Dr. Noah St John argues willpower alone won't break bad habits. He breaks down how habits form around five elements: cue, routine, reward, craving, and belief. Instead of relying on willpower, swap your routine or use his Afformations method to change the beliefs that drive procrastination and other habits.
Willpower is a very weak muscle. Now, it's not that it's wrong or it's bad. It's just a very weak muscle. And numerous scientific studies have shown this. So here's what willpower is like. So imagine you're in your kitchen right now and somebody comes in with a freshly baked plate of chocolate chip cookies, right? The chocolate chip cookies, they just came out of the oven, right? You see the steam rising, right? You smell the smell and you're like, your mouth starts to water. You're like, oh my God, does that look good? Right? And then they say to you, okay, now listen. I'm going to put these cookies here and I have to leave. Don't eat any cookies. Do not eat a cookie. Whenever you don't eat one of these cookies, because I have to go. So I'm going to leave this here and don't eat a cookie. Yeah. They leave. What are you going to do? You're going to eat like 12 cookies, right? I mean, you're going to, right? I mean, that's what willpower is like, right? Because willpower is basically you saying to yourself, hey, don't do this thing that I really want to do. And we humans do not like to deny ourselves of anything, right? Especially nowadays. And so that's why willpower, even though it's not wrong or it's not bad, it's It's a weak muscle. And so the point is, what, rather than that, you know, one of the things that I teach my clients to do is work with what a habit actually is. See, we weren't trained this. We weren't taught what is a habit. Well, believe it or not, a habit is just 5 stages or 5 elements. The cue, routine, the reward, the craving, and belief. Now, very quickly, what that means is you have the cue, which is the trigger that happens in your life, right? Then you have the routine. That's what you do when that trigger Is cued. Then you have the reward that happens in the brain. Then you have a craving that happens in the brain. So that's why you keep doing this habit. And then the final stage that happens is a belief about your ability or about the habit itself. So let's take another example of procrastination. That's the number one habit that people say they want to break. Noah, you know, I really want to do all this. I've got my goals. I write them down all the time. I focus on it, but I just keep procrastinating, you know, and I can't get anything done. There's so many distractions out there. I can't focus. I'm like, no kidding. Right? And yes, we live in a world of infinite distractions right at our fingertips, right? Every, at every second, you know, we have these machines of infinite distraction called our smartphones. And, you know, and of course the social media platforms, for example, you know, they're, they have engineers and people there that are working the algorithm to keep you addicted to that platform so they make more money because, so they can show you more advertising. That is their entire job. That is their entire existence is to keep you addicted so they show you more ads so they make more money. That is it. Okay. They're not designed to, you know, help you in any way. Right. And so just knowing that sometimes can help people to, you know, break that addiction to their smartphone or to their screens, for example. Anyway, so the point is think about procrastination. That's the habit, right? Again, I don't think there's too many people that would argue that procrastination is a productive habit. In other words, something like I talked about earlier, it's bringing you towards your goal, right? For most people, it's an unproductive habit. You know, boy, I really should do this, but you know what? I think I'll go watch Netflix, or I think I'll just scroll social media for a while. Hello, you just wasted all that time. And like we talked about earlier, time is the most valuable resource because it can't be replaced. All of Bill Gates' billions can't buy 1 minute of yesterday. All right? So if you look at that habit, you know, the trigger is you think about doing something you should do. You know that it would actually help you. That's what the irony of procrastination is. It's not just not doing something. It's not doing something that would actually help you, that would benefit you. Then the routine is you do something else, right? You think about the thing and then you do something else, right? But then what happens is you have the reward in the brain that says, aha, I'm safe, right? And your brain is designed to keep you not dead. That is your brain's main job, keep you not dead. So the brain, and one great way to keep you not dead Is to make sure you don't do anything scary, right? Because in, in ancient times, right, if you did something, if you felt that fear, it could be a saber-toothed tiger in the bushes, right? Coming out to eat you. Well, there's not too many saber-toothed tigers running around nowadays, but we still have those same fears in our brain, right? The brain hasn't, you know, I'm talking about the ancient brain. I'm pointing to my head back here. You know, it's the ancient limbic brain, not the frontal cortex, you know, the communication part of the brain and so forth. Anyway, so that's the reward. It's like, oh, I'm safe. I didn't die. Great job, me. You know, and then the craving is for safety, right? And that's why people don't face their fears so many times. And then the belief becomes, I can't do it. Oh, wow. What did I just talk about? Head trash. I wonder where head trash comes from. Do you see how this all works together? You see why willpower won't do really anything here in this situation? It doesn't do anything. It's like, come on, do it. And you're like, eh, eh, eh. And then you're like, ah, forget it. You know, it's just, it's tiring, it's exhausting, and it doesn't work very well. So what I teach my clients to do is very simple. Number 1, understand what the cue is that triggers this habit. Number 2, we just change the routine. All we do is swap out a new routine, right? And you say, okay, well, if I go, if I have this thing and I go watch Netflix, how about just do one simple thing? Just if you, let's say it's make a phone call, maybe it's write an article, maybe it's write part of your book, maybe it's write an outline or create something if you want to create an online course or your business. Maybe it's to call your mentor, you know, or something like that. You know, just a different thing than that you've been doing that doesn't really involve willpower. It's just switching. And then using my Afformations method, that's how we can start to change the belief. Rather than saying, I can't do it, you say, why can't I do it? Why did I do it? Why am I able to do the things that I set my mind to? Now, just switching those things, you see how simple that is? And it can be very quick. This is one example and one reason, frankly, why we're able to get this hockey stick growth for our clients. Because you're like, man, this doesn't have to be so hard. It does. In fact, it's probably easier than what you're doing right now. And that's what's so nice about it.
