Break Bad Habits

In this lesson, we're going to talk about your bad habits. But the good news is, anytime I talk about bad habits with people, they already know what theirs are. Maybe your bad habit is you overspend or you overeat or you're impatient with people or you're late for something, or you always let this thing down or that thing fall apart or whatever going on. We all got bad habits. And the good news is you don't have to feel bad about them anymore. Because today we're gonna explain why they happen, and we're explaining where they happen, and we're gonna explain one simple thing to overcome those bad habits. So we got a lot to cover here. My attempt today is I'm gonna boil them all down into four categories. So I'd love for you just to start by brainstorming any bad habits you have, and let's see if we can pinpoint where they are and why they are happening. A bad habit, by definition, is something that's negative. And enduring a habit, right, you keep doing it, and it's almost like automatically, like you're not even thinking about it. That's a habit. You've done it so many times, it just. It's automatic. It's a response. It's easy. You just fall right into that thing. So we've got to interrupt that bad habit, put something more positive and something more enduring in its place. Because I'm sure by now you know how habits are formed, right? Something happens, we react to it with a routine, and we feel like we're paid off by it. There's a payoff, there's a benefit, and after a period of time, we just do something over and over and over and over again, and it becomes easy or natural. That is a habit. But here's what I discovered about bad habits. There's really four types or four categories of bad habits. And once we learn to recognize them, awareness is always that first step. So the first step is let's recognize where our bad habits are and where they're coming from. I bet if you looked at all your list of bad habits that they all fall into these four categories. The first bad habit is bad habits just caused by our desire to protect ourselves. Right? A desire to protect ourselves. You know, I don't want to take on that new project. So I have this bad habit of procrastinating because I'm protecting myself. I feel like if I do it, I'm going to lose face, I'm going to fail. Something negative will happen. So I've created This little payoff called procrastination. That procrastination, it is protecting me from falling on my face, from looking dumb, right? There's always a payoff to every bad habit. One of them is that payoff of protection. I don't have to put myself out there. That's the payoff. I don't have to get hurt. That's the payoff. So we create all these habits of, whether it's a habit of perfectionism, where we never actually release anything from the world, so we don't have to be judged, because being judged, we don't want that. So we protect ourselves. So we think, how can I protect myself? And these bad habits ensue. I want to protect myself. Bad habit. Don't put anything out there. Bad habit. Not complete the work and release it, because they might judge me. But there's a specific thing that's happening here. We're looking to protect ourselves. So are there any habits in your life that you've developed that's a bad habit to protect yourself? Let me give you an example. One bad habit a lot of people have is they don't speak up for themselves. It's just automatic. They have an idea in a meeting, they don't say anything. Someone says something wrong or abusive or mean or negative, they don't say anything because it's easier. 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 charge of life. So is that a category you have going on? Are there any bad habits that you identify? Like, wow, I keep running that same routine to protect myself. The second big one that we have, big habit is to pacify our negative feelings. To pacify. Right. Categories of pacification. To pacify ourselves. You know, when we feel stress, overwhelm, or even uncertainty of what to do. I know I'm supposed to be doing something, but I don't know what. So I'm going to pacify myself. Just like if a child is screaming, you give it that pacifier so that it soothes them. Well, so we soothe ourselves with food. We soothe ourselves with social media. We soothe ourselves with distractions. We soothe ourselves with, you know, 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. Well, I don't know what to do, or I feel uncertain, so I'm gonna eat. I don't know what to do or I feel uncertain. So let me. You know, I'll just check in. I'm gonna look at the newspapers here. I'll look at my phone. We feel uncertain or insecure, and so we pacify ourselves by seeking validation from other people. Could you tell me how great I am? And we develop all these bad habits of doing things that compromise ourselves just so we can get some validation from some people, because we feel insecure. It's important to recognize those bad habits that are really just pacifying a deeper need that says, do something, try something, go. It's so important. The third big category of bad habits comes under placating. Placating, that means we have a bad habit of pleasing other people so that we can cause them less stress, less overwhelm, or get less emotional reaction from them. Like a lot of people, they're like they would call themselves. They say, you know, brendan, I'm kind of a doormat. I said, what do you mean you're a doormat? Well, you know, I just. I don't want to cause a ruckus. And I just let people run over me all the time. You know, people are always stepping all over me. And it's because they have a bad habit of not fighting for what they really want, not communicating clearly their expectations, not setting standards. Instead, they don't want to upset their husband, so they don't say anything. It's not about protection. It's about placating him. Sometimes it's about placating the people around you to make a feel good, even though it's coming at the cost of your life. That's often a big bad habit, isn't it? That's why we get overwhelmed in the first place, is 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. And the last big category, over and over and over of bad habits is proving ourselves bad habits. If you're always arguing, you just. Someone says something and you just scream at them and you get anger because you have to prove yourself. It's your ego saying, hey, hey, validate me. Hey, pay attention. Someone cuts you off on the road, you flip them off. You floor it. You cut in front of them. You go, ha, ha ha. Look at me, jerk. You ought 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. And so if you can at least begin to identify some of these, maybe just me talking with you here, maybe that helped you identify some habits, and you're like, oh, I'm doing that. So if all we did is help you generate some more understanding or awareness or categorization of your bad habits, we'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 yet. They're unhappy. So if you're trying to figure out why you're unhappy, start with what routines you continually doing that are negative and stick around because in there is a way to get some more happiness back. It's right there. And all we have to do is make sure first we're aware of them, and then once we're aware of them, we decide we're going to break them. We're going to find a payoff that's above those payoffs. And it's a very simple thing to do. 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 see, what we 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. So here's what I mean. What I'd love you to do if your bad habit is you just pacify yourself with food when you're uncomfortable or unsure. What I'd love you to do is not do what everyone else says. Get rid of all that food. Because all that food. And you know if there's food around you, you're just going to be fat, right? It's like, well, it's not the food. It's why you're turning to the food. So let's not try and solve the problem. Leave the food and let's practice not going to the food. Let's instead rehearse. Okay, how do I deal with this emotion instead of going to the food? What's another way I can have the payoff of dealing with the emotion without that thing? That's the bad habit. The food as an example. Now, what I want you to do is don't Wait until next time you're angry or. 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 potato chips. When was that? Okay, let me remember that. What was that like? Now let me rehearse. Not going to the food. What else could I do? What routine or behavior could I do if instead of going to the food, okay, you know what I'm do? I'm going to open up my journal right next to that dang bag of chips. I'm going to open up that journal. I'm going to look at the chips. I'm going to open the journal, not the chips. Open journal, not chips. Open journal, not chips. Open journal, not chips. And I'm going to write down, why am I upset? If my highest self was in this situation right now, what would he or she do? Let me ask you that question again. If my highest self was in this situation right now, what would he or she do? And I want you to literally write that out. So what happens with habits is there's a cue. Something negative happens. Our response or our routine is also negative, but it feels like it's paying us off. And then we feel horrible for ourselves. So that middle thing, here's what you do. The cue still happens. The cues, my friends, are always going to happen. They're always. If stress or drama from another person drives you in a bad habit, I'm going to tell you there's always going to be stress and drama from other people. If feeling insecure or unsure always drives that bad habit, guess what? There's always going to be times in your life you're going to feel insecure and unsure. The cues, my friend, are not going to change. They're always going to be there. So your job is, instead of running that routine of that bad habit, is identify what you're trying to do. Am I trying to protect myself right now? Am I trying to pacify myself? Am I trying to placate her? Am I trying to prove myself? And instead just ask a simple question. What would my highest self do in this situation? You're not going to win every time. You're just not. Sometimes you're going to have the intention to do the new positive thing, but you do the old negative thing. And I'm here to tell you that's okay. That's life. Our job is not to win every battle. Our job is to win the war, is to win more battles against those bad behaviors by putting in new things. And you know what's funny? As soon as you put in those new things, guess what they give you Payoff. When you act as your highest self would in that situation versus going to your protectionist self or your pacifying self, or your placating self, or that part of you that just feels like you got to prove yourself. You go to a higher realm. Your brain gets the payoff. Your brain says, good job, Good job. Good job. Good job. And the more good habits you run, the more your brain says, good. Good job man. Good job man. And now you have more strength. You have more certainty in yourself. You don't have to lean like a crutch on those bad behaviors to give you some sort of weak payoff. Instead, your brain goes, hey, you know what? Last time we fought this and we won. That felt pretty good. And you start to get momentum establishing new good positive habits simply because you said bad cue. What good would my highest self do? You try that a few times and you start getting momentum to changing your life. Hey all, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, would you please smash that subscribe button and also post any questions you have down below? Because it's these questions that you're all asking that inspires these episodes. I'd love to hear what you think about it. Also, if you would love to join us on our next upcoming live training. We call it our High Performance Experience Coaching program. If you'd like some coaching and have some perspective and get some two out of Live with me every single month, then click the link in the post down below so you can join us in HPX Coaching. I'd love to give you some more strategies, more insight, and more interaction to help you reach your next level of success. Until next time. Again, please subscribe, share this video with anybody who could be inspired by it today. And thanks one more time for being part of my community.