John Assaraf breaks down how habits work as a loop of trigger, behavior, and reward, then shows how to change them by keeping the reward while swapping the behavior. Instead of coffee in the morning, take a walk. Instead of wine at night, drink water.
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Foreign. Hey, this John Asraf, CEO and founder of Neurogym. And today I want to discuss with you something that is really dear to my heart, and that's daily habits. And here's a question for you. Do you have any daily habits that are killing your chances for success? Now, most people wake up at the same time, brush their teeth the same way, with the same hand, using the same toothpaste, eat the same types of food every day, go to bed and bathroom at the same time, and every single day, they reinforce their habits. And you and I both know that we are creatures of habit. Now, some of your habits are constructive and will move you towards your goals and dreams. And we know and you know that some are destructive and will move you away from your goals and dreams. So the question is, what do you do to develop some new empowering habits? And what do you do to let go of the habits that don't serve you well? Here's what I can share with you. Based on the latest neuroscience research and neuropsychology research, habits usually have some kind of an internal or external trigger that could be a time of day, a location, or even seeing a person. And then once this trigger activates, there's an automatic behavior that you take that produces something, some kind of a neurological reward that's associated with the behavior. Charles Duhigg calls this the habit loop in his outstanding book called the Power of Habits. So if you want to change any habit, the latest research is showing us that you must first identify what is triggering the the behavior so that you can become aware of the trigger. And then you can change or interrupt the behavior while you still keep the reward. Let me give you an example. If you want to change your habit of, let's say, drinking coffee every morning or having a glass of wine or a cocktail every night when you walk into the house, what you can do is prepare in advance and put, for example, a sticker next to your coffee pot or your coffee cup that you use. And first thing in the morning, when you get to that coffee pot and you're ready to drink your coffee, what you do is you interrupt that pattern. You go for a walk instead of having the coffee first thing in the morning. That will give you a memory of the trigger. You change the behavior. And guess what? Your brain still gets, it actually still gets a reward. You can do the exact same thing. If you want to change your habit of drinking a glass of wine every night, what you do is notice the trigger that when you come home and take off your jacket or you put your briefcase down, you go to the fridge and get a glass glass of wine, or go to the pantry and get a glass of red wine. That may lead to two or three glasses, as we know wine tends to do. You can interrupt the pattern by getting a glass of water or going for a walk, or doing three sit ups, or instead doing something different to interrupt the behavior. We know from a neurological perspective that this is what is required to to interrupt the pattern and develop a new habit. This new awareness of your triggers, your behavior and your rewards is part of what we call inner sizing. And it will help you strengthen your ability to be at cause of your actions instead of being in a habitual pattern of behavior. And in a habitual pattern of behavior that yields results that you may not want. So what I'd like you to do is choose one habit that you want to change and use this process that I just showed you to recognize the trigger. Change the middle part, the behavior, and your brain will still get the reward that it's used to. So if you've liked this little inner size, what I'd love you to do is leave me your comment below, share it as well, and look forward to many more intercises from me and Neurogym.
