The First Law of Behavior Change
Make It Obvious or Make It Invisible
We all have habits. You wake up, grab your phone, scroll for a bit, make coffee the same way every morning. These things probably run on autopilot. They decide a lot about how your day goes, how much energy you have left at night, what you actually get done.
But habits aren't good or bad on their own. It depends on the context. A high calorie diet -- bad to lose weight, good for bulking up at the gym. Or, more nuanced, take an example from Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. In training, FBI agents and police officers learn to pick up their spent shell casings after shooting at the range. Leaving brass on the range is messy and unsafe and will eventually need to be cleaned up anyway! So the instructors drill in the habit of collecting every casing. Do it enough times, and it becomes automatic. You do it without thinking. That's a good habit, right?
Now put those same agents in a real gunfight. The shooting stops, threat's down, and some officers later find casings in their pockets. Frighteningly, they have no memory of stopping to pick them up. In that moment, the habit costs time they can't afford. Same with the story of the officer who disarms someone in a struggle, then hands the gun back - exactly like he practiced in safe drills with trainers. These are called training scars: useful in one place, dangerous in another.
Habits feed outcomes. Last time we pointed out that every time you repeat a habit, you're voting for a certain future. The smart move is to start from the outcome you want and work backward to build habits that get you there. James Clear puts it this way in Atomic Habits:
If you don't build habits on purpose, your days get shaped by whatever feels good right now instead of what you actually want long term. A habit counts as good if it moves you closer to the outcome you're after. Bad if it pulls you away. Neutral if it doesn't matter much either way.
To figure out where yours land, look at them. You can do a formal Habits Scorecard like Clear suggests - list out your typical day and mark each routine plus, minus, or neutral. Or just jot down a few habits and ask what they lead to. Once you see the pattern, you can decide what to keep, drop, or tweak.
That's where "the ugly" comes in. These are habits that work fine in some situations but fall apart in others. They're not always villains, but they can turn ugly fast when the context changes.
The Good
Good habits help you get where you want to go. They stack up over time into real results: showing up for workouts, reading a few pages most nights, writing when you said you would. The trick is making them automatic so you don't have to fight yourself every day.
Clear's First Rule is Make It Obvious.
Put the cue right in front of you. Want to drink more water? Keep a bottle on your desk. Want to read more? Leave the book open on the couch where you sit after dinner.
Two tools make this stick. First, implementation intentions. Clear says, "I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]." So "I will walk for 20 minutes at 6:30 a.m. in the park." It cuts down on deciding in the moment.
Second, habit stacking. Link the new thing to something you already do. "After I pour my coffee, I will do ten push-ups." Or "After I brush my teeth at night, I will floss." The old habit becomes the cue for the new one.
This beats counting on motivation or grit.
So, set up the environment so the good stuff happens almost by default!
The Bad
Bad habits work against what you want. They give quick relief or fun but cost you later: scrolling instead of working, snacking when you're bored, putting off hard tasks. They thrive on easy cues and instant payoff.
To deal with them, flip the First Rule: Make It Invisible. The inversion is clear:
If your phone pulls you in too often, leave it in another room during work blocks. If junk food tempts you, don't keep it in the house. Mute group chats that distract you. The goal is to make the trigger hard to reach so the habit doesn't start.
If you always buy a bag of chips or a candy bar when you fill up the car, try a different service station to break that association and then pay at the pump. Lose the cue.
Awareness comes first. Use that Habits Scorecard (the list of your habits) to spot the cues. Then act on them.
When scientists analyze people who appear to have tremendous self-control, it turns out those individuals aren’t all that different from those who are struggling. Instead, 'disciplined' people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control."
Remove the cue, and the bad habit loses its grip. Your outcomes stop getting hijacked by impulse.
The Ugly
Ugly habits sit in the middle. They aren't always destructive, but they flip depending on the situation. The shell-casing pickup is perfect in training but ugly in a fight. The disarming-and-returning move saves accidents on the range but hands the advantage back in real danger.
Most habits aren't universally good or bad. They're context-dependent. Multitasking can help in a casual brainstorm but hurts when you need deep focus. Being extra thorough with emails is great for important clients but wastes time on quick replies and makes you seem rigid.
To handle these, use Law 1 both ways. Inventory your habits first and note when they help versus when they hurt and how they help versus how they hurt. Then make the useful side obvious and the problematic side invisible. Multi-tasking? Set up a quiet desk for focused work so single-tasking cues are strong there. In other spots, hide distractions that would pull you into multitasking. Phone-use? Check your phone regularly, sure, but put it in DND or Airplane mode on a schedule or until after you've planned your day or exercised or spent time with your partner or kids.
Self-control will eventually crack under pressure, so don't count on it. Set up your environment to let the right habits be the default. That way, you can conserve your self-control energy for when you need it!
Check contexts regularly and tweak the cues, turning ugly habits into ones that mostly serve you or cut the parts that don't.
This isn't a 1960's "spaghetti western" but habits are like gunslingers in your daily life. The good ones move you forward. The bad ones hold you back. The ugly ones switch sides depending on the scene. Using Clear's First Law of Behavior Change - Make It Obvious and Make It Invisible gives you the tools to shape and craft them with intention and purpose.
Start simple. Look at your habits this week. Pick one good cue to make stand out, one bad trigger to hide, and one potentially ugly habit to check against different situations. Small changes add up.
Thanks for reading -- make it a habit! -- and keep Aiming Up!
