- How do you break bad habits?
In this video I'm gonna show you, check this out.
Look, we all got bad habits, I got bad habits.
When I get stressed out I eat, I eat sweets and I eat cakes and cookie and candy, and
it's a terrible, terrible habit.
Some people's bad habits may be that they smoke or they drink too much or they sleep
too late, they procrastinate, we all have bad habits.
How do you break 'em?
Here are a few strategies.
First of all you wanna understand where the bad habits come from.
Let's say your bad habit is like mine, it's eating sweets and candy when you get stressed
out.
Where does it come from, it comes from one day you see sweets, you see candy, your brain
thinks "oh calories, "oh survival," you eat it and you get the immediate reward and the
immediate triggers of "whoa this feels "good, this tastes good."
And then that creates a behavior for you.
Its trigger, behavior, and then the reward.
So then the next time it comes along and you're stressed and you're angry or you're depressed
or you're sad, and your brain reminds you, hey remember that time you ate those oatmeal
cookies and how good that felt!?
You're feeling sad and depressed and discouraged now, I bet if you eat those oatmeal cookies
again you're gonna feel that same good feeilng.
It's a trigger which leads to a behavior which is the reward.
Originally when you saw that cookie or that cake the trigger was hunger, the trigger was
the need for survival and calories, but after you got the reward of it feeling good, then
the next time the trigger became feeling sad or depressed or angry.
You're in high school, you want to be cool.
The trigger is you want to be cool.
So then you see those kids over there smoking and you think they're cool, that leads to
the behavior of you having a cigarette, and the reward is in that instant you feel cool.
And then it begins a pattern or it begins a habit.
Trigger, behavior, reward.
How do we break this cycle?
The first thing is the first technique on breaking a bad habit is a technique called
mindfulness.
And it's just really being fully aware and fully conscious of what's going on.
And rationalizing in your mind what's going on.
For example, the next time you are eating that oatmeal cookie or you are eating that
coconut pie, ask yourself the question, how do I feel afterwards?
How does my body feel afterwards, how do I feel the next day?
What's really going on here?
Ask yourself those questions and then you may begin to find you know what, I kind of
feel sluggish, I kinda feel bloated or fat.
Or when you're smoking that cigarette, ask yourself the question, how does this really
taste, what taste could I compare this to?
And you may find it's something disgusting.
But if you can rationalize it or be mindful in the moment, it increases your chances of
breaking a bad habit.
The second strategy for breaking a bad habit would be substitution.
The next time you get that urge to smoke or the next time you get that urge to get on
Facebook instead of working or the next time you get that urge to have the oatmeal cookie,
have a substitute and preplan it out.
Tell yourself, the next time I have that urge to go get that coconut pie, which by the way
I've used that example a lot, so if you can't tell, that's my weakness, the next time I
have that urge I have a substitute in my mind, I know what I'm gonna do.
I'm going to get an apple instead.
And I've programmed that in my mind, a substitute.
Your substitute may be every time I get that urge to get on Facebook when I should be working,
instead I'm going to write one sentence for my book.
Or I'm gonna write one sentence for my journal or I'm gonna write something for my business.
In other words, give yourself a substitute to go to because if you don't give yourself
a substitute, you're just gonna go to the behavior.
Your brain and your instincts are gonna kick in.
Number three, remember bad habits come from triggers, behavior, reward, so we need to
really eliminate the triggers as much as we can.
For example, if your bad habit is drinking too much, don't go to the bar.
For me my trigger, my bad habit is seeing those oatmeal cookies and that coconut pie,
you know what I do, I don't keep any in my house.
If I'm gonna get a coconut pie or an oatmeal cookie I have to get in my car and go get
it.
And sometimes I do that, but by keeping none in my house it lessens the chances.
When I check into a hotel room and I open up that door and I see in the minibar oatmeal
cookies and gummi bears, do you know what I will do?
I know I'm gonna eat them if I don't do this.
I will tear open the bags and dump them in the toilet, so in essence I have just bought
them, but you know what, I was gonna buy them anyways.
This way I buy them but I don't get the negative effects.
So eliminate the triggers, if your bad habit is watching too much TV, hide the remote,
put it in a different room, just as a way to keep that remote out of sight.
Numbe four, be optimistic, so many people say oh why do I even wanna try to lose weight,
it's so hard, it's so hard to do this, and I'm not making any progress, I'm just gonna
go back to the old way, or I've been smoking for 20 years, do you know how hard that would
be to quit, I don't even think I can do that.
Or many I love oatmeal cookies so much, there's no way I could reduce my consumption of those.
By the way, which is my goal, my goal is to reduce, not eliminate, because I'm a realist.
But be optimistic, that is so important in this process.
And finally, surround yourself with people who have the same goals as you do.
For example, I do jiu jitsu.
The people that I train jiu jitsu with have the same goals as I do, they wanna be healthy,
and they want to win jiu jitsu matches.
If you eat oatmeal cookies and coconut pie and drink vodka every night, you are not gonna
win jiu jitsu matches.
So I surround myself with people that I know are on the same mission as me, they have the
same goals as me, and that makes it easier.
There's a little bit of accountability when I'm at home sitting on my couch and I get
those urges, there's a little bit of accountability in my friends, when I know in the back of
my mind they're having these same thoughts and they're not gonna do it, and that I show
up next day at the gym and we train together.
That accountability, that friendship helps me break bad habits, be very careful of who
you surround yourself with.
If you surround yourself with a bunch of people who eat 10 bags of oatmeal cookies every day,
you are too.
Alright guys so that's it, and by the way I always suggest that you replace a bad habit
with a good habit.
I'm a two time USA memory champion, I teach people how to improve their memory.
Why not take whatever bad habit it is that you have and replace that with improving your
memory.
Training to remember names or numbers or speeches or chapters of books.
I have some pointers and some tips on this, if you click the link right down below you
can get my black belt memory tips on how to improve your memory, and replace that with
one of your bad habits.
Hey guys, so hope you enjoyed the video, please give me a thumbs up if you liked it, that
really means a lot to me, I do look at that, and give me a comment below, tell me what
your bad habits are and don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you on the next video.