114 How To Create New Habits To Change Anything In Your Life With Leo Babauta Of Zen Habits

DO YOU Want to change your habits and create massive transformations in your personal health, wealth, and relationships?

In this episode of the MindBodySpace Podcast, host Dr. Juna interviews Leo Babauta, creator of the blog Zen Habits, which has millions of readers. Leo shares his INSPIRING personal story of overcoming smoking, debt, unhealthy habits, and more in 2005 by slowly but surely making small changes.

He gives actionable tips on CREATING lasting change in your life by understanding your urges and resistance, creating accountability through your community, and finding a deeper reason why the transformation matters.

Listeners will be inspired by Leo's journey and gain practical frameworks to IMPACT any area of their lives.

Check out Leo's retreat coming up soon!

The Art of Letting Go Retreat — with Leo Babauta from Zen Habits

A fearless and intensive experience at the Art of Living Center, Boone, North Carolina

October 19-21, 2023:

If you could truly let go, what would you create?

• Learn why and how we cling to old identities

• Get present to the impact of this clinging

• Staying and finding love in the unknown

• Sacred ritual for uncertainty and focus

• Connection with an incredible group of people,- dedicated to creating change in the world, just like you. 

• Training with Leo — a world-class expert in mindful fearlessness and shifting our ingrained patterns.

QUESTIONS?

Email Dr Juna at info@mindbodyspace.com

Introduction

In this episode of the MINDBODY Space Podcast, host Dr. Juna interviews Leo Babauta, creator of the popular blog Zen Habits. Leo shares his inspiring personal story of overcoming smoking, debt, unhealthy habits, and more in 2005 by slowly making small changes. He gives actionable tips on creating lasting transformation in your life by understanding your urges and resistances, creating accountability through your community, and finding a deeper reason why the transformation matters. Listeners will be inspired by Leo's journey and gain practical frameworks to impact any area of their lives.

Key Discussion Points

- Leo's background and the significant life changes he made, starting in 2005 at age 30, over the span of 1-2 years

- How Leo went from failing to change repeatedly to finally succeeding: quitting smoking, paying off debt, losing 60 lbs through diet and exercise, waking up earlier and becoming more mindful

- Picking one thing at a time to focus on rather than everything at once

- Researching to find what works for habit creation

- Learning to see urges as temporary physical sensations that you can sit with until they pass

- Creating accountability through commitments, community support groups

- Tips for creating lasting change

- Having a compelling reason why it matters beyond fixing yourself

- Creating commitment, structure and accountability

- Understanding that urges are normal and that you can choose not to act on them

- Getting community support and sharing your struggles with others

Guest Bios

Leo Babauta is the founder of Zen Habits, a Top 25 blog with over 2 million readers. He transformed his health, finances, and more starting in 2005 and has since helped countless others make lasting changes. Leo is also the author of multiple bestselling books including *The Power of Less* and *Essential Zen Habits*.

Key Quotes

"If you can learn how to come back from that, then you can overcome really anything."

>"It's like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks."

>"There has to be a different, more expansive reason...It has to be something like that, where there's an emotional resonance to it, that you care so much about this that you're willing to walk through walls to make it happen."

TRANSCRIPT

(The following is an automated transcript)

[00:00:00] Zen Habits: Finding simplicity and mindfulness in the chaos of daily life

[00:00:00] Dr. Juna: Hi. Welcome to the MINDBODY Space Podcast, where you can boost your resilience just by listening. Whether you're watching this on YouTube at my Fall Asleep Easy channel, or on a podcast platform, please subscribe and share to support this free, evidence based content curated just for you. I'm Dr. Juna, a board certified radiologist and lifestyle medicine specialist. I'm here to help you stress less and thrive in today's complex world. Join me as I meet fascinating experts in meditation, neuroscience, education, and lifestyle medicine. To get special tips and tools, head on over to Mindbodyspace.com and sign up for the newsletter. Links are below. I can't even believe who I have here with me today. His name is Leo Babaluta. You might have heard of his blog. It's called Zen Habits, and it has more than 2 million readers, with Time Magazine naming it one of their top 25 blogs and top 50 websites. When I started on my path to mind, body medicine and minimalism, his blog was one of the first ones that really spoke to me. According to Leo, Zen Habits is about finding simplicity and mindfulness in the daily chaos of our lives. It's about clearing the clutter so that we can focus on what's more important, create something amazing and find happiness. It's about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what's important, create something amazing, find happiness. You're going to love this conversation. He's going to give us so many tips on how to slowly but surely transform into a healthier, wealthier, and happier life. Hey, Leo. Thank you so much for being here today.

[00:01:31] Leo Babauta: Sure. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:34] Leo Babauta Talks About His Latest Podcast and Its Focus on Tackling Resistance and Uncertainty

[00:01:34] Dr. Juna: Great. Which microphone are you using?

[00:01:36] Leo Babauta: This some kind of audio technica microphone.

[00:01:41] Dr. Juna: It sounds great. And I've been listening to your new so awesome. Yeah.

[00:01:47] Leo Babauta: Any feedback on that?

[00:01:48] Dr. Juna: I just listened to the first few. It sounds great. It's like a challenge, right?

[00:01:53] Leo Babauta: Yeah. Just inviting people to play along. For sure. Yeah.

[00:01:58] Dr. Juna: Do you want to tell the audience about your new podcast and what sure. It's about yeah.

[00:02:04] Leo Babauta: So the new podcast was something that I've been wanting to do for years. Really like to deepen the conversation from the blog post that I do on Zen Habits, but I decided this year to finally commit myself to doing it because there's always like, a thousand reasons not to do it. Always so busy. But I committed myself and I wasn't sure what I wanted to focus on because I have a lot of topics that I'm really interested in and that I'd like to write about. But I decided to do it in seasons. And so this first season is about fear and resistance and uncertainty, especially around your purpose work, meaningful work. It's going to be about four months long and it's inviting people to be a part of it. So they aren't just like, listening and learning, but actually putting it into action, which is where they'll run up against their actual resistance and uncertainty and fear if they're actually trying to put into action and then they can send in questions. I might do some live coaching and it'll be more interactive, more of a dynamic kind of process.

[00:03:15] Dr. Juna: Wow. Well, I liked it when I first heard your introduction of it, and then I think I listened to the first episode or two, but now that I hear you talking about it again, I definitely need it. I'm on there and yeah. How are you doing the lives? You're going to have people call in with questions or things like that? Or are you doing on YouTube Live? What are you doing?

[00:03:38] Leo Babauta: You know, I haven't figured that out. There's so many live platforms now. It could actually come onto this one that we're doing. Right. But or there's Zoom, there's Facebook Live, so I might just play around with it and see what works. Awesome. The main thing is get someone on, have a conversation and do some coaching.

[00:03:57] Dr. Juna: Okay. Well, I love your voice. So your podcast, I'm sure, is going to take off. And this idea of resistance and changing and doing meaningful work, which is all what I'm trying to do right now or have been trying to do for the last decade or two, I think that's a great idea to have people interact with you in that way.

[00:04:19] Leo Babauta Discusses Zen Habits and Simplicity in Blogging

[00:04:19] Dr. Juna: And I already gave your introduction, but obviously you're one of my idols because you started your blog way back in 2005. Right.

[00:04:29] Leo Babauta: Was it 2007 is when the blog started? 2005, when I started making all the changes that I've made in my life. Yeah, 2005 is when I started making the changes. And then after like a year plus of doing that, I started Zen Habits. So 2007 is when I started okay.

[00:04:45] Dr. Juna: So when you started 2007, had you already changed a lot of things? Because I know at that time you had some debt you were talking about that you paid off, and then you changed a ton of habits.

[00:04:56] Leo Babauta: Yeah.

[00:04:57] Dr. Juna: Could you refresh us on the beginnings of your amazing blog, which to this day, I think is the most beautiful because it's so clean looking, just the appearance of it. I love it. I don't think there's many blogs that look like that, and I certainly try to look like that, but I can never do it.

[00:05:17] Leo Babauta: It's an art, for sure.

[00:05:18] Dr. Juna: Yeah. It's a restraint because you want to add things, but you just have to restrain yourself.

[00:05:26] Leo Babauta: Yeah, I'll talk about my journey in 2005, but just speak to what you just said. What I realized is I didn't like going to other people's websites because it was always, like, things popping up and also cluttered, and it just was stressful. And so I'm like, what's the experience that I would like to have reading? And so I created that for the blog. So, yeah, simplicity is definitely the name of the game for me.

[00:05:52] Dr. Juna: Well, I just want to add to that.

[00:05:54] Leo Babauta: Sure.

[00:05:54] Dr. Juna: Even though you said to yourself, this is what I would want to see, and you made it that way, you haven't changed it, which is such to me, that's so beautiful because I'm always changing everything. I'm constantly changing my website, and you are somebody that I aspire to be like that. I mean, I have other strengths.

[00:06:16] Leo Babauta: Sure.

[00:06:17] Dr. Juna: I'm not knocking myself, but I do definitely aspire to something like that, where you have that multimedia presence where you are so calm and Zen and your page is Zen. I'm sure your life is not always Zen because you have six kids.

[00:06:33] Leo Babauta: Not at all.

[00:06:33] Dr. Juna: All that right. You have six kids, right? If I remember, six kids.

[00:06:36] Leo Babauta: Most of them are adults now, actually. They're almost all grown. But yeah, even still, they're still very much in my life, and my life is abundant and yeah, it's not always common. Zen, for sure.

[00:06:49] Maintaining Minimalism with Dr. Juna and Leo Babauta

[00:06:49] Dr. Juna: Anyway, I was going off track, but sure, I'm decluttering again today. I'm actually a minimalist in my house. But again, it's always an uphill battle to stay very minimal, right?

[00:07:01] Leo Babauta: Yeah, that's like the website. Our lives are like that, where it's just always the tendency is to accumulate, and it's not because of anything wrong with us, it's just like people give us stuff, we go out into the world and get things. Sometimes we get really interested in something and start buying stuff, and then all of a sudden, oh, I need to kind of fight against the trend. So, yes, simplicity and minimalism are not they don't come for free. We have to actually work at it. I'm definitely guilty of ordering too many things on Amazon once in a while, and then I have to say, is this looking around? Is this what I want? Recently, I actually went on a little bit of a spree of not buying, but getting rid of stuff, sending things out the door and paring down to the essentials. And that's so much fun, as I'm sure you know.

[00:07:58] Dr. Juna: It's fun, and sometimes it can be painful because you're trying to get your family to throw stuff away. Also. And recently I was diagnosed with allergies to dust, like dust mites, which it turns out four out of five American homes all have this. And people might not even know that they're allergic. But it's giving me another reason to just get rid of everything, including even rugs. Yeah, I'm really Florida, actually.

[00:08:27] Leo Babauta: That's so cool.

[00:08:28] In Conversation With Leo Babauta on Maintaining Simplicity in His Website Design

[00:08:28] Dr. Juna: I just have one more question for you for the website. You never think, oh, I should just add one thing here, make it different. Absolutely the same.

[00:08:36] Leo Babauta: No, you know, actually I changed it a few years ago, maybe four or five years ago, but it wasn't much different. So I just kind of did a little bit of a refresh with different fonts. But yeah, for me, I do get tempted to add stuff to it, but there's something about it that I really love. And so it's just like, I don't know, it's trying to protect something that I cherish, do you know what I mean?

[00:09:04] Dr. Juna: And I appreciate it because I love looking at your blog page, but when those thoughts come, like you want to add stuff, what do you do to process that?

[00:09:13] Leo Babauta: Yeah, I have to return to what's important to me, what am I committed to creating in the world. And the things that I want to add usually are something that will benefit me as a business. And so I'm like, oh, this would be really great. And then it's just like, well, is it worth losing what I've created that I really love? And so, yeah, that's kind of the process.

[00:09:40] Journey to Change and Simplicity: Conversation with Leo Babauta, Founder of Zen Habits

[00:09:40] Dr. Juna: And what you love is simplicity, like you were saying again, and you were going to go back and tell us about the beginning of your journey and why you changed and how you changed. Because I think most people want to know, how do you change? It's so hard, right?

[00:09:52] Leo Babauta: Yeah, it's one of my favorite topics. So, 2005, I was living in Guam, where I'm from. We had five kids and one on the way. So my wife was pregnant and I was in a place where I felt really stuck. So I was a smoker, I was sedentary, I was overweight, I had really bad diet. I couldn't change, I couldn't exercise. I tried to exercise a whole bunch of times and I couldn't stick to it. I was a procrastinator. Just bad sleep habits, really deeply in debt. So just like a lot of clutter. So pretty much my whole life was a huge mess. And I was like, I really want to change all of it. And I kept failing. And so I decided I'm going to start with one thing, and I chose quitting smoking, which was one of the hardest ones. So that was difficult. But I really like that I chose it now that I look back on it, because I did a lot of research and there was a lot of stuff about how to quit smoking. And so I took things from the American Cancer Society and different things online where people were helping each other to quit, and I started putting them into action. I tried everything. It's like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. And I learned some things that actually helped me with the next thing, which was running. So I wanted to run to relieve stress and to get a little bit healthier. And so I started running. I couldn't even run for like five minutes, ten minutes, and then eventually I could run 3 miles and I ran my first five K. And then I'm like, I'm signing up for a marathon. So I committed to running a marathon a year later, which was December 2006. And so I applied a lot of the same things that I learned from smoking to running. And then eating healthier. Eventually I became vegetarian and then later vegan. I started applying it to clutter and getting rid of debt and pretty much everything. And by the end of 2006, I changed so many things. I was still in the middle of the process. I always am, actually. But I changed so much. I wasn't out of debt yet, but I was much further along in the journey. I was waking up earlier. I wasn't procrastinating as much. I was running and eating healthier. I had lost a bunch of weight, I think like 30 pounds at that time. Eventually it was like 60 pounds. And so I wanted to start Zen Habits in January 2007 as a way to chronicle all of those changes and some of the things I was learning and share it with others and also use it for some accountability. So I still had debt that I wanted to get out of. So I was like, I'm going to commit myself to being accountable for spending and debt and all of that stuff.

[00:12:47] Dr. Juna: That's an incredible story, but it's almost too incredible.

[00:12:51] Leo Babauta: Sure.

[00:12:51] Exploring the Transformation Journey of Leo Babauta

[00:12:51] Dr. Juna: So I want to ask you details because most people will hear that. And I was listening and I'm like, how did he do all that? How the hell you know what I mean? I've made changes in my life, but I guess that's gradual. But you did it within a year. So to me that sounds fantastic and amazing. But how did you do it as a kid when you grew up? Were you into health? Did you understand how to eat clean? Was this all stuff you learned? So you were smoking. Did you know that smoking is bad for you?

[00:13:24] Leo Babauta: I knew smoking was bad for me, the smoking one. So, first of all, one answer to what you're saying is it was really messy. Like, I gave you kind of the short version, but if you go into the real version of it, it was like I would start and stop. But along the way, as I was working with all of the messiness, I learned things that actually helped with all of that. So there's times when you're going to be doing really great and then you're going to fall off and get really discouraged. And that's a really key part of any process. And if you just let that be the end of the story, then you really missed out on what it's like to come back from that. And so if you can learn how to come back from that, then you can overcome really anything.

[00:14:07] The Journey of Leo Babauta: Overcoming Habits and Creating Change

[00:14:07] Dr. Juna: So how did you learn? I mean, did you have any background? Know meditation or oh, that was another one. What was your upbringing like? What was Leo up until? How old were you when you started this whole situation?

[00:14:22] Leo Babauta: In my early 30s.

[00:14:23] Dr. Juna: Early 30s. So who was Leo until early 30s? Were you like, you know, you said you were procrastinating, you're sleeping irregularly, you were just eating poorly junk food, not exercising, all those things. So how does Leo, who is used to that, were you already priming your brain prior to that? Were you watching, let's say, documentaries or reading?

[00:14:46] Leo Babauta: So up until was I was living in the island of Guam, which was tropical, but it's also very American. So it's very much like the US. But kind of like Hawaii like us, but in the um so I was living there. But I would say I lived a typical American life in a lot of ways, other than probably having more kids than average, but we spent too much, we were in debt. Everyone in Guam has six kids practically, but yeah, they're Catholic and make a lot of yeah. So my life was very typical and I had tried a lot of things in terms of priming, tried a lot of diets. So I remember back then there was like Atkins diet, I had done that South Beach diet, like all the fad diets at the time. I tried them and failed a bunch of things in men's magazines that I tried and none of them worked. And so I think those actually really helped is trying a bunch of stuff and seeing myself failing. It was discouraging and frustrating. But I think those in terms of priming myself, that was really important. I tried for years.

[00:16:01] Dr. Juna: You were doing that like in your early 30s or something when you started having kids, maybe, right?

[00:16:06] Leo Babauta: For years. And I had tried also all kinds of exercise plans and couldn't make them stick. I tried quitting smoking seven times and I failed every single time and so those were all important. I also had read a book called Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which kind of woke me up to that. I was not a meditator, but I started meditating when I quit smoking because I realized I had done a bunch of things in terms of tracking when I had the urge to smoke and what was triggering that. And I realized that the thing that was in common was that it was all stress. It was like stress of being in argument, stress of having some stressful meeting at work or being overloaded with my day or kids are going crazy. So all of it was stress and I had to have a way to relieve that that wasn't smoking. Because you can't just take away the bad habit and just think that everything's going to be fine. You have to have something to replace it. If there's no other coping mechanism, eventually you're going to be like and then finally go back to it, which is what had happened all the other times. So the things that I did to cope with stress was one running. So I started running, but I couldn't do that 40 times a day. So running was one I meditated, but I also didn't do that every single time. I would kind of massage my neck and breathe deeper. Eating was another one, but that wasn't healthy. So I eventually started eating frozen grapes because they're healthy, but they do something in the mouth that kind of replaces cigarettes and then also they're cold and they bring some mindfulness to it. So actually that was like a magical trick. I didn't make that up, but someone else gave that to me.

[00:18:02] Dr. Juna: And did you have all these things written on a wall? Like all the things you like to do so you could choose?

[00:18:07] Leo Babauta: So the reason why that one stuck after failing seven times was I didn't take it lightly. I got really committed to it. So what I did was instead of just saying I'm going to quit today, like it was like nothing, I said, I'm going to take this seriously. So I set a quit date that was two weeks in the future. So, november 5, 2005. Yeah, I think it was something like that. November twelveTH, 2005. And so I set that as a date. I wrote it down and then I said before that, I'm going to prepare myself so that I'm actually ready. And so what I did is I carried around a little piece of paper and a pencil and I wrote down little tally marks every time I had the urge to smoke. So if I smoked, I get to smoke. But I was right down the tally mark. And then I would write on another piece of paper. So that was just to bring mindfulness to it, awareness to it. And then I wrote on another piece of paper, what's the thing that came right before it that made me want to smoke? So oh, I just ate or I just woke up or I used the bathroom or what it was in a meeting, or got into an argument with my wife. So all of those things, I just wrote them down. I started making a list of triggers and then before the actual quit date, I wrote down what am I going to do when each of those happens. So get into an argument with my wife, what's my replacement? Because it can't be smoking. And then the other thing that I did that really helped was I made a commitment to my wife who was pregnant and after her pregnancy she was very likely to go back to smoking if I was smoking. So I'm like, I'm making a commitment to you. And I made a commitment to my oldest daughter who was like twelve at the time.

[00:19:41] Dr. Juna: Oh wow.

[00:19:42] Leo Babauta: And I said, I'm committed to smoking and I promise you that I will. And promising them and having them as the reason, not just that one daughter but all my kids as a reason that this really mattered to me. I was not only saving my own life, I was saving theirs and my wife's life. That was what I had to call into mind when I had the urge and I was like, It's okay to smoke. It's just this one time. Whatever story I told myself when I had that urge, I had to remember my promise and remember why this mattered.

[00:20:15] Dr. Juna: Was there ever any times where you felt like, yeah, I know this matters, but I don't care because you're in such a bad mood. Because I know I do that sometimes.

[00:20:26] Leo Babauta: Yeah.

[00:20:28] Overcoming Resistance and Building New Habits with Leo Babauta

[00:20:28] Leo Babauta: So at that point, talk about resistance, right? That's exactly it.

[00:20:33] Dr. Juna: I mean, this sounds like nothing, but it is something for me because I do really need to do this, but I had a bag of potato chips, and I wasn't supposed to. I'm like, I'm trying to bring down my cholesterol right now.

[00:20:44] Leo Babauta: That's right.

[00:20:45] Dr. Juna: But then the resistance is like, yeah, I know, I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. That's the resistance, right? That's that voice. And you exactly do it, and it sounds like you did it anyway, and you tallied it.

[00:20:56] Leo Babauta: Well, somehow I let myself do that. Before the quit date. After the quit date, what I promised was not one puff ever. No was my acronym, not a single one. Because I knew that that was my tendency. I knew it was like, oh, this time is okay, this one time, and of course that one time isn't going to kill you. There's truth to that. That's why it works. Because there's, like, one potato chip that's nothing. But I knew that that was even.

[00:21:25] Dr. Juna: Say it now it sounds stupid, like, oh, I had a bag of people will be like, So who cares?

[00:21:30] Leo Babauta: So what? Right?

[00:21:31] Dr. Juna: Yeah, but it does matter.

[00:21:33] Leo Babauta: What I knew from experience, from watching this is that that was a lie. It was a way to lie to myself as like, one puff is okay, but I always knew that it's going to lead to the second one and the third, and then I'm just back to smoking, and so that one will actually kill me is what I had to tell myself. And so what I had to do to deal with that resistance that you're asking about is create a moat. So it's so easy when the potato chips are right there or the pack of cigarettes are right there just to reach for it and get it. I actually created this with food, too. When I started changing my diet was I got rid of all the cigarettes, so there weren't any in the house. When I changed my eating later, I also got rid of junk food, or I would put it somewhere where I couldn't access it, but my wife and kids could if they wanted to have it still. And so basically, literally, like, padlocking it so that I couldn't get it. And so I had to create a moat like that in order to get a cigarette. I'd have to drive to a store, buy a pack. And so what that did is it made it much easier to realize that I was in that resistance that you're talking about. And then I had to have something to do when I realized it. So it wasn't that hard to drive to this store, but what am I going to do when I realize I'm about to do this? So I made a promise to these group of people online. I was in this online quit forum and I said I won't smoke a single puff until I post on here. So if I have an urge I have to post somewhere and say that I'm about to smoke. And that added to the moat. And then the same thing like I was going to call someone. So I basically started adding to this moat where it was not easy and it was actually going to be a little bit embarrassing to do it. And so that made me really work with the resistance. But I'll tell you one more thing if that's okay. I just want to share one other thing that's really important. Absolutely. So that was the moat and that helped me to not actually reach for it so easily. But I had to learn to work with the urges. And this changed my whole life. So when the urge comes before I wouldn't even realize that there's a physical sensation in my body that's an urge. I would just go and do the thing that the urge was telling me to do. So smoke a cigarette, eat a bag of chips, whatever it is. And so I would just do it without even thinking about it. It was almost like it was a command or like no choice. And so what I did with the urges was when I had the urge because the moat was there, I'm like, oh I'm having an urge right now. And so I would turn into my body and watch the urge as a physical sensation. It's like a tightness and this rising kind of anxiety really. And when that happens what I learned to do was just sit with it and I could watch and it would go stronger and stronger and stronger and then it would go down and in intensity and it would come back but go down and then eventually just be nothing. So it was in these waves and all I had to do was wait for it to crest. And I realized it wasn't even that hard. It seems like a panic situation but it's like momentary. And not even that. It's not like you're curled up in a ball like on the floor having withdrawal symptoms. It's just like a small urge. And when I learned to do that with quitting smoking, first of all, it put me more at choice and in power. But second of all I could do that with eating. I could do it with the urge to not go running. I could do it with pretty much everything. Procrastinating focus, with work, wanting to wake up early and debt stuff, all of that kind of stuff. It all came down to urges, which are invisible to most of us. But if you can learn to make them visible and work with them, it's not even that hard. And this is actually how to work with that resistance.

[00:25:35] Dr. Juna: So basically you learned or you read about it, I don't know. Or you were doing mindfulness or meditation, and you noticed that you were having thoughts like, go eat this or smoke that.

[00:25:47] Leo Babauta: Right.

[00:25:48] Dr. Juna: And you just watched that voice in your head or felt that physical feeling.

[00:25:53] Leo Babauta: Of the physical feeling.

[00:25:54] Dr. Juna: Attracted to this urge. Yeah. Wanting to eat it or wanting to do this behavior, and you just watch that feeling in your body, like, I'm feeling an urge in my body to do this.

[00:26:06] Leo Babauta: And so there is a voice. That's not so much what I was working with. I did learn to watch that as well. But the voice comes from the physical feeling. So you have the physical feeling, and then you're like, go do this. It's okay to do it one time. And that's your fear, really. Like saying, give into this. But there's an urge first, and that's just a physical thing, and we have them all day long. It's the urge to check your phone, go to social media, check your messages, email, distract yourself, whatever it is. Go to YouTube or Netflix. We're driven by them pretty much all day, neurologically speaking.

[00:26:46] Dr. Juna: It's like your habitual formation. And basically what people talk about as dopamine hits, even though, I mean, dopamine is in your body and for many different things than just urges, but it's involved in it. So that's what you're describing, that habitual urge is your brain sending neurotransmitters, telling your body to physically want something that brings you pleasure, or we think, get your reward pleasure.

[00:27:13] Harnessing the Power of Urges over Habits: A Discussion with Leo Babauta

[00:27:13] Dr. Juna: Yeah. But only in that moment, because in the long run, it doesn't bring us pleasure at all. You feeling that sensation in your body. Neuroscience researchers have shown that emotions and physical sensations actually happened simultaneously. They couldn't separate the timing of thoughts, emotions, physical sensation. Like it was all just one thing. Yeah. And sometimes it might come from one place or the other. Right. Like you have a thought, and then it brings an urge because you're passing by your favorite donut shop.

[00:27:42] Leo Babauta: Sure.

[00:27:44] Dr. Juna: Or like you're saying you're just feeling this urge because maybe you're addicted to nicotine, and then the thoughts come after that. Now, I have a question for you. What happens when you watch the urge and you're like, yeah, there's that urge, and now it's gone. I don't have to do this thing. And then afterwards, no urge. But then you're like, you know what? I'm going to do it now. I could do it anyway.

[00:28:06] Leo Babauta: Yeah.

[00:28:07] Dr. Juna: Have you ever had that? I've definitely had that.

[00:28:10] Leo Babauta: I'm trying to think, because for me, there's always an urge. Okay, yeah. But I don't know if that's true. So I'm only speaking to my experiences. Pretty much always. It's there. It's just maybe not as strong and so not as obvious, but maybe not. Maybe it's just a thought that comes in, like you said.

[00:28:29] Dr. Juna: No, maybe you're right. We do have urges all the time. Maybe, yeah, I'm going to definitely look for that myself as well.

[00:28:37] Leo Babauta: Let's say it was just a thought. It could be either one. But if it's a thought, the way that I work with that is I start to write those thoughts out. So maybe I'll eat the bag of potato chips, but then halfway through the bag, I could have stopped and there's still a thought that says, finish the damn bag.

[00:28:54] Dr. Juna: Right.

[00:28:57] Leo Babauta: It'd be really good to get present to what those thoughts are. And so I like to write those down because that's what my fear tells me. It's okay. Why are you making yourself suffer? Is another one that I came up with.

[00:29:10] Dr. Juna: That's your fear talking?

[00:29:11] Leo Babauta: Yeah, that's my fear talking.

[00:29:13] Dr. Juna: Why are you not to me?

[00:29:14] Leo Babauta: Okay, so let's say I'm withholding cigarettes or junk food from myself, kind of parenting myself. Like, it's not a good thing for you, but there's a part of me that just like, just let me have this thing that I want right now. That's the kind of part that just wants to have whatever it wants immediately. And there's nothing wrong with that part. But it is afraid that it's not going to get what it wants. It's afraid that you're just making it suffer for your whole life. And so then it just comes up. The fear that comes up is something around like, I can't do this. This is too hard. I'm not strong enough. And so it will come up with a thought that's really good at convincing you. And the thought would be something like, life is too short. Why are you making yourself suffer? You know what I mean? Something like that one bag of chips is not going to be the end of the world. And there's so much truth to those things. Yeah, everyone's doing it. It's not a big deal. Another one is, why are you putting yourself through this? So these are thoughts that come up, and I don't have to believe those thoughts. Who knows where these thoughts come from? I believe they come from fear. And the fear is trying to convince us, to protect us. But the thing is, if you're aware of them, you don't have to believe it like, oh, yeah, I know that one again, that's why I came up with that acronym. Or, I didn't actually come up with that. I use that acronym. Not one puff ever, because it countered the thing that my fear was telling me, which is one puff, not even a whole cigarette. One puff is okay. There's so much truth to that. It is okay one time. And so it's very good at coming up with those things. So I had to see that that was happening and then come up with a counter to it. What am I going to say when that happens? So that's how I'd recommend working with it.

[00:31:15] Dr. Juna: So you use the if then?

[00:31:17] Leo Babauta: Exactly.

[00:31:18] Dr. Juna: It's one of the most powerful cognitive behavioral therapy. Did you read about this or it just came intuitively for you?

[00:31:24] Leo Babauta: Again, I did a lot of research into what worked for quitting smoking, so cognitive behavioral stuff was a big part of that. So I pretty much tried everything. And the ones that worked are the ones I'm talking about now. Those are the ones I tried with the other habits, running and eating and clutter and debt and stuff.

[00:31:43] An intimate conversation with Leo Babauta about habits formation

[00:31:43] Dr. Juna: Amazing. I'm just so curious. I mean, when you were younger, are you like a creature of habit?

[00:31:50] Leo Babauta: Not at all. I wouldn't say I have stronger tendencies to no habits than most people. I would say I'm pretty average. I am now. But I wasn't naturally like growing up. I wasn't a creature of habit in my twenty s. I wasn't totally the opposite. That's how I ended up where I was. And so I wouldn't say I'm naturally a creature of habit. It took some work to get where I am. And even now, new habits are not necessarily easy. They don't come for free. So I have to actually put some work into it. And some of them I definitely have a lot of resistance to. And that's where I've learned to this is actually what the podcast season is about, is how to work with that resistance now with what I've learned over the last five to ten years. Not back from 2005, but like 2015.

[00:32:40] Dr. Juna: But you've been able to keep up all those habits. You started in 2005, right? But you said it was messy, it could come and go.

[00:32:48] Leo Babauta: Yeah. Even now at one point I decided I was going to wake up at 05:00 a.m., and then another time it was 430 because I wanted to train for a marathon and it's too hot to run in Guam after 07:00 a.m., so I had to wake up at 430 in order to run like 15 miles. So I was waking up at 430 and I formed that habit. But I don't wake up at 430 now. So it's what served me at the time. I don't have all the same habits. I have habits now that work for me, that serve what I'm trying to do now. So yeah, that's changed. It's evolved over time.

[00:33:22] Dr. Juna: But you never smoked again?

[00:33:23] Leo Babauta: No, one time I did at a funeral. I had one cigarette since then. Yeah, so I was like at that point, I just did not have the mental strength to do it. But I regretted it and it was not enjoyable and I thought it was what I needed. No, I haven't been smoking. I wouldn't ever smoke again.

[00:33:45] Dr. Juna: Well, I'm sorry for your loss.

[00:33:47] Leo Babauta: Thank you. Yeah.

[00:33:48] Dr. Juna: And what about you're? Out of debt?

[00:33:52] Leo Babauta: Out of debt once in a while. I'll take on debt on purpose now, but I manage my money a lot better. There's still some messiness around finances that I'm working with, but definitely a lot better place than I was back in 2005. Yeah.

[00:34:06] Overcoming Resistance in Long-Term Goals

[00:34:06] Dr. Juna: So what does it take? Does it take planning? What would be your number one, two, three takeaway for somebody who's trying to do something over a very long period of time? You already mentioned doing research and seeing what works for you. We already talked about knowing that it's going to be messy. That's a big deal. But aside from those things, as these resistances come up for you, even every human, what would be the top three things that you would say that you should do? I'm thinking things like practical things, like people can apply.

[00:34:42] Leo Babauta: Yeah, sure. So the first one is, have a reason why this really matters to you. That is not because I suck. Do you know what I mean? I need to fix something broken about me. So this is usually where self improvement comes from. It's almost in the term self improvement, is that I need to improve something about me that I don't like. And that doesn't last. Because when you're up against it, when you're like, I need to improve this thing about myself. I don't like this about myself, and I'm going to need to make it better. At some point, you're going to run up against your resistance and fear, and it's going to be really strong. And then you'll be like, I can't do this. And so it trips you up in that moment, and so you need something stronger than that. And so that's why I said, I'm saving not only saving my life, I'm saving my daughter's life, my wife's life, all my other kids. It matter to me. So it has to be something like that, where there's an emotional resonance to it, that you care so much about this that you're willing to walk through walls to make it happen. Because you will have to walk through walls, and you need to make that front and center. Put it somewhere where you can see it and remember it when that resistance hits you.

[00:36:03] Dr. Juna: You mean write it?

[00:36:04] Leo Babauta: Write it down, yeah. And put it somewhere right next to your computer or on your bathroom mirror or something by your bedstand. Put it on your lock screen of your phone, multiple places so that when you are up against your fear and resistance, you will know why this matters.

[00:36:21] Dr. Juna: And you're talking about your wife and kids and that's your family. But what if it's something else, not wife or kids, and it's something that maybe somebody is waffling on even though they know that it's something they want for themselves? Or it's like something that is so strong, like creators, right? A lot of creators have this issue, and they'll say, well, maybe I'm not supposed to be an artist or a writer or an author. Whatever.

[00:36:47] Leo Babauta: That's your resistance.

[00:36:49] Dr. Juna: Yeah. So how do you convince yourself that is your core being? Because for me, my kids, my husband, I feel the same way. Like, I would do anything for them. Right. But if it's something optional, like, you don't have to be an artist to feed yourself or feed your family.

[00:37:07] Leo Babauta: Sure.

[00:37:08] Dr. Juna: How do you work with that?

[00:37:10] Leo Babauta: Well, you might notice for a lot of us, that often will come from a place like, I need to put this out there because then I can say I'm an artist. Then I'll somehow validate myself. So that's kind of from the same place of I need to fix something about myself. I feel sucky that I haven't been putting my art out there. So there has to be a different, more expansive reason. So, for example, I want to put my art out there because I'm hoping to light up people's lives or I want to get them into a deeper in touch with a deeper part of themselves. That's something that might matter to you. Like, I really want that. That's outside of myself. It doesn't have to be outside of yourself. Maybe there's like, there's a song that I need to sing that just needs to get out. It just needs to it's not because I suck if I don't do it. It's just that it has to get out. And so that's a reason almost constipated, backed up.

[00:38:09] Overcoming The Struggle Of Creating And Changing Lifestyle Habits

[00:38:09] Leo Babauta: It just needs to come out. So there's something that you feel called to express. There's a part of yourself that needs to be expressed into the world.

[00:38:23] Dr. Juna: That's profound. That's actually profound. Because the other stuff could sometimes falter, right? Like, you have a bad day, you're like, I don't care what other people are doing today.

[00:38:32] Leo Babauta: Right.

[00:38:33] Dr. Juna: And they don't like me anyway.

[00:38:35] Leo Babauta: Right. But the other way that I like to look at it is like, is there imagine so if you were trying to put a book out, and it was like, to help people. And so you have to make an emotional connection to the people you want to help. This is a version of you that's suffering right now. And so you just remember what it was like to be suffering and just feel, like, how strong that is to want to help that person. And so you might even picture what that person is going through in their lives right now and say, I need to help them. This is not about validating myself. This is because I care deeply about these kind of people. So that would be number one. You ask for three things. Number one is have a reason that really matters to you beyond, like, I suck. Second one is have some kind of commitment and structure. So I mentioned some things that I did with quitting smoking where I made a promise, so that's a commitment. I made a promise also to the smoking Forum, where I was going to post something there before I smoked. So that's a commitment structure. If you're writing a book or creating something, it's like, when am I going to actually sit down and create? When am I going to go into the studio? When am I going to sit in front of my writing project and actually start writing? So when is that going to happen? Is there going to be any accountability, and is there anyone I'm going to report to? Maybe I get on a zoom call with people, a video call with people, and I write while they do their project. And so there's like a focus kind of session that we can do together.

[00:40:17] Dr. Juna: And you wrote your blog to help you stay accountable.

[00:40:20] Leo Babauta: Yeah, so that was what I realized is, like, I needed accountability, and so I created it for myself. Wrote a blog. You can start a WhatsApp group right now I'm doing a 33 day fitness challenge with my wife and kids, and we have a WhatsApp group where we just post every day. How did you do?

[00:40:36] Dr. Juna: Nice.

[00:40:37] Leo Babauta: Yeah, so that kind of thing. So that's commitment and structure. And people who are creators are often very resistant to commitment and structure, especially if you're more of the artist type. And I just want to do it because I feel inspired or I feel like it will resist the commitment and structure. But what that's going to do is just have you do it whenever you kind of feel like it, which is not going to be sufficient for actually creating what you want to create. And it's also not going to be sufficient if you're trying to change your life. And like, the habits that I talked about, like just saying, I just want to not smoke, it's not actually going to happen unless you create some kind of commitment and structure.

[00:41:17] Dr. Juna: And the accountability. I mean, even if you don't have a group available to you, like you said, you could even just write a blog and put it out into the Internet. I had a guest, Claire Pooley. She's hysterical. She was an alcoholic, and she wants to stop drinking. So she started a blog, kind of like an online diary for herself called Mommy Was the Secret Drinker. I mean, she thought nobody was reading, and all of a sudden, she had millions of I interviewed her, and she is now a bestselling author. She's on her, I think, fourth or fifth fiction book. They're amazing fiction stories has nothing to do with drinking. She did have one book about the whole experience, but like you said, her accountability was writing a blog that she thought no one was going to read.

[00:42:01] Leo Babauta: Yeah. So I think that's a great solution if you don't want to do that. Some people just won't do that. There's online groups like I said, I found a group that was doing that. There's so many groups for that group.

[00:42:16] Dr. Juna: Just random.

[00:42:17] Leo Babauta: Facebook, Google. It's like the first one that came up. So I just go on there and then I read all of their stories. This is why these really help. You can read their stories about the journey they're going through so you don't feel so alone. You realize I'm not the only one who faces these kinds of things. You learn what they're doing that works. And so you start collecting some different kinds of strategies. And that's one place where I got a lot of strategies. And then Reddit is a great reddit's a great one. Yeah. There's Facebook groups. There's WhatsApp groups? There's so many different groups online now. It's an abundance of but and then.

[00:42:56] Dr. Juna: The other one, your podcast. Right. You're going to hold people.

[00:43:01] Leo Babauta: Hmm. Well, they're going to have to hold themselves accountable, but they definitely can commit to accountability with me.

[00:43:08] Dr. Juna: Okay.

[00:43:09] Leo Babauta: And then the other thing that really helps with these kinds of groups is that when you are struggling, you don't have to be alone in it. You can actually reach out and say, help me, because what happens if you're alone, you don't have anyone to reach out to, is that it feels hopeless and you feel helpless. And so it really helps to have some kind of support.

[00:43:34] Dr. Juna: And it's asynchronous. So you could do it in the middle of the night if you wake up and you have this on. But you shouldn't use your tech at night.

[00:43:40] Leo Babauta: If you need to, you got to use it.

[00:43:43] Dr. Juna: I agree.

[00:43:44] Conversation with Leo Babauta about transforming lives through habit change

[00:43:44] Dr. Juna: Well, those are amazing tips, and your transformation is amazing, and your story is always just so inspiring to me and I'm sure to the millions of readers that you have. What about your kids? Did they benefit from all the work you've done on habits? Obviously, they're doing a fitness challenge with you.

[00:44:05] Leo Babauta: Yeah. The main thing is that I am modeling for them, like, what it's like to not be perfect, but go through change. And so it's like, this is hard, it's struggle, and this is something that I'm committed to. And so they could see me working with it, and I talk to them about it. Even now, I still have things that I struggle with, and I'll talk to them about the struggles so they know that it's not just like, oh, dad, just flips a switch and it's fixed. So this is a process that I go through, and I'm modeling that for them, and I think that's important. They're all going through their own process, and what they're learning from me is to how to trust yourself in that process. And so they're going through it. It's going to be a struggle for them in their 20s. But I trust them, and I help them to trust themselves. We do definitely do challenges together. We've done push up challenges, pull up challenges, drawing challenges, all kinds of stuff, and that's a way to get them more involved and actually be learning discovering for themselves some of the stuff that I discovered. But what I learned that doesn't work is me telling them what to do and how to do it. So I don't do that anymore. I've definitely tried a bunch of times.

[00:45:17] Dr. Juna: Yeah, I do that with my kids.

[00:45:20] Leo Babauta: How many do you have?

[00:45:21] Dr. Juna: I only have two, but they might as well be six.

[00:45:25] Leo Babauta: How old are they?

[00:45:27] Dr. Juna: Oh, my son is 23, and he just graduated school. He just graduated from Harvard in June. My daughter is 19, and she's a sophomore at Princeton. So I'm an empty nester. And now this is why I'm working with all my resistance and really having that urge to put things out there like you were talking about.

[00:45:50] Leo Babauta: Yeah.

[00:45:51] Dr. Juna: So I have two, and I tell them what to do a lot.

[00:45:57] Leo Babauta: Well, it's working. Princeton and Harvard, I think you're doing okay.

[00:46:01] Dr. Juna: Well, they had to do all the work.

[00:46:04] Leo Babauta: Yeah, but you told them what to do.

[00:46:05] Dr. Juna: I just say things, and then they like, well, they tell me things now. The greatest thing about parenthood, I think, is when they grow up, and then they can advise you.

[00:46:18] Leo Babauta: That's cool.

[00:46:19] Dr. Juna: But my son, I just got off the phone with him right before you, and I was telling him to do something about the dust because the allergies and he said to me, oh, yeah, I did that yesterday. So it's like this running joke. He just says he did it. Whatever I tell him, he's like, oh, yeah, I did that yesterday. I'm done with that. We're just on the floor laughing. So that's how it goes here. But thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you being here. I know you're on a schedule because you're Zen and you have habits to follow, because me, I'm like I just disregard time a lot of times, and that's one of the things I'm working on. So I will end on time.

[00:46:57] Leo Babauta: Oh, that's awesome.

[00:46:58] Dr. Juna: Yeah. But, Leo, this was amazing, and I want to keep in touch. And can you please tell everybody where to find you about your Fearless 2.0? Looks like an amazing treat that you have.

[00:47:10] Leo Babauta: Yeah. So ZenHabits Net is the website, and that's where you could find everything. If you go to podcast, ZenHabits Net, you'll see the podcast. And then I have a program called Fearless Living Academy where I have a lot of courses. I think there's like 30 video courses in there and a community of people. So if you actually want some accountability and support, all the stuff that I talked about, that's actually one place to go, is Fearless Living Academy. And then I am putting out a retreat. It's in October. So I don't know when this podcast when you'll be listening to this, but it's called The Art of Letting Go Retreat, and it's going to be in the mountains of North Carolina. Really beautiful space. And we'll be working in person with Letting Go. And so some of the stuff that we talked about today, we'll be going deeper into it. So I invite you to come join me. There meditation and in person kind of practices. We'll be playing together, basically using play to create the ability to face some of our resistance and fears and let go and create something new for ourselves.

[00:48:15] Dr. Juna: Okay, well, I'll definitely put the links there. And I hope to have you back after New Year's because that's when everybody talks about habits all the time.

[00:48:22] Stress Less with Dr. Juna and Leo Babauta

[00:48:22] Leo Babauta: Okay.

[00:48:23] Dr. Juna: Thank you again, Leo. It was so great to see you in person.

[00:48:26] Leo Babauta: Thanks, Tuna.

[00:48:27] Dr. Juna: Thank you so much for listening. Forward this to a friend, a family member, anyone who needs to stress less. And soon enough you'll be surrounded by more Zen people. Your support is literally what makes this possible. Subscribe and head on over to YouTube to my Fall Asleep Easy channel. Sign up for your updates at and get special tips into your inbox once a month. Until next time. This is Dr. Juna wishing you wellness.