The Power of Habits for a Successful Life

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. .com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

818-572-2910. Good day, good day, good day everyone! How are you? Uh, Deborah and I were just talking about the fact that we can't believe it's the end of January already, and I can't. I mean, January 28th, one month is gone already in this new year. I mean, we'll be decorating for Christmas soon. Ah, but I go off on a tangent. But it is crazy that we're already, uh, close to 4 weeks, weeks in on the new year. And that's why I thought today's conversation regarding habits would be a powerful one, the power of habits, and we'll get to more of that in a second. I do want to just, you know, send out my condolences, my love, my prayers. Everyone within the Shedding the Fitch community would agree to the devastating tragedy and news of losing Kobe Bryant and his daughter and the 7 others that were with them, the pilot and the other families. I mean, how heart-wrenching it is. And Kobe holds a special place in my family and my heart because we actually are from the Lower Merion area of Philadelphia where Kobe Bryant is from. We're over— we're a couple of towns over, a couple of— not even cities, we're a couple of towns over. But my nieces and nephews go to schools right there in that area. So Kobe Bryant has been a force within the Philadelphia community for decades. And then, of course, you know, out in California, the Grammys, they couldn't have done a more appropriate and heartfelt and sad— it wasn't sad, but it's a sad situation, but they couldn't have done a better job. Especially ironically being in the home that Kobe built out there in the, um, and I'm drawing Staples Center. Uh, it, you know, people, people die every day. People are dying and people close to us in our own families are passing. Yet there's just something about when all of a sudden an icon, a legend a GOAT, you know, the greatest of all time type of individual, uh, is taken so quickly and so tragically. And then to learn— I mean, it's that, you know, it's heartfelt enough, uh, to lose him, but then to learn of his, uh, daughter and then of, um, the other members, uh, and who those members were and the fact that they were such a core part of his, um, organization and his charity group out, out there in California. Just heart-wrenching and maybe appropriate too. I mean, if there's anyone, anyone to learn from when it comes to habits, and especially the, the productive and valuable habits to making a life successful, Kobe is certainly one of them. One thing I I heard, just so we could uplift this part of the discussion into what we're going to be discussing today, but one thing I heard that was just unbelievable about him, I always heard of his work ethic. I always knew of his workout ethic on the court and off the court. But then as they were profiling out of my hometown Kobe's younger years in grade school, in middle school, and in high school. They talked to a friend of his back in the high school days and had mentioned that he was so astute to just, you know, such a strong work ethic that he would go to the janitor and ask the janitor to let him into the gym at Lower Merion High School every morning at 4:30 in the morning so he could you know, do 500 shots before going to school and then do 500 shots after getting done a full day of school. And that went on and that kind of defined just his way about, you know, pursuing his craft and pursuing his skill and making his life what it was. So what a beautiful way to kind of have this discussion around the power of habits. And provide proof in someone such as Kobe Bryant as far as what habits can do for us. You know, the good side, the upside, the positive and successful side of it. Yet again, habits can be very, very destructive, and so I'll share with you some of my past habits, and then we'll also discuss just what you could be doing to kind of change up yours if you find that they're not being productive for you. I do want to remind you we've had some great shows since we've kicked off the new year, all focused on getting you kind of set and ready and prepared for a very prosperous, productive year. So last week we talked about time management hacks and gave you— it was close to like 17 things that you could be doing to make yourself productive, and it really is around attention and priority even more so than time management. The week before that we talked and I gave you my Shift to Riches formula for success. You know, the 5 stages that I even experienced myself close to 10 years now having lost my corporate job and redefining my world as it is even today. And it's a formula that you can use each and every day to kind of work through, you know, the good things that are happening to you, but yet the challenges and the bitches that might be wreaking havoc on your productivity, on your clarity, on your persistence, on your attention, on your priority. The week before that, we had our Ask Bernadette episode. It's the first week of every month, the first Tuesday of every month. Basically, you're posting questions, stories, or challenges out on Facebook, Twitter. Majority of them, like 99% of them, come through LinkedIn because I do a lot of outreach and a lot of engagement on LinkedIn. And then you can always send it to BernadetteBoas@sheddingthebitch.com. So I take those, I respond to you as quickly as possible, and then I bring them here to the first Tuesday of every month and drill into them even further. You can always jump on and join us at 1-818-572-2910. You can kind of dialogue with me live in regards to any specific question that you might have. We discussed assessing your business, keeping in mind we were going into a new year. So assessing your business, how to podcast and whether or not you should, if podcasting is relevant. To you, to your goals, to your dreams, or to your work or business. And then we discussed the number one most awkward interview question, and actually it's the number one most awkward relationship or social question as well, but you'll have to listen to the program in order to learn what that was. And then in December, as we were going into the new year, we also talked about celebrating 2020 with your very own rich plan. Basically, it's a template that you can then define your SMART goals and also your vision to victorious achievement plan. And so I wrap them up together into your RICH plan. And it's things that you should be considering as far as areas of your life, areas of your emotional, mental, physical, financial, spiritual being. That influence what you get done in any given day, week, month, or year. So it's a great way for you to, um, and a great place, a great template, uh, that you can work on what it is that you want to accomplish this year. Of course, you can download any and all of our shows out on blogtalkradio.com. You can certainly go to sheddingthebitch.com, go to our radio page and get all the episodes there. And of course download on Apple Podcast or a number of the streaming services on the go anywhere you might be. But today we are talking about the power of habit. So I want to ground you into a rich question. And what is that? A rich question is regarding this topic that we'll be discussing today and it's It's a way for you to actually consider how this topic of discussion impacts you, like what areas of your life might be relevant to the discussion, so then that way you could be paying attention to receiving any of the information, the tips, the advice, sometimes tough love that you can put back into your own world. So here's your rich question, and actually there's two, of course. It's one kind of with a pro or with a yin and a yang. Anyway, so your rich question I want you to be thinking about are: what habits do you have that empower you? What happens— habits do you possess that empower you? Which are creating stress or are destructive? For you. Maybe they cause you to lose focus, energy, whatever the case might be. Or maybe they're even more devastating than that and they really create some havoc in your life. So which ones empower you? Which ones wreak havoc on you? Now again, you know, this is all about self-awareness. It's all about, you know, kind of bringing truth to the surface, as I say often, really considering again, how the topic relates to you and being honest and, honest and raw about it, because self-awareness brings change and shift, and change and shift brings transformation, and transformation brings you a life that you want. A life that you want. All right, now if you like to go out on Facebook, Twitter, you know, even LinkedIn, and comment or ask a question, you can always use our rich tags as we call them, Power of Habit, tips, or #shedthebitch. Power of Habit, tips, or #shedthebitch. All right, we are going to take a brief break. When we get back, we're going to dive into this hearty conversation in regards to the power of habits. We'll be right back.

Shedding the Bits Radio is available for download anytime on Apple Podcasts, sheddingthebits.com, and blogtalkradio.com. Be sure to subscribe to the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. I want to thank our sponsors, North Georgia Tax Solutions, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate for corporate-size clients. Go to NGTaxSolutions.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-size businesses, including mine. Email Deborah at deborahparker.va@gmail.com.

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Email us at Media Relations at sheddingthebitch.com. Now let's get back to the show.

Welcome back everyone. We are talking habits, and I have to say, we want to focus on the power of them, but that power can be a positive power or it could be a negative power. And we've recently talked about about how if you change your thoughts, you could change your life. And, and you hear that quite often, and you can, you know, kind of Google it and find a lot of inspiring messages and articles and videos around that. I, over the years, have found that and added to that thought that you can change your thoughts and change your life for sure, but if you change your thoughts and the words that you use, especially to yourself, let alone to anyone else, you can definitely change your life. Well, I want to throw one more element into that formula, that you can change your life by changing the habits that you have and that you hold on to. Now, of course, like anything just like thoughts or words. There's ones that are empowering and transforming and enriching, and then there's ones that are very destructive. And so the key to any of that is knowing both of them. It's not about always focusing on the negative. The world, media, everything is always centered on making us feel the crappiest we can feel because they think, okay, feeling crappy will make us want to change. And, you know, there's a case for that. There's a case for that. Something tragic has to happen in order for someone to, to finally decide, um, to, to make a change. No pain, no gain type of thing. At the same time, I, I've learned only recently in the last, you know, number of years that I actually am more motivated and I'm more inspired and I'm more willing to transform and change when I focus on the positive side of it, the powerful side of it, the enriching side of it, whether that be the thoughts, words, or even habits. Because what I like to focus on is what all of those things in a positive way bring to me, as opposed to feeling like crap and then saying, okay, I feel like such crap that I have to make a change. Who wants to do that? I lived that way for 20, 25 years. I lived with always being on the negative side of things because I thought, well, if I prepare, you know, if I was on the negative side, I was prepared for the worst-case scenario of something happening. Well, God, that's a freaking horrible way to live, wouldn't you say? So what we want to do is we really want to become aware of all of it, but then shift it to where we're only really focused on how do we turn those destructive negative habits into really powerful positive productive ones. All right. So again, consider the rich questions I gave you. What habits do you have that are empowering you and which are creating stress or are destructive or are really causing you a lack of focus and energy. Because if you really consider, especially if you take your day and you consider, you know, your routine, even for a day, maybe a week, I'm sure every one of us have kind of habits that are really working for us, but then there's some that could, could be or are working against us. So what are habits? Well, they could be mental, they could be emotional, They can be spiritual. They can even be physical. So good habits, let's, you know, like I said, let's focus on, so good habits. And let's take it, I love focusing on the day in the life of. So think of a day in the life of you. You know, making your bed in the morning. Maybe I'll even go back and say setting your alarm, getting up with the alarm, making your bed, watching the news, planning your day. Based on goals you already regularly set, eating healthy, maybe you work out, have great team, you know, collaboration and partnership at work, getting your sleep, maybe journal, pray, meditate, whatever. Good habits, productive, enriching. And then there could be bad habits, and I threw a few of mine in here. Bad habits could be And some of them, you know, you can think that they're lending itself to like OCD or whatnot, and maybe they are, but some bad habits are buying things in twos or threes or some sort of multiple, biting your nails, smoking, drinking, overeating, overworking out. I had that issue, uh, you know, 15, 20 years ago. Playing devil's advocate with yourself. So I'm throwing some emotional things in here as well. Playing devil's advocate with yourself, beating yourself up, judging yourself, putting yourself down are bad habits. And I often, actually I had somebody, I had one of my kind of mentor, mentorees come to my house a couple weeks ago to work on a project. And so, and it's really about her.— the project, that is. And so, you know, I was getting a sense that she just has a habit of just speaking poorly about herself. Now, when you kind of point it out to her, what does she say? "Oh, I'm just so accustomed to it. Oh, you know, it's such a habit." Well, not doing much good for her, and if you fall into that too— not to say that All of us kind of every once in a while will speak poorly to ourselves. There's a difference between, you know, something that happens once or out of the norm, and then there's something that's persistent or consistent. So let me give you an idea of my routine, and you decide for yourself, and then I'm going to tell you, you know, in a bit if it's good, bad, or indifferent, my routine. So my routine. I set my alarm for 6:54 exactly, and I get up to it, turn on my television, and specifically to the news for 7 o'clock. I have to be, you know, for second— 7 o'clock, it's top of the hour for my World in 90 Seconds. I feed Coco and let her out, and/or I take her to the park. I then feed myself. I read my daily devotional. Devotion from my book and pray. I leave the TV on all day in my office.

I work.

I go to the gym at 4 o'clock for pickleball. I make dinner by 6:30 at the latest, sit on my couch working, and I'm in bed at 10. Now this routine sounds pretty harmless. But is it? And you know what? It wasn't. So why wasn't it? The 6:54, you know, that 6 minutes, I don't know where this number came from quite honestly. 6:55 would be just fine. 7 o'clock is too late because I want to, you know, the TV on in time. But so that part of it isn't bad. But then the turning on the news, hearing the 90 seconds, Your World in 90 Seconds is fine. Leaving it on in the background, whether it's for that hour of the news or all day as I mentioned, that is what was bad. That is what was destructive. That is what was so stressful. I mean, especially in the last few years, won't tell you why. You know, there is nothing good, you know, to be, to be, you know, learning or listening to when it comes to the news. Let alone when it moves into— then on that same channel, it moves into shows like The View and some other things. It's just very negative. It's very argumentative. It's very stressful for me. You might love it, but for me, I found I all of a sudden was realizing it was very stressful. So that goes to leaving the TV on, you know, all that time unconsciously. I would just think I want background noise. It wasn't for— it was for background noise, but that background noise was not doing what it was supposed to be doing. But I didn't realize it for a very, very long time. And then sitting on my couch working. Some of those nights were with a couple of beers. I'm not a wine drinker, but some people often tell me, well, yeah, I can sit down and one glass turns to two, three, then the bottle's gone type of thing. You know, mine was a couple of beers, but yet at the same time it was destructive in that it wasn't like I was sitting on my couch getting drunk, but it was destructive in that it was still leaving me very dehydrated and having trouble sleeping. And then the next morning I'm not, you know, I have to lay in bed that much longer, which I didn't even mention was part of my routine, you know, kind of shifting myself out of whatever state of being I'm in when I first wake up and open my eyes. So I, you know, I realized that something had to change. Some of the, you know, some of my routine, my habits were definitely going to have to change. I should go back to that 2 or 3, buying things in 2. I'm not sure where this came about, and I, you know, I'm not even sure if it's OCD of any kind, but I would say like 15 years ago, all of a sudden I would go and I, if you ever looked at my grocery cart or you know, going to the store of any kind, I would be buying things in twos. And I blame it on Publix, you know, when they have the buy one get one. But at the same time, I just realized that that wasn't serving me well when it was ice cream or if it was a beer or something to that effect. So, you know, I recognized that— this was about a year ago. I recognized that I had to change some of those things up. It seems very harmless, right? But yet it was wreaking havoc on me emotionally, mentally, spiritually. Now, as I was doing research for this, because again I'm one of, you know, of loving habits and knowing what the, what the productive result can be, I came across, which I didn't— I wasn't even aware of, shame on me— but I came across a book. It was published in 2012. It's called The Power The Power of Habits: Why We Do What We Do by Charles Duhigg. Now I even called this episode The Power of Habits before I even realized there was a book, so kudos to him. He states, and it's a number one best-selling book back in 2012, it might still be, he states that almost 40% of our actions each day are the result of of habits. So 40% of our actions each day are the result of habits, not decisions, which is what is really key. So, you know, talking about words, the words that we use. So it's not our decisions that we're doing what we're doing. It's because it's, you know, we're very ritual, we're very routine or habit-oriented. And scientists have found that the replacement of just one set of neurological patterns can overhaul them all. So I kind of got excited when I read that because what it means to me is once we know and are aware of what our powerful habits are or our enriching habits are and our destructive ones, we can then make changes. And if that is a decision, we can make changes and rewire the patterns within our brains. And so the book goes on, it's very science-based, but it's very storytelling-based too. It's a, you know, from what I've read so far, and I haven't finished, but it's— it really is kind of positive and kind of exciting. It creates a lot of excitement about the fact that, you know, if we're beating ourselves up for— and, you know, like I said, that woman that was in my, my home a few weeks ago— when we feel that we're— well, you know what, there's— I'm just accustomed to doing this, you know, it's just been a habit of mine, it's just the way I'm wired. Well, guess what? There is proven scientific fact that we can rewire ourselves. And we know that. We know that. I mean, those of us who've quit smoking or gotten healthy or, you know, started, you know, goal setting, we know that we can change ourselves and our behaviors and our patterns. Some of us just need a little bit more scientific proof and validation of that. And his book, The Power of Habits, Why We Do What We Do. It's Charles Duhigg. Certainly provides a lot of it. So check it out on Amazon if you should. But it got me excited because it also broke down, you know, a very simple, simplistic, not formula, process I guess he would call it. But he calls it his habit loop. But it's a 3-part thing that really defines how we develop a habit. Good or bad. So his 3-part habit loop makes up a cue. So something triggers or gives us a cue regarding an action we're going to take, or that action turning into a habit. And that cue, or more specifically, many of us need to consider it to be a craving. So all of a sudden we get a craving for something. It could be for a run, it could be for, you know, time to pray, it could be for eating, it could be for smoking, it could be for having a drink. So a cue or craving leads to the routine. So if all of a sudden I'm shopping and I'm given unconsciously a cue or craving around, and more so a cue, around buying 2 things instead of 1 thing, or buying that ice cream. Instead of buying that, you know, banana, whatever the case might be. So we get, we have a cue or craving which leads to a routine, and then ultimately it leads to a reward. Of course, the reasons we do what we do, remember, it's not decisions in the majority of time. It's our habits. It's our routines. It's those patterns that we have developed psychologically. And it has to lead to a reward. So the craving for ice cream, we think the reward is, you know, having something tasty, having something fulfilling. But is it? Is that really the reward we're after? And we'll talk about that in a minute. But at the same time, it's just really— It's really good to have a simplistic process, I'll call it, a 3-step little process you can put in your mind if you're visual, or you can write it out. You'll see posts from Deborah of Parker House Virtual Services, but you'll see posts from her and it shows this 3-loop process that he's defined around cue, routine, and reward. And, you know, print it, put it up somewhere. Because it's so simplistic that you sit there and go, wait a minute, that little thing, those little series of steps is what is ruling me, governing me, you know, kind of wreaking havoc on me if it is a bad habit. And because we're going to talk about how you're still going to maintain this cue and this routine and this reward, but we're going to change up what those things are in order for you to take the bad habits and turn them into good ones. Okay, so now more interesting that Charles claims got me even more excited because he said habits emerge without our consent. To save energy, the brain creates this habit loop that looks for a trigger to cue a behavior. Now why, again, words. Right? Why did this kind of jump out at me? Well, it certainly wasn't because the fact that it says that habits emerge without our consent. So it didn't, and it doesn't, leave us off the hook. So all of a sudden we can't go, ha, ha, ha, I didn't even know I was doing it, so therefore, you know, it's not my fault. That's not what we're looking for at all from this statement or from this awareness. What we have to What we have to recognize is the fact that our brains, no matter whether we're conscious of it or not, whether we consent to it or not, it's certainly sending us through this loop of creating a trigger or cue and a craving, leading it to the action or routine that we have, which then we ultimately are seeking and hopefully obtaining the reward. And what we're soon going to talk about is the fact that, well, When we really dig into what we believe the reward is versus what the reward is, is one of those things that may wake us up, you up, to saying, you know what, this routine behavior habit is no longer working for me and I need to change it up. And so, and that's what, that's what our goal is. Now, of course our willpower, determination and persistence is there to fight against the cues or the cravings, you know, and it's what determines whether we maintain destructive habits or we maintain our good ones. We must have willpower, and that, and that's what he and others have talked about. But I add determination, persistence, because those are things that I am always telling myself. Is that not only with my willpower, but if I'm determined, or I am determined, persistent, focused, and energized around something, those things also feed into willpower, feed into you being able to— me being able to, you know, continue doing the good things, the productive things, the enriching things, the empowering things. And it also gets me all, you know, riled up about making sure that anything that isn't serving me well regarding, you know, how much determination and persistence I might even have in keeping, holding on to, you know, that bad behavior, that bad routine or habit, it allows me to say, nope, it's not, you know, serving me well, it's not worth it, it's not getting me to my goals, I have to let go of it and I have to replace it with something else. So keep that in mind. You know, your willpower, determination, persistence, your focus, your energy will all feed into you allowing yourself to replace bad cues or cravings with good ones. Um, all right, so then what will get you— what do you need to do in order to shed the destructive habits and keep or create the productive ones? What do you really need to be considering and thinking about? And if you listen to the program at all, you will know that I speak to specific regularities, or just specific things on a regular basis, I should say. And it's all about self-discovery, right? So I'll go through those and then we'll take a break and discuss what you can do about it. So what— so first I could tell you, like I often do, to get a journal and a pen and start writing, start getting it out of your head and your heart and your gut and putting it onto a piece of paper so it's in black and white and very logical for you. So you first off want to consider the impact your habits are having on your life. So our rich questions were about you identifying and acknowledging and being self-aware of what the enriching habits are and what the destructive habits are. Now you want to kind of say, okay, so going through both those lists, if you want to take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, put enriching on one side and destructive ones on the other. One by one, go through what the impact those habits are having on your life. So if on the good side, the enriching side, you talk about, you know, goal setting, time blocking, hitting the gym, praying, meditating, volunteering, helping others, giving back, even at work, because this all applies to your work routines as well. So if it's, you know, your weekly status with your team, there are collaboration meetings with your team. If it's, you know, regular updates or status or communications of any kind. If it's, you know, taking your team or a member of your team out once a month, that's a routine or a habit that you have. You know, recognize all the very enriching, empowering habits. On the other side, you know, you can make note of those destructive ones. And I would hope you think smoking, overeating, overworking out or being obsessed you know, with anything. Beating up on yourself— again, think emotional, mental, spiritual, even physical things that you could be doing. You know, I would hate to throw in there, you know, cutting or any of the literally physical destructive things that one might be doing, but they all, you know, they all fit in that column. Go through each one of them and acknowledge, write down and see it in black and white, the impact that those habits are having on your life. Define them. What are they giving you? How are you changing? How is the world changing as a result of your habits? All right. And once you've done that, and hopefully you're getting emotional and things are coming up for you and you're not liking your habits, especially the ones on the destructive side, or only the ones on the destructive side, And, you know, and you're kind of saying, okay, so something's got to give. Seek out the why you're sticking to that particular habit. Go through your good list, the empowering list, go through the destructive list. Why? And that, those are in caps. So I kind of summarize the why in your why spot. What is your why spot as far as what, why you hold on to a particular habit that you have? What reward— remember that loop, you know, cue, craving is one, routine, reward. There has to be a reward when it comes to habits. So what is that reward that you're getting? And consider it's not what you initially think. So some people might say, oh, well, I just love to smoke because it tastes good and it relaxes me. But is it? Is that really why you're doing it? It's like, you know, eating or drinking. You know, is the real why because it's filling a void, or maybe it's creating a community. Maybe, you know, drinking or smoking, you know, you're going out with friends, or you're going out into the courtyard because you can't smoke in the building, you have to go out, and it creates a community for you. You know, consider the real why behind your habit. The goal setting, you know, is not only for focus and clarity., and maybe even a roadmap. Your good empowering habit could be because you want to be advanced. You want to grow. You want to succeed. You want to, you know, climb to the top, whatever. Consider those. Then another way to really kind of understand your habits is, or really kind of decide whether you're going to shed the destructive ones and keep or create the productive habits, is learn from others in order to determine, you know, why you should shed one and keep and enrich another. You know, look, read, watch videos, learn from those business leaders, those life leaders, those athletes like a Kobe Bryant. You know, what did his habits bring to him? And obviously a great deal. Now, a lot of people will talk about, you know, the habits that also were destructive for them. You know, so do, you know, if you need to learn from others to really then help you shift and decide whether you're going to shed or enrich, do so. And then of course another thing that's going to get somebody to not only become self-aware but make a change is if something tragic happens to them or something just alters their life in some way, shape, or form. Maybe there's a death in the family. Maybe you're, you know, all of a sudden, like for me, when I was smoking, I was never really a heavy smoker. I was more of a social smoker. At the same time, I was a smoker. I could, you know, I could just, I could measure it in various ways, but I was a smoker. And yet there was one day, what allowed me to quit after many times trying to quit, was one day I was going up a flight of stairs, and I was always very athletic and always very fit, and I basically could not breathe going up those flight of stairs. Now, they were steep and long and whatnot, but still. And I just thought to myself, oh my God, there's no way in hell I want to, you know, risk my ability to move. So all of a sudden I just said, something's got to give, something's got to happen. Now on the uplifting and empowering and enriching side of it, you know, you could all of a sudden decide to make a change because you do encounter somebody like a Kobe, or some other idol that you regard highly, you revere. Maybe it's a teacher or a colleague who all of a sudden shows you through their own behavior or through their teaching, you know, that one habit's not working for you and maybe you want to switch it up to another habit. So there's a number of ways that you're going to decide for yourself after you've kind of become self-aware and acknowledged what your habits are to make a change. And so, you know, seek all of those different things when you're wanting to really uncover and disclose and become self-aware of the habits that are guiding your, you know, your success or your struggle, um, to towards success. Now when we get back, we're going to take a break. When we get back, we're going to talk about what you could be doing to then, once you've now decided that you want to make a change, how do you go about doing that. All right, so we'll be right back.

Shedding the Bitch Radio is available for download anytime on Apple Podcasts, sheddingthebits.com and lawtalkradio.com. Be sure to subscribe to the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. I want to thank our sponsors, North Georgia Tax Solutions, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to ngtaxsolutions.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses, including mine. Email deborah@deborahparker.va@gmail.com.

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Welcome back, everyone. We are talking habits, the good ones and the not-so-good ones, and what you could be doing in order to change them up. We've already talked about you becoming self-aware of what your habits are, and I had mentioned that, you know, for gosh, a number of years, a good 8, 10 years, I my routine that I mentioned at the top, toward the top of the hour, I had stuck with that for a really long time, not recognizing what kind of, what it was actually doing to me psychologically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. You know, that the news, you know, in the background that I thought was only noise, well, it was noise, but it was stressing noise. Or distracting noise. And I thought, oh my God, I'm just drained of positivity because I'm hearing all this stuff. I'm not really listening to it, but it is, you know, absorbing my world. And so I had to make some changes to my routine in order to kind of get out, you know, get rid of what I didn't want in order to keep what I did want. So what you could be doing is, we already talked about, you know, defining your why. But that is critical because we also talk about it with goals and achieving your goals. That you need a why to drive you, to keep you that, you know, persistent and determined and focused and give you energy. So keep that why in mind. And then what I would say is change one thing about your routine or habit. You know, you could sit there and define 2 or 3 things like I did. Actually, mine was more like 3 or 4, but that you found wasn't benefiting you. Instead of trying to do all of them all at once, try one thing. You know, for me it was turn off the TV after that first 90-second update just to make sure I was staying in tune with the world, just so I knew what the heck was going on. At first I even tried turning it off and not turning it on at all. And then I thought, no, I do want to stay up on things. So I would listen to that 90-second opening that they have, and then I now turn it off. So start with one thing. You know, maybe if you're a smoker, maybe you say, okay, I'm going to stop smoking in the house or in my car, or— well, you can't smoke in the building at work, but maybe you say, okay, I'm not going to smoke at work. Maybe, you know, you go to the gym one time a week and build up from there. Maybe you start reading empowering books. I started reading in the morning, and I take like 15-20 minutes to do some sort of reading. Just so happens to be my daily devotionals right now, but maybe there's a business book, maybe The Power of Habit. You know, I'll kind of insert that, that I do some sort of reading, or you could be doing some sort of reading. And keep in mind, one change your habit that— oh, I'm sorry, one change that you make in a habit that you have, or maybe one new habit that you start doing, it'll have a ripple effect in all areas of your life. So, you know, it's just like when you quit smoking, all of a sudden you do want to— well, let me even back up and say, say you take it small and slow, which is my recommendation. So you stop smoking in your house. Well, the next thing you know, you're like, you're able to recognize that, wow, your house smells so fresh now. It doesn't have that smoke stale smell. So then you say, okay, I want to move it and have that same experience in my, reward, remember, reward, in my car. And then so you stop smoking in your car. So you're just taking it, you know, one step at a time. As you work your way through making a complete shift or change or adding a new habit. Now you can, when you consider what your destructive habits are on the far right-hand side, you might say, okay, I want to replace a good habit with that. Or something more positive and productive than that bad habit. So when I, one of the many times I tried to quit smoking, I replaced a cigarette with a straw. So especially because I mentioned I was a social smoker. So what that basically means is I didn't smoke in my house, I didn't smoke in my car, I didn't smoke at work, but when I was out with my friends, and I would make excuses to be out with my friends, then I would smoke. And therefore, if I'm out at a restaurant or I'm out, you know, out at a bar, and nowadays it's outside, but for many, many, well, for all the years that I was smoking, you could smoke inside. I would take a straw instead of a cigarette, and I would just sit there and smoke a straw for the longest time, just because, you know, that helped me kind of get rid of that need, that physical need of a cigarette. But find your own thing that you could be replacing with that 90, you know, with that bad routine. And like I mentioned, you know, I turned, I started turning off the TV after that 90 seconds, and I was like, well, you know, I like the noise. So then I just found a music, you know, station that I really liked, or a music channel on my iPhone that I really liked, and I just started listening to instrumental music instead. And then you need to commit to a new habit. Now, for decades they said, oh, 21 days to, you know, change a habit or start a new one. And, you know, I think there's enough scientific proof for it and against it. So make it 30 days. Say a month you're going to work consistently and persistently, being very determined, focused, and energized around either breaking that old habit, creating a new one, or just replacing one. And stick with it for 30 days. You can do anything for 30 days. So stick with it for 30 days. And maybe you need to create a trigger for yourself. So there was a time, I don't even remember what I was trying to do at the time, but you know, I wore a rubber band on my right, or left, left arm, my left wrist, and I would snap it. And I've actually used this with my clients, telling them, and it's not just a, you know, regular hairband, like a black hairband, it has to be one of those rubber rubber bands because they snap. They have that thing that will wake you up. And when you get that cue or that craving to do something that is destructive, you know, behaviorally, whatever the case might be, you snap it just to kind of bring you back, you know, to kind of think about the fact that you don't want to fall and be tempted. I tend to also kind of go into prayer. I, whether, well, it could be prayer or affirmation. When I start not only thinking something, but when I start like even considering falling into a temptation of a bad habit, I'll just like go inward and just, you know, start talking to myself and praying and/or affirming to kind of keep myself busy. There is science around the fact too, when it comes to a habit, I don't have recent study, I failed to look that up, but You know, they used to say that if you distracted yourself for 2 to 3 minutes, especially when it came to smoking, then your craving will go away. And, you know, there's a lot of reason and logic behind that. Like if you all of a sudden turn your mind away from that cue, then you can kind of forget about it. So create a trigger for yourself. Now in a blog I found, it's from Scott H. Young. He suggests using "but," B-U-T, but. So he goes on to say, a prominent habit-changing therapist once told me this great technique for changing bad thought patterns. When you start to think negative thoughts, use the word "but" to interrupt it. I'm no good at this, but if I work at it, I might get better later. And I, you know, I thought to myself, I— oh, Saturday, uh, I tortured everyone on the pickleball court. I was miserable. I just wasn't playing. We all have bad days, you know, on court, off the court, whatever the case might be. I couldn't get anything, anything done. And so I was sitting there, you know, I wish I could say that it was just inwardly beating myself up, but it was outwardly. It was, you know, kind of saying things that fortunately I was saying them to myself, but— and there was curses flying and all this kind of good stuff. So I love this idea, you know, that you could talk to yourself because I do quite a bit and say something like, oh my god, I'm having a sucky day, I can't, you know, play today. But if I were to focus and be positive and be energized, I could improve my game. I could change the result of my game immediately. And I do that a lot without the "but." I do that a lot anyway. When things aren't going right, I do tend to go quiet, and it's a good practice for you as well, you know, that you might want to try is just to kind of go quiet. But I love this idea of a "but." from Sky H. Young. Just turn it around. Just, you know, say whatever it is that your thought or your craving might be triggering, but, and then add the but. Love that. Love that. All right. So, of course, I'm going to always suggest that you continue to work on your willpower, your determination, that persistence, that focus, that energy. And that's a daily thing. You know, that's why I, you know, added words to the changing your thoughts, you could change your world. Well, change your thoughts, change your words that you speak to yourself, which is what is going to create those triggers, create those cues and cravings. Is, you know, you're talking to yourself, and a lot of times we're talking to ourselves that we fall into, you know, fall victim to that craving or cue. We have to talk to ourselves to talk ourselves out of it. And you might even use that "but." But that's working on your willpower, your determination, your persistence, your focus, and your energy. And now, of course, there's, you know, a lot of tools. We talked about this last week with time management hacks. The one beautiful thing about technology is it has created a lot of tools and strategies and apps to help us when it comes to our habits. So if you have a certain habit that, you know, then you can use apps and technologies to create reminders, notifications, could, you know, send you affirmations to either, you know, switch into that positive habit or to kind of switch away from your bad habit. You know, those things are beautiful, beautiful things too. Now you can't get like me. I have a lot of notifications on, and I actually— there's a habit I broke— I actually recognized that when I started that habit of having notifications on about a number of things, that I was kind of brushing right over them, and I wasn't even paying attention to them anymore. So I turned them off because then they just became distracting and stressing. So you also want to recognize when As you're changing and you're developing different habits, let alone new or changed habits, other parts of your world are going to all of a sudden shift. And what you saw to be maybe positive or destructive yesterday may look very different to you today because your whole, your whole internal world has changed. As you're growing and transforming and becoming self-aware, therefore you're becoming productive and positive and confident and sure of yourself. Well, all those things that hung you up, you know, yesterday, all of a sudden look very, very different, or you don't even notice them anymore. And that's the beautiful thing around anything that we're talking about, including habits, is that shift in your thoughts, that shift in your words, that shift in your habits creates a whole new environment, universe, world for you. And that's just a beautiful, beautiful thing. Now, of course, apart from, you know, kind of a whole lot of tangible or literal things like tools or apps that you can use to kind of keep you on the track of your productive, enriching habits, you can also find a source of accountability for yourself. You can pair up with a friend or a colleague or even a professional coach like myself because you, you know, to hold you accountable because you want to ensure that you're going to do the work, you want to stay on track, and you want to know that it's, you know, going toward and assisting you in pursuing your endgame, that reward, that good reward. So you can always seek out a source of accountability. And again, there's tools and apps for that as well. Though there's nothing better than someone that you can collaborate with and have a sounding board and seek advice and guidance and a kick in the ass if need be. But an accountability partner is also a great way. That, you know, is very famous and popular when it comes to things like quitting smoking or getting fit or eating healthy or working out. But you can take it into the workplace as well if you need to make changes in the way you operate at work, whether it's in a business or you have your own business. You know, we all need that buddy system, so to speak, to help us with and make us aware of what it is that we're doing. So those are, you know, the things you could be doing now to really ensure that the habits, the routines, the actions, behaviors that you operate on from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed, and even in your sleep, are working for you. And so feel free to, you know, try them out, test them. Fail fast, move on, try something different. Share them, bring them into your family, your friends, your team, you know, and help each other make those small changes that will help you work toward your goals and your dreams. You deserve it. All right, so next week is our first week, do you believe it? First week of February, so it's Ask Bernadette. Post your stories, questions, or challenges out on Facebook, Twitter. You can email me directly at BernadetteBoas@sheddingthebitch.com, or post it on LinkedIn, send me a message on LinkedIn, and I'll be sure to respond to you right away. But then next Tuesday at noon Eastern time, we'll bring them right here onto the program and discuss them in greater detail. But for everyone here in the Shedding the Bitch community, thank you so much for being part of our our world, and I'll look forward to having you right back here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Thanks everybody.

Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches, and the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.