy radar picks it up and shoots you out of the sky but if you really want to make a change and avoid the enemy radar fly below the radar small one percent little incremental change it compounds enormously when you read the section of the book you'll see just learn one more minute read one more paragraph one percent change in eating habit one percent an act one percent small marginal change one percent change accumulates enormously we're almost there i promise habit stacking another great insight what he calls hammet stacking one of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do and stack a new behavior on top of it it's called habit stacking maybe you already have a good habit you don't need to radically change something altogether just stack one habit onto another meditation after i pour my cup of coffee each morning i meditate for a minute exercise after i take off my work shoes i immediately change into my workout clothing after i sit down to dinner i say one thing i'm grateful for we have all kinds of habits already in place so attach a new desired habit to one of those habits that it's already in place we also know this already torah already also told us when did it tell us that mitzvah goreres mitzvah that if you do one good thing one mitzvah it's going to lead to and encourage and promote another mitzvah mitzvah guerreros mitzvah habit stacking one after the other link them together and you'll be more likely and you'll be more likely to do it mitzvah guerrero's mitzvah and the last one i'll share with you tonight and then you got to read the rest of the book for yourselves is accountability partner when we live on an island in isolation when we decide we're going to change so we looked in the key or in the mirror before we approached them as back of change we are honest with ourselves and we know which habits we keep a real scorecard report card on the habits we want to change we're realistic and we're trying to change them incrementally 1 marginal change to fasta maruba we're not taking on the world habit stacking mitzvah guerrero smits we're going to connect them and attach them to other habits that we want to we're going to look at our identity not just a habit i've been a runner i'm a runner not just i go for a run and then doing the right habits that support and that'll be evidence of the identity we clearly want we want all of that but in the end of the day it's really hard so how do we get there accountability partner accountability partner what is an accountability partner somebody that you designate or ask or report to that's going to hold you accountable for the new habit of the change that you want to have and this too possible told us two are better than one they have a greater greater benefit from their working together the accountability partner to report remember an elwool was a few years ago we had what's app group for uh planking we had six or nine what's app groups for different things we wanted to work on put our phone on airplane mode while we dive in all kinds of uh ideas one of them was planking so this worked incredibly you know what's that exact last week somebody texted how come nobody's writing on the whatsapp for planking it's been it's been dead for a couple years now why did it work you know what a plank is you hold your arms out and you try to hold yourself as flat as a plank you engage your core it sounds very easy until three seconds in you're shaking sweating and you're concerned you'll need a defibrillator it's hard so we had it's app group and the members of the with app group there was no communication and there was no exchange of language people just posted their time how long they held the plank some obnoxiously posted their extraordinary time every night just to make the rest of us feel bad about ourselves but incredible incredible point it was an accountability partner you don't need to have an entire whatsapp group with 300 people it could be one person who you check in each day how did you do on whatever habit we want to change together don't do it on your own it's easy to lie to ourselves excuse ourselves but we have to do with an accountability partner who will hold us accountable and make us change to become the people that we are meant to be the people that were meant to become that people were meant to become so we have that ability it's in us atomic habits if we employ these ancient ideas maybe communicated a new way through this book that torah has always been telling us this ell as we continue to count up to stand before hashem and rosh hashanah the goals that we set for ourselves we can become those people it's never too late to become the person that you were meant to be but we have to be honest with ourselves we have to have resolutions not just wishes we have to engage in accountability partners we have to have realistic goals and expectations and we have to be able to move incrementally not take on too much and please god we can all look back and see how much we have grown the changes we've made the habits we've formed so that we're not mindlessly driving through life finding ourselves at this destinations other than the ones that we meant to go to thank you so much for coming tonight and have a wonderful evening [Applause]