Happy New Year to you all! It’s 2021 and fingers crossed we can all put the tough year that was 2020 behind us with more hope for the year to come.

And if you’re thinking of making changes to your life – be it personal, professional, physical or mental, then this week’s Real Health episode will set you on the right path.

James Clear is a world-renowned expert on habits and decision making as the author of one of the fastest-growing email newsletters in history and his articles at jamesclear.com receive 10 million hits each year with his work frequently appearing in publications including the New York Times, Forbes and Business Insider.

He is also the author of the hugely successful Atomic Habits which is about transforming your life with tiny changes in your daily behaviour.

In this interview, James has some great advice on how to make your 2021 resolutions more productive and focused, he explains why you must start with behaviours that are small and easy to do and he says, if you’re to take anything away from his advice, make sure it is the two minute rule.

“Take whatever habit you're trying to build and scale it down to something that takes two minutes or less to do,” he says. “I had this reader, his name's Mitch and he lost a lot of weight, over 100 pounds and when he started going to the gym, for the first six weeks he had a little rule for himself where he wasn't allowed to stay for longer than five minutes. And it sounds ridiculous right?”

“But if you take a step back, what you realise is that he was mastering the art of showing up. He was becoming the type of person that went to the gym four days a week even if it was only for five minutes and I think this is a much deeper truth about habits that people often dismiss or overlook which is that a habit must be established before it can be improved.”

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