Life Lesson: The 10-Minute Rule That Beats ANY Bad Habit & This Weird Trick Forms Good Habits Instantly! Professor Steve Peters & Nir Eyal

Steve Peters (0:03)

There are three systems in your head, keeping it very simple. It's much more complex than that, but simplifying it. One of the systems will help you to think very logically, and I call that the human system. It thinks logically, but it's very slow, which means if you operate with a human, your body and your reflexes will slow down because you're analyzing as you go along, and it slows the system so you're more pensive.

If he goes into the second system, which we'll probably come back to, the chimp system, this is a primitive system which thinks. It's more than just a reaction, an impulsive system. It thinks. When it moves, it can move at speed, but it thinks emotionally. Finally, the third system is a computer. It just needs programming. The key to the computer, particularly in sports, is it moves so fast, it's approximately 20 times quicker than the human system to execute.

It's about four times quicker than the chimp system.

Steven Bartlett (1:02)

Habits. A lot of people are thinking about habits this January.

I made a video on habits a couple of weeks ago. In A Path Through The Jungle, you talk about how our habits are influenced by our self-image. That was a curious sentence to read and not something I'd heard before. What do you mean by that?

Steve Peters (1:24)

There's lots of ways we form habits, whether they're helpful or destructive. I'm giving an example, so that's one you picked out. It's quite powerful if you grasp it. For example, I'll take the simple example, which I may have put in the book, I don't remember. If I wrote down, I'd say to someone, do you see yourself as someone who is a tidy person, who gets on with things immediately, or do you see yourself as someone who procrastinates and is pretty untidy?

Steven Bartlett (1:49)

I'm untidy.

Steve Peters (1:50)

Right. If you've got that self-image and you go home and your room is untidy, I'm being very black and white here, then there's no feelings at all, because that's who you are, you're untidy.

Steven Bartlett (2:00)

It's true.

Steve Peters (2:00)

So therefore you don't do anything.

Steven Bartlett (2:01)

That's true.

Steve Peters (2:02)

Whereas if you say, right, change your image and say, actually, my chimp being untidy, I'm a tidy person. In some cases, you're now programming the computer, you now go home and say, wow, this isn't me. And that can change. So if your self-image is, I'm not my chimp, that's an untidy little beggar, I am actually a tidy person.

Steven Bartlett (2:22)

How do I change that self-image?

Steve Peters (2:24)

You've got to sit down and reflect on this. I mean, a lot of the things in the book, I've done as a young doctor, when I became a psychiatrist, I decided I didn't want to be a psychiatrist who didn't actually manage themself. And that's no detriment to psychs who struggle because it's not an easy career or any therapist, it's a tough career. But I decided, look, I'm going to work on me because I can't keep doing this, which is where the chimp model came from. And it was one of my light bulb moments many, many years ago where I would be procrastinating. And then I suddenly thought, you know what, that isn't who I want to be. So I thought, that isn't me. I'm actually someone who gets on with things. And I used to get in and I'd just go, all right, get on with it. And it's never left me. I've just said, no, that is who I am. So I become uncomfortable now. If things run tidy, I agitate and think, no, get it tidied up. So I start perceiving myself as this energized guy who's going to get up and do stuff. So if you define yourself image, you're actually programming your computer to say this is normal, anything else isn't, and that will actually help your chimp to agitate, which will then join forces and tidy the room. So instead of your chimp going, no, I can't be bothered. Suddenly it's saying, wow, I'm being told we're not untidy. So this is unacceptable, not normal. And that's what I did. And I found that very powerful in my life.

Steven Bartlett (3:43)

The other thing I found really curious in this section about habits in stage four of the book is when people think about habit loops, they often have a reward at the end of it. You referenced suffering. Now there's this quote I heard many years ago. I think it was just over 10 years ago. It must have been, God, I'm getting old. Where I heard this YouTuber say, change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change. And when I'm thinking about friends that I have in my life, all myself, where there's habits or there's behavior patterns that I want to break, sometimes, I'm thinking about one particular person who's a musician, sometimes they have to get to that rock bottom place before you see change happen. Is that because of that? Is that because sometimes the suffering has to...