Create Habits That Drive Success

Hey there. Good morning, and welcome to another edition of Achieve Even More. I'm on here live every Tuesday morning at 9:00am Pacific Time, noon in New York. And this is one of the ways that I get to know people who follow my work. And we also invite some of our clients. So once you join, say hello, tell me where you are. I'd love to know. What do you do? Good morning, Debbie. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Debbie. I know I've asked you this before. What do you do? And for everybody else who's joining us, what do you do? You all know what I do. Good morning, Sarah. Hi there. Great to see you all. I can't see. You can see me. And love to know what do you do in life? Debbie, I know you're from Alaska. Today we're going to be talking about discovering how to create some habits to drive success and. Hi there, Cheryl. Cheryl, you are just a personal development learning machine. You too, Debbie. I love it. Hi. Venu Morgan. What a neat name. Venu. Venu Morgan. Where are you from? So, habits, habits, habits. We're going to talk about habits. Anybody have any idea where do habits reside? In the brain? Is it left prefrontal cortex? Right prefrontal cortex? Occipital lobe, amygdala? Where? Brainstem? Where do habits reside? In the brain. Interesting, huh? Let's say hello to a few of you. Lucien, Megan. Good morning. Good afternoon. Hi. Jen. Gayatri. Hello. Hi. Scott. Ingrid. Good morning. From Peru. I want to come to Peru. One of the places I've never been. Hi. Cindy. Satomi. Good morning. Sagal. Hello. Hi. Laura. North Carolina. Skincare. Awesome. Skincare. Skincare. All right. Peck, Ontario. I don't know about Peck, Ontario. Used to live in Mississauga. Hi. Ferry. Paula. Zena. Denise. Good morning, Colorado. Is it snowing there in Colorado? Yep. Hilton Head Island. Good afternoon. Yeah, you're in Eastern time. I guess. All right, so let's talk about, you know, habits. I've been fascinated with habits for a long time. And many years ago, I heard that, you know, habits were really hard to make and hard to break. Do you believe that? Are habits hard to make and hard to break? Do you believe that? That's the first question for you. Hello there. Girish from India. Hi there. Greg Fowler. So, habits hard to make, hard to break. True. Not true. And if they are, then why? Why are they hard to make? Hard to break? Oh, look at this. Costa Rica. Martha's Vineyard. Gotta love that. Hi there. Kathy Krall. Awesome. Pei. Prince Edward County. Prince Edward County. Not Prince Edward Island. Got it. Okay. So. Hey, Mark Howell. How are you? My friend, Christine Rogers. Hello. So, habits, habits, habits. From a brain perspective and just understanding the neuroscience of habits, there's a lot we've learned about habits and something called the habit loop, specifically, which I'll talk about in just a moment. But habits is your brain's way of conserving energy and automating anything that you've done or do repetitively. So if you have a propensity to bite your nails, that could be considered a habit. If you have a propensity to ruminate on negative things, that can become a habit. If you have a propensity to feel bad or disempowered or unable to do something on a regular basis, your brain just automates any thought, any emotional pattern or behavioral pattern that you have engaged in consistently in the past. And so why does it do that? It does that for a very, very simple reason. The brain's second most important function is conservation of energy. I want you to just, just think of the evolution of the brain, you know, in the past, right. We, it started off with the reptilian brain, the instinctual part of our brain. And we just needed that for survival, basically to pay attention to any threat that might kill us, that might steal our food, that might harm us or, you know, our tribe. And then as we were able to cook food, we were able to gain more protein. And then our brain grew and the limb, and the limbic, the emotional part of brain, which is called the midbrain, grew. And that gave us the ability to emotionalize things. And that also was geared towards, you know, survival and bonding and experiencing more of the world. And then the neocortex, the, this layer of the brain started developing to give us the ability for logic and imagination and a bunch of other stuff. Now why is this all important? Well, the hierarchy of the brain is safety first. And so we have developed these neural networks that fire off automatically. You can call them deeply ingrained genetic propensities or habits at the deepest level of the brain, then the emotional brain is responsible as well. For what? Safety first. So emotional safety, physical safety, financial safety, you know, any type of safety that is involved in moving us away from pain and moving us towards pleasure. But we will do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure. And I'll bring this home in just a second, you know, then we have the logical brain, basically. Next, the neocortex, the part of our brain that can analyze stuff. Good, the bad, the ugly, the positive, the optimist. The pessimist. But habits really come into the next layer of our evolution, and that is to conserve energy. So anytime we engage in a repetition or in a repetitive pattern that requires energy, after a certain period of time, somewhere between, you know, 60 days and doing it and a year of doing, converts in the brain from the part of the brain that requires conscious effort, right? We have to think about it, to engage in it. It becomes a subconscious pattern or habit. So we have mental, emotional, physical habits that keep us in this comfort zone to conserve energy. So it really makes no difference to your brain whether you have good habits or bad habits, empowering habits or disempowering habits, habits that inspire you or habits that expire you. The part of the brain that the habits reside in, the striatum, is where most of our habits develop deep in the subconscious. It doesn't have the ability to say, this is a good one, this is a bad one. We actually have to use our higher cortical functions, our deductive reasoning, in order to assess what's happening deeper in the recesses of our mind. Does that make sense so far? Because I'm going to share with you to understand the habit loop, which I talked about in just a moment. But then how do you develop some empowering habits? How do you let go of disempowering habits? And by the way, I'm going to give you a shameless plug. For those of you who want to go deeper into any of my work, this is my new book, Inner Size. It's already a best seller, and so you may want to pick it up on Amazon. Or if you want to get some gifts while you buy the book for 10 bucks, go to ignitemybrain.com ignitemybrain.com so we'll continue with habits. And some of you already read the book. I know, Cheryl, you have. But if you want to go deeper into my work, it's probably the best way to do it for $10. So when we have habits, there's always a pattern of circuitry in the brain. It's called the habit loop. Every habit operates on three core principles. One, there is a trigger. Something triggers this circuit to go on. So if you just think of a circuit going on, the same as you would you walking into a room and turning on a light switch, the goes on, the electricity is released through the electrical wires to the light bulbs. And the filaments, you know, do their magic, and light comes on. Well, think about something triggers a habit. And a habit has three components. The trigger the behavior, the reward. So the trigger could be a flower that you saw something on tv, a person walking into a room, you walking into your office and seeing somebody, you reading something, you watching something, you hearing something can activate this neural pattern. Why? Because our brain works in associations. And so we have trillions of connections in the brain and hundreds of millions of them and tens of millions of them are interconnected. So triggering one activates others. Hopefully, that makes sense. So there's a trigger. So you wake up, and your trigger, because you've developed this habit, is maybe to get up and go to the bathroom. And after you do that, you go and get your coffee or your tea or your juice or your cigarette or your newspaper or your breakfast. Whatever your habit loop is, there's always a trigger, then there's the behavior. And then once that trigger is activated and the behavior is taken, that dopamine in the brain is released. That's the reward. That's the feel good part. Okay. Of the habit loop. Here's a question for you all. Can you get a dopamine release when the habit is disempowering? Can you get a dopamine release when the habit is disempowering? So think about this. Let's say smoking cigarettes. We know that the habit of smoking cigarettes, it's a disempowering habit from a health perspective. But if you're somebody like my mother who has a love affair with cigarettes, she loves it, and so she loves to smoke, even though it's a disempowering habit. Good morning, Mr. Mark Waldman. Right. So when we're dealing with a habit loop. All right, by the way, everybody, Mark Waldman is our resident neuro coach here at Neurogym. He's one of the top neuroscience researchers of the research, author of 14 or so books. One of my dear, dear friends who I love and adore, and he's joining us today. I highly recommend you follow him on his Facebook page. And he's brilliant. So. Hi there, Mark. So is it possible to have disempowering habits and it's hard to break them? And the answer is yeah, because every time you exercise that habit, there's got to be some kind of a reward that you're getting from it. And it may be a subtle release of dopamine in your brain. And if you happen to be engaged in. In that behavior with other friends and you're sharing that experience, then very likely you're also releasing that oxytocin in your brain as well. And that's the bonding chemical. For example, when a mother breastfeeds her baby, oxytocin is released, and that bonding is just spectacular. So whenever we engage in any habits, there's the trigger, the behavior, and the reward. And so the question is, how do you break the habits? How do you break disempowering habits? And the answer is, you've got to understand what is the trigger. So what triggers the behaviors. But then you've got to understand that it's the behavior that you want to alter. So, for example, if you want to give up coffee, like I did about three, four months ago, I set up, right next to our coffee machine at the house, our espresso machine, which is what I used to like to have a double or triple espresso in the morning, which was making me bloated. And so I wanted to give it up. I replaced. I didn't replace actually adjacent to the coffee machine, I actually put a hot tea pot there, and I just had to turn on the tea instead of the coffee, and I replaced the coffee with the tea. And so I was triggered, obviously, wake up, do my thing, go to get coffee. But I replaced the coffee with the tea, and that is one of the ways I broke that habit. And I haven't had coffee since that day. So if you want to replace a habit, then look at the behavior and ask yourself, what is it at the point of the behavior that I can alter? Because as soon as you alter the point of the behavior, then you're actually altering the neural pattern in the brain associated with the trigger, the behavior, and the reward. Does that make sense so far? So Christine asked, what can you replace a cigarette? Now, when we're dealing with a cigarette, you have the physical holding of the cigarette. You have the inhalation part of it as well. So for many people, a cigarette can become a ritual onto its own. For people who make tea, it's a ritual I created, just a little tea ritual as well. So ask yourself, what is it that you could actually replace every time you wanted to take a cigarette that would actually give you some pleasure that you would actually enjoy to interrupt the pattern for a day, a week, a month, etc. And so you have to ask yourself, what is it that would give me the joy that I am actually receiving from the cigarette? Most people who smoke, most people, not all, actually enjoy the ritual as well. And so what's another little constructive, empowering ritual that you could use to replace the cigarette? And here's what you've got to do. Wherever your cigarettes Are, that's where you have to start the behavior to create that new ritual. So if you have your cigarettes in your purse, and usually when there's a trigger, there's an automatic reach for cigarettes, for example, you have to have something there to replace the cigarette ritual that you may have in the behavior. So you may want to have in your purse. And I'm not suggesting that you do this, but something like if you enjoy solving Rubik's cubes and it's a pleasurable thing for you, for some people, it's frustrating, so they don't want to do it. But putting something in place of the cigarette right at the point of where the behavior takes place. So that is one thing. The other thing that you can do, especially with harder to break addictions because cigarette falls into biological, psychological addictions as well, is if you can have an accountability partner that every time you want to engage in that, I'm going to call it disempowering behavior, you have the ability to text or call your partner just to get over that initial hump. Usually what you will find is if you interrupt that pattern for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes, the very act of interrupting that pattern over the course of a week, a month, two months, three months, etc. But having a process in place for that is enough to alter the pattern enough. And what I want you to do is replace it with an empowering pattern. And so what happens is most people, when they let go of one disempowering habit, they actually pick up another one. And instead of doing that, pick up an empowering habit versus a disempowering habit. I'm not sure who asked that. So Dafina said you can try licorice sticks instead of cigarettes. Yeah, you can cinnamon licorice as well. And so you just have to replace it too, you know, with something that you like. And then Mark says, the more you become curious about how you might change the behavior, the curiosity releases more dopamine, makes it easier for you to learn a new behavior. And so this is really an important part that Mark says you've got to turn yourself into being curious about the pattern. Right. So what is it that's triggering the pattern? What is it about the behavior that you really enjoy? What is it that you could replace it with that would give you joy as well? The other part of releasing habits that are disempowering is having some counter strategies when your trigger is really, really strong. And we have these patterns because our brain has gotten used to what the reward Our brain's gotten used to the ritual, the habit, and all of the mental, emotional, maybe even physical joy that you receive in that pattern. And as I mentioned, it doesn't matter if the pattern is constructive or destructive. They operate underneath your conscious awareness until you are consciously aware of the pattern. So keep a pad of paper handy with you and write down, you know, every time, let's say you smoke, what happened just prior to the cigarettes. I want you to remember that, you know, in the book. Inner Size. The first inner size that I teach is called take six. Calm the circuits. So once you become aware of the pattern, and you take six deep breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth, like you're blowing through a straw to deactivate or lessen the stress response circuit, and then you do the inner size number two, which is called ayah. Awareness, intention, action. Become aware of the thoughts you are having just prior. Okay. To the behavior. What emotions were you feeling? What triggered it? What thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations. Okay. Or behaviors were you engaged in just prior to the behavior? And then observe it so that you can write it down and notice a pattern. Become curious. Become like a little scientist of self to know thyself a little bit better. And when you do that, you can start to interrupt the pattern. You can actually start to see the pattern as if you were a scientist and not a victim of the pattern. The other thing that I want every one of you to do as you're experimenting is play this game with yourself. Ready? The game is called no blame, no shame, no guilt, no justification, just pure awareness. No blame, no shame, no guilt, no justification, just pure awareness of. Wow, here is this pattern again. What can I learn about the triggers, the emotions, the rewards, the guilt afterwards or the positivity afterwards? Look at both your positive, constructive habits as well as your disempowering, maybe even destructive habits. So that's part one. Part two, when we're dealing with creating new habits, which is really around. How do you create a new habit? There's a lot of work that BJ Fogg over at Stanford did about tiny habits. First, and one of the things I like to teach is the habit is more important than the intensity at first. So let me give you an example. Let's say you want to write a book, and you've been procrastinating for whatever reason. Make a commitment to writing one sentence every day at the same time. It doesn't matter if it's gibberish, but make a commitment to one sentence every day. If you want to read more Make a commitment that no matter what, at a specific time, whether it's before bed, when you wake up, at lunchtime, at a break, whatever it is, you're going to read one paragraph of inner size. Now that's called a shameless plug. Okay, one chapter is probably too much, but one paragraph, everybody could do. Why is it important to start with tiny habits first? And the answer goes back to the brain. It's less resistant in the brain. When you start to say, you know, I want to write a book, I'm going to write, you know, you know, one whole chapter today, or I'm going to research for an hour, your brain goes, oh, my God, that's a lot of work. And our brain wants to conserve energy and it doesn't want to leave anything that we already are accustomed to doing. And so when you reduce it to the ridiculous, your brain's resistance actually lowers as well. And since your brain wants you to conserve energy, move away from pain, move towards pleasure. If you can, give your brain small little action steps and follow through with consistency, that is the best way to develop the neural pattern for a habit. So if you want to start brushing. I'm sorry, if you want to start flossing your teeth, take out the flosser, put it by your toothbrush, already cut out, you know, the flossing and floss. One tooth, just do one tooth, but do one tooth for the next week, four weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, and then you will develop the habit for flossing your teeth. Now, there's a couple of other benefits of starting a new habit, by the way, something I did earlier this year with our members in neurogym is I had people do the toilet paper or the toilet paper roll experiment. Do you want to hear what the toilet paper roll experiment was? All right, here's what the toilet paper roll experiment was. Take your toilet paper. Most people have their toilet paper either with the, with the toilet paper facing down or the toilet paper facing underneath from the back through. So let me ask you a question before I give you the toilet paper test. Which one? Okay. Do you do. Do you like your toilet paper on top where you pull it down from the top, or do you like pulling it from the bottom up? All right, which one? Which one? Which one? Which one? Bill, thank you so much. You always tell me this. I appreciate you, too. All right, so which one do you like? Your toilet paper coming down from the top or your toilet paper from the bottom coming up? Toilet paper goals. Over the top. All right, so Gary says over the top. Christina says over the top. Debbie says has to be on top. On top. Kathy doesn't care. Nancy doesn't care. Over is better. All right, so here's for those of you like it on top better or on the bottom better, what I want you to do is for the next week, only the next week, I want you to flip your toilet paper so that it's the opposite of what you like and what you're habituated to having it like. And I want you to pay attention how many times you want to switch it over the next day. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Every pattern gets wired in the brain. And we are are pattern repetition machines. We repeat the same patterns over and over again. But if you want to just practice a little bit, all right, then flip it just for the next week and pay attention to your self talk, all right? That's a separate, fun little project for you. What I can tell you is there are people that are watching right now that are going, oh, God, no, I don't want it coming from the bottom because. And you'll hear all this self talk. So if you want to start an exercise program, I don't want you to commit to doing an hour a day. I want you to commit to doing five minutes initially, just five minutes every day at the same time. So build the habit and the pattern for five minutes a day. If you don't want to. If you don't want to do five minutes a day, then do one minute. You're better off doing one minute for the next hundred days in building the neural pattern and the neural pattern and habit, then you are working out for the next five weeks and doing one hour a day and then stopping. Why? Because the habit is more important than the intensity at first. The habit is more important than the intensity at first. So if you are serious about developing positive empowering habits, then focus on developing the habit first and then increasing the intensity, the duration, the speed, the endurance, whatever the case might be. And it doesn't matter what the habit is. If you know that there's a positive, constructive habit that will serve your life, then focus on how do I create a habit from it that is sustainable and will last me a lifetime? So stop thinking in short term. Your brain thinks okay? In short term. Gratification, yes. But whatever it is that you do repetitively is what it's going to get wired, okay, into the subconscious mind that's going to drive your patterns of behavior and results. So you start off with small, tiny habits that are consistent with spaced repetition. And then you Build the duration and the intensity. The reason most people that go on a diet for two or three weeks usually just lose 14 to 21 days. It's not because their intention isn't right. It's because they're fighting 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years of being and acting a certain way and achieving certain results versus anything else. And before I forget, my team told me this, but I forgot. Tomorrow night, if you want to join me for an event that I'm doing, it's a seven step process to making 2019 your best year ever. I'm doing a free training for about an hour on a seven step process that you can use for making 2019 better. My team will put a link below. Just sign up for it, it's free. I'll introduce you to a seven step process. I'll also introduce you to some work I'm doing on mastering financial goal achievement for those of you that are interested. And so that's tomorrow night at 5:30pm Pacific. 10:30, 11, 12:30, new. I'm sorry, 8:30 New York time. So 5:30 Pacific. 8:30 New York. It's a free training on the seven step process. Make 2019 your breakout year. Let me ask you a question. Are you ready to make 2019 your best year ever? I want every year to be better than the last one. How many of you want to make 2019 your best year ever, your breakout year? Let me just see. By the way, the link is going to be pinned up at the top so you can, you can join me. Kristen says yes. Awesome. Segal also, Christine. Yeah, I want a great 2018. I want to get better. The title of our weekly session that we do is called Achieve Even More. And I believe that since we are spiritual beings that our spirit wants to fully express itself in the most magical way. So, you know, more peace of mind, more time to do the things that we love. More love, more kindness, more compassion, more time for charity, more income, you know, more empathy, more everything. So if it's possible for us to achieve even more, I'm all for it. Even monks want more awareness, you know, they want more compassion, they want more understanding, they want more kindness, they want more contribution. So if you're all about achieving even more, I'll show you a seven step process to make 2019 your breakout year. And I'll share with you more about how do you master financial goal achievement so that you can have more time off and more freedom. So if you like that, sign up for the free event we're doing tomorrow night as well, and I hope you enjoy this. By the way, if you enjoyed this on Habits, will you hit the share button? I like to give. I tell people I give away more free stuff than most people charge for. And part of the way I do that is by having people like you share these live sessions when I do them. So if you're willing, please hit the share button and, yes, it'll be recorded. Patricia. So if you are living somewhere where you're nearly asleep in that time zone, sign up for it and you'll get a recording for it. All right, everyone, thank you for hitting the share. If you like this, will you hit the like and love button? Let me know if you like and love it. I'm trying to read all the comments, but I love when I get the love signals or the. The like. So hit the like button 5, 10 times. The love button. Give me a ooh, ah. Something like that. All right, thank you. Is it Bilgin or Bilgen? Michelle, thank you for sharing. Grace. Gugar Ross. Thank you. So are you, my dear. Ernesto, Goldie, Christine. Cheryl. Thank you. Lisa. Thank you. Abigail. Thank you. Dafina. Kuficha, thank you so much. Remember, tiny habits. The habit is more important than the intensity at first. Seuss, Wafa. You're welcome. Have a phenomenal day. You, too. Cheryl, I appreciate you and I know you've been on three different sessions I've done in the last 24 hours. All right, have a great day. Thank you for sharing this. And Mark Waldman, I love you, man. Bye, everyone.