My Conversation about Therapy with James Clear, Bestselling Author of Atomic Habits
Imagine… James Clear (bestselling author of Atomic Habits) lecturing to a crowd of around 3,000 business owners… in his swimsuit.
That’s precisely the ridiculous image he conjured up for us earlier this week at the 2024 Dave Ramsey Summit in Dallas, Texas. James, who was actually wearing a very nice suit, was making a larger point about how certain “choices” aren’t realistic in certain situations (like the choice of whether to wear a business suit or a swimsuit). In reality, our choices are inevitably constrained by a variety of factors like our environment, the “tribe” we’re part of, and the context of the specific situation.
In his lecture, James went on to describe the forces that influence our behavior, and how by following his “four laws” one can build good habits. While you might not notice a difference in any one day, you can achieve exponential growth over time by improving just 1% each day.
Many of his observations about human nature were things I already knew as a therapist. For example… 1) that new year’s resolutions usually fail, 2) that all-or-nothing thinking and perfectionism often sabotages our progress, 3) and that absurdly small goals are actually a great way to get the ball moving and lead to bigger achievements.
This last observation is the big takeaway. If we focus on the outcome of a lofty goal, we often don’t get there. It’s too far away and too abstract. But if we focus on the fundamentals, momentum can build.
I learned this truth in the 90s from my high school football coach, Denny Kalpin. It was no accident that he built a successful football program, because he focused on the fundamentals. I fondly remember how he routinely pointed our attention to a poster titled “The Pyramid of Success.” At the top of the pyramid was the ultimate goal, a state championship. But to get there we had to start at the bottom. We had to do the small things… block, tackle, focus on technique, show up on time.
Coach Kalpin told us that if we were early we were actually on time, if we were barely on time we were actually late, and if we were late we’d be left behind. While on the outside, statements like this might seem blunt or even harsh, they instilled in us tried and true lessons that built our character not only as football players, but as young men. Under his leadership, we knew that if we did the small things well, the score at the end of the game would take care of itself.
In his own way, our coach was teaching “atomic habits” before the term had yet been coined. And while James Clear undoubtedly has a unique talent for distilling wisdom into a digestible form with his own unique spin, as it says in the book of Ecclesiastes, “there’s nothing new under the sun.”
Being reminded of this wisdom got me thinking about the similarities and differences between self-help, coaching, and therapy. To what degree do they overlap? How effective are these strategies, and does their effectiveness change depending on the mental health of the person trying to implement them? Like so many things in life, I suspected the answer was probably nuanced, and even paradoxical in nature.
On one hand, I know the power of personal responsibility, discipline, and taking radical ownership for one’s life. It worked for me in highschool and college football, and it helped me get through grad school. This “radical ownership” mentality is epitomized in men like Jocko Willink, whom I admire greatly. That being said, I also agree with James that to set ourselves up for success we need to rely on more than will-power. Sometimes we also need to improve our systems, change our environment, and focus on the little things. For most people, these things can make a big difference in their lives.
And yet… even with all these things in place, I also know that behaviorist approaches, as powerful as they are, can easily fail when there is unhealed trauma. After practicing EMDR therapy for well over a decade now, I know that good habits aren’t enough to overcome the deep emotional wounds and insecurities that continue to resurface and interfere with our present-day lives. And so, when the opportunity presented itself, I decided to seize the day and ask James about it.
I stepped up to the microphone, introduced myself and my profession, and asked him a question that perhaps came off as rhetorical. In a nutshell, I asked him if he conceptualized his strategies for building atomic habits as a complement to therapy, or as a replacement for therapy.
It wasn’t meant to be a “gotcha” question, because I genuinely wanted to get his take on things. But as he took longer than expected to answer, I could see the wheels turning.
After collecting his thoughts, he basically shared that over the years he’d discovered that his principles have helped a lot of people work through many different issues. I could hear the confidence in his voice, and sensed he was very aware of the large audience and the importance of choosing his words carefully. He looked out at the crowd rather than at me, and began to answer.
Was he going to actually say that his atomic habits are the magic bullets rendering therapy unnecessary? While this would normally have seemed like quite an arrogant claim, these days it wouldn’t completely surprise me, as even I have growing concerns about the effectiveness of my own profession.
On one hand my profession is rocking it… the stigma of getting help for mental health issues has started to fade, and it’s fairly common these days for people to go to therapy and admit that they’re doing so without shame. Overall, that’s a good thing. In my humble opinion, just about everyone has issues to work through, and therapy can be an incredible vehicle for positive change (with the right therapist).
And yet, these days I’ve seen far too many therapists abandon their ethics around neutrality and client autonomy, and actively affirm anything their clients want to do, no matter how potentially short-sighted or destructive. Compassion and critical thinking are both necessary components of successful therapy, and these days, well-intentioned compassion is not being appropriately counter-balanced by reason. And the results aren’t good.
God only knows what James Clear truly thinks of therapy. But I could only take him at his word when he finally responded. With a meandering answer and a chuckle, he eventually got to his point saying that he isn’t a therapist, and that mental health issues should be left to the trained professionals.
I suppose he probably had to phrase it like this given the incredible liability that would come by claiming otherwise. And I can only imagine how difficult it must be to think on your feet in front of almost 3,000 people. But his point was well taken, he was definitely not a therapist.
All this being said, the ideas he promotes ring true, and I’m genuinely excited to put them into action in my own life. No doubt, they can help me just like they’ve helped thousands of others around the world. Ultimately, I’m grateful for James, and for all the work he put into getting this information to the public in such a clear and powerful way. Pulling off a best-seller, and then being invited to speak at events like the Dave Ramsey EntreLeadership Summit is absolutely incredible, and an affirmation of how valuable his work has been to so many.
James Clear’s eyes eventually drifted back in my direction and looked at me stoically. I closed down the conversation by thanking him for his answer, and by then giving him a compliment of sorts… I told him that therapists would probably do well to adopt his ideas and put them into practice. He accepted my compliment as respectfully as one would hope for…
Probably because I wasn’t wearing a swimsuit.
– Mark Odland – MA, LMFT, MDIV
Do you need some support and accountability in putting together your own “atomic habits?” Or have you already tried self-help techniques and are finally ready to get to the source of the hurts and insecurities to heal them up for good? Find out more at: https://escapethecagenow.com/
