Breaking Habit

Hi, my name is Donnie Rouse and you are listening to the podcast One Life. Today we're going to talk about habits, or rather breaking habits. So something, something exciting happens when we break our habits. And I'm not referring to just the habit of, you know, going to the gym every day and making lunch at the same time every day and walking your dog the same time every day. No, no, something completely different. When I'm talking about breaking habits, I'm talking about getting outside of that routine. So while habits are extremely good and they help us develop that discipline to be productive, they could also be very harmful because by having these habits, we tend to put on these blinders that say, okay, this is the time, this is what we're supposed to be doing. And when we repeat that habit over and over and over again, it just kind of, it becomes brainless, where we don't even stop to think about what it is that we're doing. Not only do we stop thinking about what we're doing, we close ourselves off to all the other options or all the other possibilities that are available to us. And I'll give you an example of my last week. So this past Friday, I went into New York City. I went in for an acupuncture appointment. And even that was part of a habit breaking because I was telling myself, oh, do I really have the time to going to New York to get acupuncture? I mean, what if it doesn't work? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I booked it. Anyways, so I went into New York City and I left sometime around like 11 o', clock, got there for my 1:30 appointment and while I was there. Well, first of all, the acupuncture experience was pretty awesome. I'd gotten it done once before, but this time it was a little bit differently, you know, to work on different parts of my body. So I was went there from my shoulder and for the strain I'd been feeling in my eyes, what I thought was from computer. And then what she said was later it was from, from stress. And she had me stick out my tongue. She looked at my tongue, she said, oh yeah, it's stress. And she said, you know, everything's related. I was like, how the heck can you figure that out by looking at my tongue. And she says, well, you know what, everything is related. So looking at your tongue, I could see what's going on with the other organs in your body and you're stressed. So I didn't really feel stressed, but I have been putting a lot of work on myself. So Maybe that is it. But we're getting sidetracked. So after the appointment, I made my way back to Grand Central Station, or I stopped at a cafe for a couple hours chatting it up at the local barista. And then I made my way back to Grand Central Station. I contacted a few of my friends because like, you know what, maybe they're available to grab a cup of coffee and I'll meet up with them and then go back early. So this way I could prepare for the farmer's market that had the following day. On the train, I was literally getting ready to take off in two minutes and my friend Don texted me saying, hey, I am going to this Italian meetup in somewhere. He lives in the Chelsea area. So he said, I'm going down there. If you want, you can join me. And then we're going to go to a bar afterward with more people from. With like another language speaking group. So I thought about it. I was like, oh God, it's too much, it's too much. I mean, I have to. I'm gonna leave here and then I have to go down there and oh my God, it's gonna take me a while just to get down to Chelsea. Cause I have to cross town. And then, you know, by the time I get there, I haven't done any of the emails I said I was gonna do today. And then by the time I get back, it's gonna be 12:30. Oh my God. And then I have to get. And then how am I gonna get ready? It's gonna be difficult for me to get ready the following morning. And I just kept piling the shit onto my on. You know, the language. I just kept piling it on. And then something. I was like. I remembered something I had done in the past. And I always would tell myself, well, you know what, just say yes. Because I catch myself going into these habitual routines of saying, like, oh, I can't do this because xyz. But then when I look back at like the week, these weeks fly by and a lot of time, there's nothing to show for it with regard to actually going out and just having a good time. I get a lot of enjoyment out of my work. But that's not what it's about. It's not just about doing work, even if you get the enjoyment out of it. It's about experience in life. And experience in life means breaking away from those routines and being out in the world, because that's where you experience life. So I got off the train and I made my way down there. And there was this kind of like, this communal office space. I went up there because they rented a room, and it was an Italian class going on. Not. Not what was used to. There's a bun. Probably about 15 people in the room. And the meetup director or the. The operator of this meetup group, Gaetan, he was sitting there and he was like, kind of giving us Italian jokes where we had to say a joke and we had to say with this, like, the Italian accent as well as the mannerisms. And the person who was voted the best joke teller would get a free hour session with him. So after doing it, I've spent a lot of time in Italy. I mean, 13 times just in Rome alone. So I ended up winning the contest, and I gifted to my friend Don. But I wouldn't have had that experience had I gone after the language. After that meetup, we went to another meetup. It was a language meetup at a bar that was maybe a couple blocks away. And while at that bar, I wasn't sure what the heck it was. I thought it was just Italian speakers. And as I'm sitting there, like, more and more people came in because we were identified by this little light bracelet that we had that was illuminated. And, you know, we're meeting different people as a result of going to this meetup. I met. I met a girl from Dominican Republic. I met another girl from Chile. I met a guy from Tokyo. I met a guy from Argentina, another guy from Italy, a guy from Vietnam, and just another guy from India. And like, all these people that were from all around the world who came to New York in search of a dream. And it was so refreshing to be around these people because it's. You know, the first thing I like to do whenever I meet someone is sometimes people take offense to it because they don't know where I'm coming from. Is I always ask, where are you from? And depending on where they're from, like, if they're from China or Russia or something like that, they usually at first get a little bit defensive because of the whole, like, culture around those two areas with American politics. But it's always from a place of curiosity and a place of genuine, literally genuine curiosity. Because I look at. I always want to know where people have gone, because one, I want to know if I've been there, because it's an instant rapport builder, and then, two, if I haven't been there, I want to know where I should go. So I'm even more curious to, you know, to poke a prod and ask for questions. And as a result of that, people usually open up pretty easily because I mean, who's not proud of where they're from even? I mean I was born and raised in Stanford, Connecticut. I still live in Stanford, Connecticut. And a lot of the time I poo poo that sometimes I don't take that, I take that for granted. But then when someone talks about like Stanford, you know, tell me about Stanford, I go into this beautiful dialogue, like Shakespearean poetry, and I start telling about all the reason why Fairfield county and Stanford is beautiful. Because you know, as much as I like to be on the world and I sometimes I feel stifled, I am very proud of where I'm from. So none of this would have been possible had I not just said yes and not if I didn't just break that routine. I could have taken the train back, I could have gotten back at maybe like 7:30. I would have done all the prep work for the market the following day. Wasn't even that bad when I got back, I mean I prepared all the stuff and I actually got there on time because a lot of even, I mean just to when you say you can't do something, a lot of time you're rehearsing these things over and over and over in your head and you're just making your mind busy thinking like you can have like one or two items to do. And all of a sudden now like you're, those two items seem like 200 because you just keep stacking those two items on top of one another. You're like, oh, I gotta drive to pick up ice, I gotta pack the bins, I gotta pick up ice, pack the bins, blah blah, blah, blah blah. And then you just keep picking it, you know, all of a sudden now those two items, you feel like it's gonna take you a year and a day to finish and it'll really take you five minutes. So with the self reflection part, so look at, look at your own life. What are those things that you do that you know, like maybe you didn't just didn't make time for or like, you know what, you're like, oh, you know, I don't have time to have a cup of coffee in the morning with a friend because you know that might I have to wake up like 10 minutes earlier. Just have a 10 minute cup of coffee here and I'm gonna rush and you don't want to, you want to, you don't want to be stressed out. But you, you failed, you know, and that's I have that. I like to meet up with my good friend Tim. We do coffee. And I know he has a lot of demands on him at work and sometimes, you know, he would stop in, but lately things have been busy. I'll be all for waking up early and having a cup of coffee with him because once we do it, we are always so overjoyed with them. And we realize that it was one of the highlights of our week and it's one of those things that just sets the pace for that day. All of a sudden we take that moment to just sip and have a cup of coffee and break that norm, that routine that we normally. That we would kind of get into when we start our day. And all of a sudden the rest of the day we just kind of float by and work perfectly because we were in a different state of mind. So what is it for you? What is one thing? If there's one thing you wanted to do that you have been putting off and it could be something so small that you just didn't want to wake up a little bit earlier to do it, but you know, once you did it, you would enjoy it. Pick one thing, and after you've picked that thing, I want you to. This is. Raise your right hand and I want you to say I. State your name. Will do this one item this week, so help me God. But literally, I mean, I can't stress it enough. It's just, that's where the joy is. We have to break. We have to get out of these habitual ways of thinking, doing these routines, and just make space to just be and enjoy. I am definitely one that's guilty of not doing that enough. Even though, you know, you hear everything I tell you through these podcasts. A lot of it, you know, it might seem like a sage or a guru, but a lot of it is like self reflection after the fact. I'm going through my life and thinking about. I reflect on all of these things that are going on and then I come up with the lessons that I learned from these experiences. So it's not that I'm perfect and I don't do everything perfectly all the time. When I come across those realizations, I want to share it with you because I know it'll enrich your life. Guys, that is all I have for you today. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I hope you go out and break habits, you know, breaking bad, break habits, little play in words. And if you have any questions, please shoot me a message. Onyrous D O N N Y R A u s via Instagram again. D o n n Y R A U s and if you're curious, if you have some questions, shoot me a message. We can set up a call and we'd love to help you. Help you figure out how to get that passion, how to break those habits, how to just infuse more passion into your life because you deserve it. God bless.