Good habits…

Bad habits…

We all have them…

Whenever I talk about habits people always seem to know what their bad habits are…

Interesting that, don’t you think?

What’s your bad habit?

Do you smoke, overeat, overspend, are you impatient, are you always late?

Would you like to know how to overcome your bad habits?

A bad habit by definition is something that’s negative and enduring…

Something you keep doing, it’s automatic you’re not even thinking about it, you’ve done it so many times it’s now automatic, it’s easy, you just fall right into that thing…

So what’s needed is a pattern interrupt…

Put something more positive and something more enduring in its place…

Habits are triggered by something happening and we react to it, there will be a benefit, and after a period of time we just react to it, it becomes natural, and we just do it…

There are 4 key categories of bad habits…

Our desire to protect ourselves…

For example;

1️⃣ A lot of people don’t speak up for themselves, they have an idea but they don’t say anything in case someone says something mean, abusive, or negative about their idea. That habit of not speaking up for ourselves feels like it’s protecting us but we call it a bad habit because over time it steals away the joy and buzz of life…

2️⃣ Pacifying negative feelings, we can pacify ourselves when we feel stressed or uncertain about what to do next. So we soothe ourselves with food, we soothe ourselves with social media, we soothe ourselves with distractions, we soothe ourselves with meaningless conversations or relationships, we are pacifying ourselves because inside we’re screaming to do something, but we lack the courage, or inside we’re screaming to change but we don’t really know what to do so in the meantime until we either figure out what to do or develop the strength of what to do we pacify ourselves with all these bad habits.

3️⃣ Next comes placating. Placating means we have a bad habit of pleasing other people so that we can cause them less stress, less overwhelm, or get a less emotional reaction from them.  A lot of people would call themselves a kind of doormat because they just don’t want to cause any conflict, so they let people run over them all the time. They don’t want to upset their spouse, their parents, their kids, their team, or their suppliers so they don’t say anything, it’s not about protection it’s about placating them. Placating people may make you feel good in the short term but it comes at a cost, the cost of your life. And that’s why we get overwhelmed in the first place because we’re doing everything for everybody else to make everybody else feel happy and charmed and good at the cost of our own sanity, our own well-being, our own health…

4️⃣ Validation, we have to prove ourselves. If you’re always arguing, or someone says something and you just scream at them. You get that anger because you have to prove yourself. It’s your ego saying hey validate me, hey pay attention. Someone cuts you off at the traffic lights and you think I’ll show them so you put your foot down so that you can get in front and flip them the finger. You want to prove that you’re important, you want to prove that you should be taken seriously, you want to prove that you’re somebody who doesn’t deserve to be cut off, and you fight, and you fight, and you fight…

So, if you can at least begin to identify some of these habits and create more understanding or awareness of your bad habits you’re starting on the right foot…

I’ve found over and over in my life a lot of people don’t know what their bad habits are and yet they’re unhappy…

So if you’re trying to figure out why you’re unhappy start with what routines you’re continually doing that are negative and stick around because they are pointing the way to getting some more happiness back in your life…

The first thing we need to do is to become aware of them, then we can choose to break them…

I’m going to ask you to do one thing and it’s so easy, whatever your bad habit is all I want you to do is rehearse overcoming that bad habit. Rehearse it because what we often think is that one day we’re just going to break our bad habits and it’s going to be instantaneous and easy. The thing is we have to practice overcoming a bad habit to be able to do it in real life…

If your bad habit is you pacify yourself with food when you’re uncomfortable or unsure, don’t do what everyone else says and get rid of all that food, because if there’s food around you you’re just going to be fat right?

But it’s not the food, it’s why you’re turning to the food!

Let’s instead rehearse okay how do I deal with this emotion that’s going on inside me instead of going to the food?

So, what I want you to do is don’t wait until the next time you’re angry or hurt or upset to go to the food instead stand there looking at the food say okay when was the last time I was really angry, upset, emotional, unsure, insecure, and I went to that bag of crisps, those sweets that lump of cheese, when was that?

Remember what was that like?

Now rehearse not going to the food what else could you do?

What routine or behavior could you do instead of going to the food?

You could open up your journal right next to the food and write down why am I upset…

And ask yourself “If the best version of me was in this situation right now what would I do?” “What would the me who is having a hot knife-through-butter day where everything is just effortless do in this situation right now?”

What happens with habits is there’s a cue, something negative happens, and our response or our routine is also negative but it feels like it’s paying us off, and then we feel horrible about ourselves…

The cues are always going to happen, there will always be stress or drama from another person that can drive you into a bad habit. There are always going to be times in your life you’re going to feel insecure and unsure…

The cues are not going to change your job? Instead of running the routine of that bad habit is to identify what you’re trying to do…

Am I trying to protect myself right?

Am I trying to pacify myself?

Am I trying to placate that person?

Am I trying to prove myself?

Then ask yourself this question…

“What would the best version of me do in this situation?”

Is this going to work 100% of the time?

NO…

Sometimes you’re going to have the intention to do the new positive thing, but you do the old negative thing, and that’s okay, that’s life. Our job is not to win every battle, our job is to win the war.

What’s funny is as soon as you put in those new things guess what they give you pay off.

When you act as your highest your brain gets the payoff. Your brain says “good job”.

The more good habits you run the more your brain says “good job”, and now you have more strength you have more certainty in yourself you don’t have to lean on those bad behaviors to give you some sort of weak payoff.

Instead, your brain says “Hey you know what last time we fought this and we won and that felt pretty good”.

This means you start to get momentum in establishing new good positive habits simply because you said “Bad cue, what good would the best version of me do?”

Try it a few times and you’ll start getting momentum and changing your life…