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A Peek Into The Science Of Habits AudioChapter from Neuro-Habits AudioBook by Peter Hollins
Neuro-Habits: Rewire Your Brain to Stop Self-Defeating Behaviors and Make the Right Choice Every Time (Understand Your Brain Better Book 7)
By: Peter Hollins
00:03:42 Let’s take a closer look
00:19:11 The pleasure principle
00:33:12 Habit Formation Psychology
00:55:31 Conscious Psychological Factors
01:00:36 Subconscious Psychological Factors
01:06:13 External Environmental Factors
Hear it Here - https://bit.ly/neurohabitshollins
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RCV5KQN
Small daily acts to change your brain chemistry and structure - so you can be in control at all times.
Sometimes, it feels like we are living out lives on autopilot, powerless to change what we are doing. But we’re not powerless, we just need to rewire our brains so that the right thing is the easy thing.
Do you feel lazy, slow, unmotivated, or apathetic? Understand your brain, and you will solve all of your problems.
Neuro-Habits gets directly to the root of all behavior: the human brain. We will explore the quirks of the brain that create habits from both a psychological and neurological perspective and what we can do about it. This book also presents an in-depth view of the concept of habits and exactly what motivates us to act.
You will gain a scientifically-proven step-by-step guide on how to change your behavior in a sustainable way, and also make sure that you can put a halt to the destructive behaviors you’ve tried so hard to avoid. This is a guidebook, with actionable content.
Learn how tiny daily changes can affect your brain chemistry and structure.
Peter Hollins has studied psychology and peak human performance for over a dozen years and is a best-selling author. He has worked with a multitude of individuals to unlock their potential and path toward success. His writing draws on his academic, coaching, and research experience.
Transform your negative impulses into positive habits.
Change your habits, change your life.
#Aristotle #Buddhist #CarolDweck #CharlesDuhiggs #ClinicalPsychology #ConsciousPsychologicalFactors #Dopamine #Duhigg #ExternalEnvironmentalFactors #GABA #Habit #HabitFormationPsychology #Neuron #Neuroplasticity #PhillippaLally #WilliamJames #RussellNewton #NewtonMG #PeterHollins #TheScienceofSelf #Neuro-Habits #APeekIntoTheScienceOfHabits #
Transcript
mental models, 30 thinking tools that separate the average from the exceptional,
Speaker:improved decision-making, logical analysis, and problem-solving, written by
Speaker:Peter Hollins, narrated by Russell Newton, copyright 2019 by Peter Hollins,
Speaker:production copyright by Peter Hollins.
Speaker:What is a habit? You might have worked your way through dozens of old habits
Speaker:today already before reading this book. You didn't have to really think about any
Speaker:of these activities, the specific way you went about brushing your teeth, making
Speaker:coffee, checking your emails. Sure, the first time you ever performed one of
Speaker:these habits, you probably had to pay full and focused attention, but after
Speaker:hundreds or even thousands of times repeating the same routines, you now
Speaker:complete them on autopilot. They are, in other words, habitual. Many of us think
Speaker:of habits in terms of behavior. We try to eliminate bad habits or encourage
Speaker:better ones by using sheer force of willpower. We tend to think of habits as
Speaker:not sticking simply because we're lazy or we're just not trying hard enough. But
Speaker:the fact is that habits are the external behavioral manifestations of
Speaker:internal brain processes, which have very little to do with willpower. Habits
Speaker:are there for a reason. They are your brain's shortcuts through life or what
Speaker:are called heuristics, mental models used to process the familiar and expected
Speaker:patterns of experience. Habits help us save time and energy. If we can do
Speaker:something automatically and without thinking too hard about it, we save our
Speaker:attention for the truly difficult things. But habits are not just behaviors. They
Speaker:are an external expression of a physical process unfolding in your brain. The
Speaker:old saying goes, neurons that fire together, wire together. This essentially
Speaker:means that when your brain repeats the same patterns over and over again, the
Speaker:neurons responsible are physically and literally wired in a fixed way. Your
Speaker:habit is physiologically programmed into your brain. Psychologists and
Speaker:neurologists have long understood that there exists a certain neural correlate
Speaker:to our everyday behavior and that our fixed and routine habits actually map
Speaker:onto similarly fixed physiological structures in the brain. Understanding
Speaker:exactly how and why habits form in the brain puts us in the best possible
Speaker:position to make real changes. Once we can see how the brain's physiology and
Speaker:biochemistry connects seamlessly to our behavior, we can look with fresh eyes at
Speaker:our actions and the accompanying psychology. We can more effectively change
Speaker:ourselves whether we want to quit smoking or wake up earlier or get out of the
Speaker:habit of negative self-talk. Your brain's superpower of neuroplasticity. Your brain
Speaker:possesses a truly marvelous characteristic called neuroplasticity. You
Speaker:are not born with a fully functional brain, but rather with the hardware and
Speaker:ability to learn, which then allows your brain to form connections, to grow, and to
Speaker:acquire knowledge. The neuroplastic brain is one that can change. It's the reason
Speaker:you were able to develop bad habits in the first place, but it's also the
Speaker:reason you'll be able to break them and form new, more beneficial habits. People
Speaker:are capable of behavioral change, and the brain is capable of physiological
Speaker:change to support it. Let's take a closer look. We'll consider habits in terms of
Speaker:the famous three-part habit loop outlined in Charles Duhigg's book, The Power
Speaker:of Habit. You might recognize this model in different forms and under different
Speaker:names, but its main features are the same. Part one is the trigger. This is a cue or
Speaker:signal that alerts your brain to enter into a kind of autopilot so that a
Speaker:previously learned behavior can be executed. You know, the state of mind
Speaker:you're in when you find yourself pulling the car up to your home with no
Speaker:recollection of the drive you made to get there. This is the state of mind Duhigg
Speaker:is talking about, and a trigger tells your brain to switch into this mode. A
Speaker:trigger can be a person, a change in the environment, a certain time of day, even
Speaker:a word or symbol. The trigger for one behavior can be the actions of a
Speaker:previous behavior. For example, you always reach for a glass of wine when you
Speaker:get home from work. The trigger is the act of getting home, which basically
Speaker:tells your brain, run the get a glass of wine program now. Once you're in this
Speaker:mode, you play out the behavior itself or the routine. Habits are procedural.
Speaker:They're typically a set of behaviors followed step by step, like the four or
Speaker:five little things you always do in the same order when you step into the shower
Speaker:every morning. A trigger can instigate the first behavior in a long string of
Speaker:habits. The third step is the reward, which is what it sounds like, a pleasant
Speaker:outcome that helps to reinforce the behavior so that our brain knows what
Speaker:to return to the next time it encounters the same trigger. Granted, you might not
Speaker:be able to think of much reward in any of the little habits you perform every
Speaker:day, but somewhere along the line, your brain made the judgment that there was
Speaker:something valuable in these behaviors. Rewards can be small, the feeling that
Speaker:things are right in the world, a sense of order or stability, a feeling of
Speaker:completeness and familiarity. Rewards can even include the removal of something
Speaker:unpleasant or the threat of it. This loop explains how certain behaviors and
Speaker:habits can carry on even when we rationally and consciously know that
Speaker:they're bad for us or when we no longer get any immediate satisfaction out of
Speaker:them. For example, it will suddenly be lunchtime, which is the trigger that
Speaker:reminds you to head outside for a smoke break, and before you know it, you're in
Speaker:that half unconscious autopilot mode. Doesn't matter if you don't really enjoy
Speaker:smoking anymore at some point you did and the sense of reward strengthened the
Speaker:habit. So this is what habit formation looks like from the outside, but what's
Speaker:going on in the brain? Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists attribute
Speaker:the creation and maintenance of habits to a part of the brain called the basal
Speaker:ganglia. Importantly, this is also a part of the brain associated with emotions,
Speaker:pattern recognition, and memory. These brain mechanisms are essential. They give
Speaker:human beings enormous flexibility and freedom to bank already mastered
Speaker:routines so that they can be done on autopilot while the rest of the brain
Speaker:focuses intently on more important issues. This remainder of the brain is
Speaker:broadly the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with a host of higher order
Speaker:and executive functions like making conscious decisions, planning, solving
Speaker:problems, or being creative. While you may use this part of your brain when
Speaker:learning something new, once you've mastered it, the routine is delegated to
Speaker:the basal ganglia. This kind of thinking is almost not thinking at all. The brain
Speaker:is more or less asleep or offline, running an old routine that takes barely
Speaker:any mental effort or brain power. Isn't it remarkable that your brain has
Speaker:figured out a way to perform all these complex activities without even being
Speaker:aware of it and without spending any extra cognitive energy? Sadly, the same
Speaker:mechanism that entrenches useful habits does the same with unhelpful ones. In
Speaker:fact, neuroscientists at MIT have identified the part of the brain that
Speaker:acts as a switch between the two modes. In experiments with rats, the
Speaker:scientists were able to essentially turn a habit on or off by manipulating a
Speaker:part of the prefrontal cortex called the infralimbic IL cortex. This can be
Speaker:thought of as a tiny part of the higher brain that is still engaged, even though
Speaker:the rest of the basal ganglia is following through with a largely
Speaker:automatic habit. The researchers were interested in how this knowledge could
Speaker:be used to treat people with mental conditions like obsessive compulsive
Speaker:disorder, but the potential for helping people break bad habits in a broader
Speaker:sense is also promising. The scientists concluded that the IL was
Speaker:responsible for determining which ingrained habitual behavior patterns
Speaker:would be expressed in any moment. Old habits may not be performed, for example,
Speaker:but they're still there, and can be picked up again if necessary, like
Speaker:riding a bike. Various habits are all stored completely intact, but the IL
Speaker:helps to retrieve whichever ones are necessary, helped by certain cues and
Speaker:triggers. Unfortunately, it's not clear how humans could directly stimulate their
Speaker:own IL cortices to replicate these studies, but the results do seem to
Speaker:suggest that there is some scope to switching off bad habits and replacing
Speaker:them with better ones with the assistance of the brain. If we know that the basal
Speaker:ganglia works to convert new routines into automatic habits and that the IL
Speaker:cortex can act as a sort of online monitoring system to control the process,
Speaker:then we can take steps to learn new and better habits and drop bad ones. Let's
Speaker:return to the three-step model. Some studies have shown that the triggers for
Speaker:automatic behaviors are often environmental. For example, we always get
Speaker:out of bed, put on our slippers, and reach for our phone in the same way when
Speaker:we're in our own homes, but somehow being in a hotel room for the night
Speaker:disrupts all these old routines. Suddenly, you're paying conscious attention to what
Speaker:is ordinarily unconscious and automatic. Your IL is in charge and not your
Speaker:basal ganglia. Knowing this, it makes sense to try to break habits by disrupting
Speaker:their triggers and cues. Many people find they can successfully break bad habits
Speaker:when on vacation for this very reason. It's even better if all the old rewards
Speaker:that keep the behavior in place are also removed with a change in environment. In
Speaker:the chapters that follow, we'll look at scientific research into the physiological
Speaker:and neurochemical phenomena underpinning the process of forming, maintaining, and
Speaker:breaking habits and converting these into actionable insights that improve our
Speaker:habits. The goal is to find concrete ways to transform our own habits in real
Speaker:life. Though it's not always possible to stick electrodes into our brain to
Speaker:literally change the structures there, we can work from the outside in, altering
Speaker:our behavior to support our inbuilt processes and replace bad habits with
Speaker:better ones. In this book, we'll be taking a proactive perspective because it's
Speaker:never too late to break a habit or learn something new. Neuroplasticity is
Speaker:something we can work with throughout our lives, and the key is to get a handle
Speaker:on the structure of habits and how they work in our lives. Once we understand the
Speaker:neuroscience of habits, we can take practical steps to remove cues and
Speaker:triggers, as well as eliminate rewards for undesirable behaviors so that we can
Speaker:gear ourselves up for healthier, more productive habits instead. One thing we'll
Speaker:set aside for now is the idea that breaking bad habits is about morality,
Speaker:willpower, or force. We are all human, and breaking old habits takes effort and
Speaker:conscious intention. It's not easy, but at the same time, it's something that we
Speaker:can and should aspire to. What happens in the brain when habits form? We've looked
Speaker:briefly at the two broad parts of the brain responsible for two different
Speaker:states of mind. Conscious, aware control mode and habitual autopilot mode
Speaker:situated in the IL in the prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia respectively.
Speaker:But of course, the brain is not a static entity. It's dynamic. The cells of the
Speaker:brain are in constant communication with each other via brain chemicals called
Speaker:neurotransmitters. Neurons produce neurotransmitters, which act as chemical
Speaker:messengers that travel all throughout the brain and from the brain to the spinal
Speaker:cord, muscles, and every part of the body. The ebb and flow of specialized
Speaker:neurotransmitters has just as important a role in the formation and maintenance of
Speaker:habits as brain structures do. They work together. You may already be aware of
Speaker:neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin and their effect on mood,
Speaker:motivation, and even addictive behavior. Naturally, these neurotransmitters feature
Speaker:heavily in the way we form habits, good and bad. Let's take a look at an
Speaker:important brain chemical dopamine. This neurotransmitter is a key chemical
Speaker:messenger in the parts of the brain associated with reward and pleasure.
Speaker:Whenever you feel good, you can be sure dopamine is playing a role somewhere,
Speaker:whether it's sex, good food, achieving a goal, or even drug use. The body
Speaker:releases dopamine, which helps the brain to associate these activities with
Speaker:pleasurable feelings. This is why dopamine is sometimes said to act as a reward
Speaker:molecule. It drives us to repeat behaviors that have felt good in the past,
Speaker:strengthening associations and habits. If you eat a delicious meal, your
Speaker:neurons will produce a shot of dopamine that will make you feel great. This
Speaker:good feeling is essentially a reward that cements your perception of the
Speaker:behavior, making you want to repeat it in the future when you see a cue for
Speaker:that same meal again. Dopamine is a powerful driver of the three-step
Speaker:habit formation loop. On the other hand, dysregulated dopamine levels can have
Speaker:serious effects on our memory, focus, mood, and even movement. When our
Speaker:ordinary reward reinforcement cycles are broken, we may find ourselves
Speaker:gravitating toward things that may feel pleasurable, but are actually bad for
Speaker:us. In fact, many psychologists have noted that those who develop addictions
Speaker:often have low dopamine levels to start with and may be so strongly
Speaker:attracted to drugs, alcohol, food, overspending, gambling, or sex to bolster
Speaker:chronically flagging dopamine levels. Dopamine tells the brain what
Speaker:activities were pleasurable and which to repeat. People with low dopamine
Speaker:levels may pursue behaviors that trigger dopamine release, even though it's
Speaker:ultimately harmful for them. In other words, a healthy reward system may
Speaker:become dysregulated. Low dopamine is associated not only with addiction, but
Speaker:with a range of mental challenges, anxiety, mood swings, low motivation, low
Speaker:libido, depression, low self-esteem, and even suicidal thoughts can all result
Speaker:from dopamine deficiency. Because neurotransmitters affect the entire
Speaker:body, dysregulation can manifest with a range of symptoms. Neurotransmitters
Speaker:like dopamine affect how we feel, but also how we behave. As certain
Speaker:behaviors are reinforced through reward mechanisms, habits become ingrained
Speaker:with time. Our habits are what we do day in and day out, and our actions shape
Speaker:our world and determine how the world responds in turn to us. It's no
Speaker:exaggeration, then, to say that our brain chemistry affects our habits and our
Speaker:habits create who we are as people. Dopamine is a major brain chemical since
Speaker:it drives so much of our habitual and reward-focused behavior, but it's not
Speaker:the only chemical underpinning both our lived experience and our persistent
Speaker:behaviors. Others include serotonin, glutamate, epinephrine, nor epinephrine,
Speaker:and GABA. Let's return to the two brain modes from the previous section,
Speaker:conscious, focused, and goal-directed behavior, connected with the prefrontal
Speaker:cortex and IL, and the autopilot habit mode, connected with the basal ganglia.
Speaker:The first is dynamic, intelligent, and flexible, but takes a lot of mental
Speaker:energy, while the second is based on past experiences so it can run
Speaker:efficiently without spending much mental energy at all. We've seen that special
Speaker:areas of the prefrontal cortex can act as a switch to determine which mode the
Speaker:brain should operate in, but this process is actually managed by important
Speaker:neurochemicals, which are the messengers or chemical go-betweens that make it
Speaker:all happen. Dopamine features here, but so does serotonin, another feel-good
Speaker:brain chemical. Most research into dopamine has tended to show that the
Speaker:neurotransmitter increases habit formation in mice during experiments,
Speaker:whereas destroying areas of the brain that produce dopamine can actually
Speaker:impair the learning or habit-forming process, but it's not such a straightforward
Speaker:relationship. Other research has shown that lowering dopamine levels can also
Speaker:be associated with being better able to control habits. Why? Some have suggested
Speaker:that high dopamine levels can actually help the brain switch into conscious,
Speaker:goal-directed mode, and out-of-habit mode, even though it's in the habit mode
Speaker:that certain behaviors are likely to stimulate the release of dopamine. It may
Speaker:also be that other neurotransmitters, like serotonin, moderate the balance
Speaker:between goal-oriented mode and habitual mode. In humans, low serotonin might make
Speaker:it harder to switch out of habit mode and into goal-directed mode. The brain's
Speaker:opioid system, which is connected to the reward system, likewise mediates and
Speaker:shapes the brain's overall balance between the different mental states. These
Speaker:neurotransmitters, then, can be thought of as master controllers and managers of
Speaker:the habit formation process.
Speaker:Dopamine and the Pleasure Principle
Speaker:Dopamine's role in reinforcing pleasure correlates to one of the most well-known
Speaker:theories concerning human behavior. Rather, perhaps it's more accurate to say that
Speaker:the studies on dopamine align with this more foundational theory. Out of all the
Speaker:speculations about the sources of habit, none is more famous than the Pleasure
Speaker:Principle. The reason it's so renowned is because it's also the easiest to
Speaker:understand. The Pleasure Principle was first raised in public consciousness by
Speaker:the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, though researchers as far back as
Speaker:Aristotle in ancient Greece noted how easily we could be manipulated and
Speaker:motivated by pleasure and pain. The Pleasure Principle asserts that the human
Speaker:mind does everything it can to seek out pleasure and avoid pain. It doesn't get
Speaker:simpler than that. In that simplicity, we find some of life's most universal and
Speaker:predictable motivators. The Pleasure Principle is employed by the Id, which is
Speaker:how Freud identifies one of the psyche's three governing entities, the others
Speaker:being the Ego and the Super Ego. For our purposes, we'll focus only on the Id.
Speaker:The Id houses our desires and physical needs. It doesn't have any sense of
Speaker:restraint. It's primal and unfilters. It goes after whatever it can to meet our
Speaker:body's urges for happiness and fulfillment. Anything that causes
Speaker:pleasure is felt by the brain in the same way, whether it's a tasty meal or a
Speaker:drug. An apt illustration of this principle, in fact, is a drug addict who
Speaker:will stop at nothing to get another taste of narcotics. There are a few rules
Speaker:that govern the Pleasure Principle and how we're motivated. Every decision we
Speaker:make is based on gaining pleasure or avoiding pain. This is the common habit
Speaker:for every person on earth. No matter what we do in the course of our day, it all
Speaker:comes down to the Pleasure Principle. You raid the refrigerator for snacks
Speaker:because you crave the taste and feel of certain food. You get a haircut because
Speaker:you think it will make you more attractive to someone else, which will
Speaker:make you happy, which is pleasure. Conversely, you wear a protective mask
Speaker:while you're using a blowtorch because you want to avoid sparks flying into your
Speaker:face and eyes because that'll be painful. If we trace all of our decisions back,
Speaker:whether short-term or long-term, we'll find that they all stem from a small set
Speaker:of pleasures or pains. People work harder to avoid pain than to get pleasure. While
Speaker:everyone wants pleasure as much as they can get it, their habit to avoid pain is
Speaker:actually far stronger. The instinct to survive a threatening situation is more
Speaker:immediate than eating your favorite candy bar, for instance, so when faced with the
Speaker:prospect of pain, the brain will work harder to avoid it than it would to
Speaker:gain access to pleasure. For example, imagine you're standing in the middle of
Speaker:a desert road. In front of you is a treasure chest filled with money and
Speaker:outlandishly expensive jewelry that could set you up financially for the rest
Speaker:of your life, but there's also an out of control semi-careening toward it. You're
Speaker:probably going to make the decision to jump away from the truck rather than
Speaker:grab the treasure chest because your instinct to avoid pain, in this case
Speaker:certain death, outweighed your desire to gain pleasure. If you've hit rock bottom
Speaker:and faced a massive amount of pain or discomfort, then you simply must start
Speaker:acting to avoid that in the future. A wounded animal is more motivated than a
Speaker:slightly uncomfortable one. Our perceptions of pleasure and pain are more
Speaker:powerful drivers than the actual things. When our brain is judging between what
Speaker:will be a pleasant or painful experience, it's working from scenarios that we
Speaker:think could result if we took a course of action. In other words, our perceptions
Speaker:of pleasure and pain are really what drive the car and sometimes those
Speaker:perceptions can be flawed. In fact, they are mostly flawed, which explains our
Speaker:tendency to work against our own best interests. I can think of no better
Speaker:example of this rule than jalapeño chapulines. They're a spicy traditional
Speaker:Mexican snack that's tasty and low in carbs. By the way, chapulines means
Speaker:grasshoppers. We're talking chili-flavored grasshoppers, the insects. Now, you may
Speaker:have no firsthand knowledge of how grasshoppers tastes. Maybe you've never
Speaker:tried them, but the thought of eating grasshoppers may give you pause. You
Speaker:imagine they'll be repellent to the tongue. You imagine that if you take a
Speaker:bite of a grasshopper, you'll get grossed out. You might accidentally bite down on
Speaker:an internal grasshopper organ. The perception of eating a grasshopper is
Speaker:driving you quickly away from the act of tasting one, but the fact remains that
Speaker:you haven't actually tried it yet. You're working from your idea of the
Speaker:repulsion that eating a grasshopper will bring about. Somebody who's actually
Speaker:tried grasshopper-based cuisine may insist you that they're really good when
Speaker:prepared properly. Still, you might not be able to get over your innate
Speaker:perception of what eating an insect would be like. Pleasure and pain are
Speaker:changed by time. In general, we focus on the here and now. What can I get very
Speaker:soon that will bring me happiness? Also, what's coming up very soon that could
Speaker:be intensely painful that I'll have to avoid? When considering the attainment
Speaker:of comfort, we're more tuned in to what might take place immediately. The
Speaker:pleasure and pain that might happen months or years from now doesn't really
Speaker:register with us. What's most important is whatever's right in our doorstep. Of
Speaker:course, this is another way in which our perceptions are flawed and why we might
Speaker:procrastinate so frequently. For example, a smoker needs a cigarette. It's the
Speaker:main focus of their current situation. It brings them a certain relief or
Speaker:pleasure and in about 15 minutes they'll be on break so they can enjoy that
Speaker:cigarette. It's the focus of their daily ritual. They're not thinking about how
Speaker:smoking a cigarette every time they need one could cause painful health
Speaker:problems down the road. That's a distant reality and that's not driving
Speaker:their behavior at all. Right now, they need a smoke because they crave one and
Speaker:they might get a headache immediately if they don't get one. Emotion Beats
Speaker:Logic. When it comes to the pleasure principle, your feelings tend to
Speaker:overshadow rational thought. You might know that doing something will be good or
Speaker:bad for you. You'll understand all the reasons why it will be good or bad.
Speaker:You'll get all that. But if you're a logical id is so intent on satisfying a
Speaker:certain craving, then it's probably going to win out. And if your id drives you to
Speaker:think that doing something useful will cause too much stress or temporary
Speaker:dissatisfaction, it's going to win there too. Going back to our smoker, without a
Speaker:doubt, they know why cigarettes are bad for one's health. They've read those
Speaker:warnings on the packages. Maybe in school, they saw a picture of a
Speaker:corroded lung that resulted from years of smoking. They know all the risks
Speaker:they're about to court. But there's that pack right in front of them. And all
Speaker:reason be damned, they're going to have that cigarette. Their emotions oriented
Speaker:toward pleasure win out.
Speaker:Survival overrides everything. When our survival instinct gets activated,
Speaker:everything else in our psychological and emotional makeup turns off. If a light
Speaker:threatening situation or a perceived life threatening situation arises in our
Speaker:existence, the brain closes down everything else and turns us into a
Speaker:machine whose thoughts and actions are all oriented toward the will to
Speaker:survive. This shouldn't be surprising when it comes to avoiding painful
Speaker:outcomes. Of course, you're going to try and jump away from that oncoming
Speaker:semi truck. If you don't, you won't survive. Your system won't let you make
Speaker:that choice. It's going to do everything it can to get you the hell out of the
Speaker:way of that truck. However, survival can also come into play when you're
Speaker:seeking pleasure, even if it means we might slip into harm's way. The most
Speaker:obvious example of this is food. Say you're at a bar and somebody orders a
Speaker:giant plate of nachos loaded with cheese, sour cream, fatty meat, and a bunch
Speaker:of other ingredients that might not be the best dietary choices for you. You
Speaker:might be able to resist it. Some people can, but you might not. In fact, you
Speaker:could find yourself eating half the plate before you even know what you've
Speaker:done. Why? Because you need food to survive and your brain is telling you
Speaker:there's food in the vicinity, so perhaps you should eat it. Never mind that
Speaker:it's not the best kind of food, nutritionally speaking, that you could
Speaker:opt for at the moment. Your survival instinct is telling you it's time to
Speaker:have those nachos. Your life depends on it. Our brain chemistry works from these
Speaker:two very basic opposites of pain and pleasure, and some of the circuitry
Speaker:involved has been strengthened or warped by our life experiences. It's
Speaker:important to understand that research results like these should be
Speaker:interpreted with caution, since they focus mainly on animal behavior in
Speaker:highly artificial laboratory situations. Nevertheless, they do tell us
Speaker:something compelling about the way the brain works when it comes to habits,
Speaker:that it has a neurochemical basis and that it can be changed.
Speaker:Understanding the psychology of habits and learning to form new positive
Speaker:habits in the place of less healthy ones starts with the brain and its
Speaker:physiology. Habit formation occurs in three basic steps, which have real
Speaker:physical effects in the brain in the form of neurotransmitter release. For
Speaker:example, you might have an unhealthy snacking habit, automatically reaching
Speaker:for something sweet after dinner every night. You know you need to stop
Speaker:guzzling chocolate and candy, and some nights you don't even enjoy these
Speaker:binges, but you can't stop. Willpower doesn't seem to be enough. There's
Speaker:no need to give up or feel bad about yourself. However, you might instead
Speaker:notice that you're using sugar as a kind of self-medication, boosting your
Speaker:dopamine levels after a long stressful day. You might observe that you're
Speaker:triggered by the end of a meal by walking every evening into the kitchen to
Speaker:put the dishes into the sink and then immediately rummaging in the cupboards
Speaker:for dessert. You realize that you've been running through this same habitual
Speaker:routine for years. You can even feel yourself slipping into unconscious
Speaker:autopilot mode, where your body seems to be running on its own track. In the
Speaker:chapters that follow, we'll look more closely at practical ways to work with
Speaker:the three-step loop. But in this example, even acknowledging the existence of the
Speaker:three steps means you can start to put together a worthwhile strategy to break
Speaker:and replace this habit. You could remove the trigger by changing up your
Speaker:dinner routine. You could stop keeping snacks in the house. You could also work
Speaker:hard to replace the habit with something else that also releases dopamine and
Speaker:makes you feel good. You could break the loop by simply distracting yourself.
Speaker:Perhaps most importantly, you could endure your sugar cravings with patients
Speaker:knowing that it's only a matter of time until your brain relinquishes the old
Speaker:routine and grabs hold of the new one. Takeaways. Habits are repeated, learned
Speaker:behaviors, but they have a neurochemical and physiological correlates in the
Speaker:brain. Your brain possesses the characteristic of plasticity, i.e.
Speaker:Neuropathways can be rewired and old habits can be replaced with new ones.
Speaker:This is what makes it possible for us to learn, adapt, and change.
Speaker:There are three steps to habit formation. The trigger, which signals the brain to
Speaker:go into autopilot mode, the routine behavior itself, and the reward that
Speaker:follows and reinforces the behavior.
Speaker:The above process is mediated by dopamine, which forms the neurochemical basis for
Speaker:our reward system. When dopamine is released, we form memories of what was
Speaker:pleasurable and felt good, so we're more likely to repeat those behaviors.
Speaker:Other hormones like serotonin, GABA, and nor epinephrine modulate the balance
Speaker:between goal-directed or habit-directed brain modes. If we want to change our
Speaker:bad habits, we need to work with our innate brain mechanisms.
Speaker:The pleasure principle is a simple but powerful fundamental motivator of all
Speaker:human and animal behavior. It states that humans are motivated to act in ways
Speaker:that reduce pain and suffering and maximize pleasure.
Speaker:The pleasure principle is an evolutionary fact that's all about survival,
Speaker:but it also means that we work harder to avoid pain than we do to seek out
Speaker:pleasure. This may explain why it's hard to proactively make positive changes
Speaker:in life, but relatively easy to avoid massively negative habits.
Speaker:Emotion trumps all.
Speaker:What we perceive as pleasurable is what matters, and this inevitably means we
Speaker:focus on the present and ignore long-term outcomes and consequences.
Speaker:Another reason that permanent behavioral change is difficult.
Speaker:To get rid of unwanted bad behaviors and develop healthy new ones, we need to
Speaker:understand what habits are, learn how they form, and work with our inbuilt
Speaker:tendencies to make lasting changes.
Speaker:When it comes to habits, it would seem that the physiological, the psychological,
Speaker:and the behavioral are all connected, one influencing the other.
Speaker:When you engage in a habit, your brain fills with neurotransmitters that help
Speaker:you to remember and repeat that action.
Speaker:Physical aspect, you experience a strong psychological pull toward the activity
Speaker:from the conditioned cues and triggers these brain chemicals have helped
Speaker:ingrain, psychological aspect, and outwardly, your behavior manifests as
Speaker:the habitual routine itself, behavioral aspect.
Speaker:In this chapter, we'll take a closer look at the psychological aspect of this trio.
Speaker:It's important to note that this is just one lens that we can use to look at
Speaker:habits. One way of thinking about it is to see psychology as our subjective
Speaker:experience of our physiological and neurochemical reality.
Speaker:We've seen what habits look like in the brain.
Speaker:Now let's look at how they express themselves in our lived experience.
Speaker:Most importantly, how can we use this information to motivate ourselves to form
Speaker:good habits and undo bad ones?
Speaker:Habit formation from a psychological perspective.
Speaker:In the last chapter, we saw that habits are essentially automated, repeated,
Speaker:unconscious behaviors we engage in without thinking about them too much.
Speaker:And they have real neurochemical basis in our brains.
Speaker:By understanding how and why habits are formed physiologically, we learn how
Speaker:the process works from the inside out.
Speaker:The same can be said for understanding how we form and break habits psychologically.
Speaker:The more we understand the process, the better our chances of making lasting
Speaker:changes from the outside in.
Speaker:You've probably heard that it takes X number of days to form a new habit with
Speaker:the number varying from 30 to 90 days or so.
Speaker:One study by Philippa Lally and her team published in the European Journal of
Speaker:Social Psychology put the rough average at around 66 days.
Speaker:Although there is enormous variation and it depends on the habit one is trying to
Speaker:form.
Speaker:Lally and colleagues worked with familiar definitions of habits, explaining that
Speaker:when we've done something repeatedly in the past, the repetition over time
Speaker:creates mental associations linking the trigger and the behavior so that the
Speaker:next time the trigger is encountered, it cues the habit automatically.
Speaker:This is the three part habit loop we briefly explored in the previous chapter.
Speaker:So there are two crucial things needed for a habit to form.
Speaker:The behavior needs to be repeated regularly, not necessarily daily, but
Speaker:often, and it needs to be uniform, i.e. done the same way every time.
Speaker:There needs to be an association between the trigger or specific environment
Speaker:and the resulting behavior.
Speaker:So if you're in a particular situation or environment, your previous history will
Speaker:trigger you to automatically perform behaviors you've done before without
Speaker:thinking about it.
Speaker:This is key.
Speaker:It's the difference between forcing yourself through a workout you hate and
Speaker:simply going to the gym because it's something you always do in the mornings
Speaker:like brushing your teeth.
Speaker:You could theoretically perform an action every day, but until it's done
Speaker:consistently and automatically in response to a trigger, it's not really a habit.
Speaker:It's just something you've managed to force yourself to do repeatedly.
Speaker:If we hope to make new habits, we need to make sure we're mimicking the natural
Speaker:process of habit formation and designing precisely the situations that will lead
Speaker:a habit to form.
Speaker:Many people take up new exercises or diet routines, or they may try to start a habit
Speaker:like reading every day or develop a new skill such as playing an instrument.
Speaker:But until these activities become both regular and completely automatic, they're
Speaker:not habits.
Speaker:And as you already know, willpower is expensive, cognitively speaking.
Speaker:It requires a large energy output and is not sustainable.
Speaker:But our goal with this book is to take productive, healthy behaviors and make them
Speaker:habitual so they are sustainable.
Speaker:In other words, we do all the right things automatically when triggered by our
Speaker:environment, do them regularly, and do them without thought.
Speaker:Just think about that for a moment.
Speaker:Imagine that all the behaviors associated with excellence and success come to you
Speaker:automatically and without you having to think to yourself every time,
Speaker:ah, I have to force myself to practice violin today.
Speaker:Imagine simply doing all these things with the same amount of mental effort it takes
Speaker:to have a shower or eat dinner at night.
Speaker:Not understanding what a habit actually is means people often fail to develop them
Speaker:properly.
Speaker:You could force yourself to do this or that, but these activities in themselves may
Speaker:not mean much in the bigger picture.
Speaker:Understanding that there are three steps to the process, trigger, routine and reward
Speaker:means you can set to work creating the conditions for the habit to form rather
Speaker:than constantly wrestling with the activity itself.
Speaker:So to build habits, we need to create the environment that triggers those habits.
Speaker:If you look closely, you'll see that all the habits you hold right now were formed
Speaker:in this way.
Speaker:Think of anything you do routinely every day, and there's a strong chance that
Speaker:behavior didn't become fixed because you simply decided one day it was what you
Speaker:were going to do.
Speaker:The three-step loop ran on its own, and the habit you have now is the result.
Speaker:In fact, it's impossible not to form habits, and you will do so without trying,
Speaker:as you already have with so many of your current habits.
Speaker:Our goal is to consciously control the process of habit formation so we can direct
Speaker:and shape the behaviors we most want to make part of our lives.
Speaker:Remember that habits form for a reason.
Speaker:They are your brain's attempt to decrease mental load and put predictable and
Speaker:already mastered tasks on the back burner so that you can focus on the more
Speaker:cognitively expensive novel tasks.
Speaker:What does this tell us?
Speaker:That having a habit is easy, but making one from scratch is hard.
Speaker:Like riding a bike, it's challenging at first and requires your full, goal-directed
Speaker:higher mind, your prefrontal cortex, but afterwards, you can do it literally
Speaker:without thinking, as your basal ganglia or habit brain takes over for you.
Speaker:You might have felt really scared and stressed out by learning to ride a bike
Speaker:as a kid, and may have even decided you didn't like it, but once it became
Speaker:easier and routine, you actually did start to enjoy it and may even choose
Speaker:to ride a bike now just for pleasure.
Speaker:What this tells us is that a habit can be pleasurable, even though the activity
Speaker:might not be pleasurable to start off with.
Speaker:Are you beginning to see why it's so hard but so necessary to set up new habits?
Speaker:As long as we are constantly working at developing a new behavior, maybe for 66
Speaker:days, maybe for longer, it will be one thing only, hard work.
Speaker:But after that, we gain a little mastery, we become familiar with routine, and our
Speaker:three-step habit loop has had the chance to cement the behavior with a reward,
Speaker:courtesy of your neurotransmitter friend, dopamine.
Speaker:After this point, it's easier to do the habit than it is not to do it.
Speaker:Success!
Speaker:Though this seems like an almost ridiculously simple mechanism, the truth is
Speaker:that understanding how habits work and how to form good ones is perhaps the most
Speaker:useful thing you can learn in life.
Speaker:For a start, good habits help you learn.
Speaker:A habit carries you through the dull and boring parts of a process, any process.
Speaker:A habit helps you overcome defeat, failure, uncertainty, or fatigue.
Speaker:You just keep going.
Speaker:Habit makes you resilient.
Speaker:With habits, you make constant incremental steps toward your goals, and more than
Speaker:this, you slowly develop your character and self-esteem.
Speaker:What is a person, except the sum of all the things they do day in and day out?
Speaker:When we talk about admirable qualities like leadership, creativity, or dedication,
Speaker:aren't we really talking about the consistent repeated actions we associate with those traits?
Speaker:If we rely on simple instinct and pleasure in the moment, we don't get very far.
Speaker:If we give up at the first challenge, we never progress along life's paths.
Speaker:We don't learn or grow.
Speaker:We don't evolve out of our comfort zones.
Speaker:Daily habits are the mechanism that allow us to reach our dreams.
Speaker:A habit is like the vehicle that takes you where you want to go one mile at a time.
Speaker:And if you're committing beneficial actions to the automatic habit, you're doing something else.
Speaker:Freeing up your higher brain to learn even more and develop further.
Speaker:Mastering the formation of good habits is not just for practical matters like eating healthier.
Speaker:It's also for psychological growth, like changing negative self-talk or habits of self-criticism.
Speaker:By changing your behavior toward yourself, you ultimately influence your own internal models
Speaker:of who you are, your self-esteem, and self-identity.
Speaker:This leads to better choices and a stronger conscious will, reinforcing a virtuous cycle
Speaker:that fosters greater development and achievement with time.
Speaker:Making and Breaking Habits
Speaker:A curious thing about habits is that even though the overall mechanism is designed to help your brain,
Speaker:individual habits can actually be incredibly harmful.
Speaker:Most of our habits save enormous amounts of time.
Speaker:Can you imagine having to learn how to put on your shoes every single morning from scratch?
Speaker:And give us enormous freedom and flexibility to bank certain skills and move on.
Speaker:But the three-stage loop of trigger behavior reward is prone to interference.
Speaker:When the dopamine reward system in the brain is dysregulated, people may find themselves addicted,
Speaker:repeatedly performing certain actions for what seems like diminishing dopamine rewards.
Speaker:And since the process of habit formation relies so heavily on repetition of what worked in the past,
Speaker:some of your most stubborn habits could well have been formed in childhood,
Speaker:when you didn't have much of a say over the conditions or the rewards associated with certain behaviors.
Speaker:Though some habits are very simple, acquired early in life and near-instinctual,
Speaker:like washing yourself or eating something for breakfast, others are more complex
Speaker:and require a little more initial effort and programming, like driving a car, speaking a language, or playing an instrument.
Speaker:Habits can be good or bad,
Speaker:but this doesn't mean that good habits are mentally more work to maintain.
Speaker:Some people may go for a daily jog as easily as they breathe air,
Speaker:and others may take several attempts at smoking before they derive any pleasure from it.
Speaker:Whatever your bad habit is, too much screen time, smoking, drinking, overeating, or staying up too late at night,
Speaker:you can derive some comfort from knowing that the same mechanisms that hold that habit in place
Speaker:could just as easily support healthier, better habits.
Speaker:The mental load is the same, with the exception of the initial adjustment period.
Speaker:We're dwelling on the anatomy of habits, both good and bad,
Speaker:because we cannot begin the process of changing bad ones into good ones
Speaker:until we understand the anatomy of a habit and why it exists.
Speaker:It's not a question of wanting it badly enough or being a good person or having enough willpower.
Speaker:Rather, it's about skillfully working with your own motivations and unconscious mental processes
Speaker:to design habits the way you want them in order to support the kind of life you want.
Speaker:Let's look at what a good habit brings to your life.
Speaker:Your days run more smoothly and with less time and mental energy spent on everyday activities,
Speaker:so you don't get as tired.
Speaker:There's no force or discipline needed, you just do it.
Speaker:With many habits, you become quicker and more efficient with time, too.
Speaker:You save your higher-order mental faculties like problem-solving and creativity for more important things.
Speaker:Sounds good so far, but there are downsides to having habits, both good and bad.
Speaker:Bad habits can have us feeling like slaves with no free will
Speaker:and can actively harm our mental and physical health, eroding our self-esteem,
Speaker:and possibly even damaging relationships with others and our work.
Speaker:We become trapped in an endless loop we can't escape
Speaker:and big chunks of our lives lose dynamism and energy and become mechanical instead.
Speaker:However, this mechanical energy is not reserved for bad habits only.
Speaker:Even good habits have their drawbacks.
Speaker:While we feel stable and secure in ourselves when we're running along our routines,
Speaker:we simultaneously narrow our scope for more conscious and creative thinking.
Speaker:We shut ourselves off from learning anything new.
Speaker:After all, why would we?
Speaker:Our brain's already convinced everything is just fine as it is.
Speaker:Intrenched habits also make us less flexible and able to adapt to change.
Speaker:We're more easily disturbed if our routine is interrupted
Speaker:and less able to think on our feet and respond spontaneously,
Speaker:as though we've been sleepwalking, which, in a way, we have.
Speaker:Our habits don't need to be bad to create tension with others
Speaker:or to make us behave in stubborn and inflexible ways.
Speaker:All the more reason to know exactly how to change a habit when it's no longer working.
Speaker:First, we need to understand the different habit types.
Speaker:Habit typology.
Speaker:For our purposes, let's divide habits into three general classes.
Speaker:Motor habits.
Speaker:These are all the habits we develop to help us perform physical, muscular activities needed in everyday life.
Speaker:These include things like standing, walking and running, sitting, holding your body in certain postures,
Speaker:balancing, jumping, and doing exercises that require the coordinated action of different muscles.
Speaker:Intellectual habits.
Speaker:These are habits concerning one's inner cognitive and mental processes,
Speaker:including activities like perception, analyzing data, constructing logical arguments,
Speaker:using language and rational thought, asking questions, testing hypotheses, arriving at conclusions, and so on.
Speaker:In ordinary life, it's maybe as simple as balancing your budget at the end of the month
Speaker:or fixing a lawnmower and as complex as earning a degree or planning a political campaign.
Speaker:Character habits.
Speaker:These are the more psychological expressions of our own personalities, values, and principles.
Speaker:Habits and character mutually define and strengthen one another.
Speaker:Good habits entrench good character over time and vice versa.
Speaker:Character habits are those things that allow us to behave in certain ways in the world more in terms of a how than a what.
Speaker:Being honest and hardworking, always saying thank you and practicing gratitude, being a good listener,
Speaker:having good grooming habits and keeping a tidy home, developing good time management, learning to write and speak well,
Speaker:and staying informed and up-to-date are all habits that achieve more than their immediate purpose.
Speaker:We also express our inner character and communicate our values to others.
Speaker:In time, good character habits cultivate positive emotions and strong self-esteem, giving us enormous psychological satisfaction.
Speaker:Most people focus on intellectual and character habits and those daily routines that are a mix of all three.
Speaker:On closer inspection, you might discover that a habit you're trying to either make or break is actually made up of several smaller habits.
Speaker:It's important to note this as it will make a difference to our approach going forward.
Speaker:The father of behavioral psychology, William James, famously had a few rules for effectively forming new habits using much of the information we've considered so far.
Speaker:People believe that, firstly, you need to make a good start with plenty of enthusiasm and motivation at the outset and no wavering intention or uncertainty.
Speaker:This energy carries you through the difficult initial patches. Just begin and go for it. Start quickly and don't delay.
Speaker:His next suggestion was an obvious one. Keep going.
Speaker:Because a key feature of a habit is that you do it over and over again, you need to cement the behavior in your mind by practicing it continually.
Speaker:Keep procrastination and distraction to a minimum, especially in the first few weeks where the new habit is still not firmly established.
Speaker:Keep going, no matter what. No excuses.
Speaker:Next, make sure that your environment is supporting you.
Speaker:Surround yourself with people who understand your mission and won't interrupt or distract you.
Speaker:Eliminate triggers for bad behavior, and if you can, start your new routine on a clean page, somewhere novel, where you can begin afresh, far from the influence of old triggers.
Speaker:Make sure that you're rewarding yourself somehow every time you perform the good habit.
Speaker:Finally, you don't stop, even when the behavior is rooted into your routine.
Speaker:That's because the more you practice, the stronger that habit will get and the less likely you are to relapse.
Speaker:Laying it all out like that, one could be forgiven for thinking that William James might have oversimplified things.
Speaker:If it's this easy to create a new habit, then why don't people do it more often?
Speaker:A paper in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that more than half, 54% of people who tried to make a positive change, couldn't keep it going past 6 months,
Speaker:and that on average, a person makes the same attempt to change 10 times in the course of their lives.
Speaker:Clearly, there's something else going on.
Speaker:So let's ask another question.
Speaker:What is preventing us from forming new, better habits?
Speaker:New habits, where we go wrong?
Speaker:For the most part, nobody questions why behavioral change is necessary.
Speaker:Most people can immediately list the benefits of having a healthy diet, exercising, quitting smoking, improving relationship communication,
Speaker:or any other positive personal adjustments we can make.
Speaker:And those who can't answer offhand can find out easily from family, friends, and the more reputable sites on the internet.
Speaker:We know logically why change is good.
Speaker:We know staying the course is detrimental and has a host of negative consequences.
Speaker:We know staying still is the same as continuing on the harmful path, so why don't we make changes?
Speaker:Well, it's always easier said than done.
Speaker:It's one thing to understand the benefit of change from an intellectual standpoint.
Speaker:It's quite another to put it into action.
Speaker:Knowing doesn't replace doing, but why isn't just knowing why we should do something enough to motivate us?
Speaker:As wonderful a tool as the brain is, we're actually driven by a lot of factors that have little to do with logic.
Speaker:In fact, you can argue that logic is far, far down on the list of factors that influence our daily actions.
Speaker:Evolutionarily, this means logic probably wasn't a big reason for our species' survival.
Speaker:We may have the inspiration, sustained interest, and determination, but there are other forces, both internal and external,
Speaker:that keep us from effecting meaningful change.
Speaker:It's now well-documented how harmful smoking can be to one's health.
Speaker:The science is long-established and fairly iron-clad.
Speaker:Nobody will tell you smoking's good for you, not even cigarette manufacturers,
Speaker:who are legally required to tell you that it contributes to death in various ailments.
Speaker:But many can't quit because their addiction to nicotine is too strong,
Speaker:and they fear the physical discomfort of withdrawal that will come if they stop smoking.
Speaker:Their logical brains know the benefits.
Speaker:Their illogical bodies couldn't care less.
Speaker:Their logical bodies just want to seek pleasure and to avoid pain.
Speaker:These illogical obstacles to behavior change come from many directions,
Speaker:so it's helpful to organize them into three realms, conscious, subconscious, and external factors.
Speaker:These three categories accurately represent our thought processes in daily life.
Speaker:We're conscious of many of our own limitations, yet we don't consciously realize
Speaker:all that is holding us back, and sometimes we can't help but fall prey to an outside influence.
Speaker:Conscious psychological factors.
Speaker:Some of our negative reactions to the idea of changing come from places we're well aware of.
Speaker:They're pre-existent problems we consciously know we're dealing with.
Speaker:They're attitudes about ourselves that, given a little prodding, we might readily admit we possess.
Speaker:Although overcoming these self-thoughts is difficult, it's not impossible.
Speaker:In fact, they're far easier to diagnose and treat than the subconscious factors we'll cover next,
Speaker:but our conscious obstructions are equally as important to watch and hopefully reduce as much as possible.
Speaker:Limitations include low self-esteem and confidence.
Speaker:I just can't do it. I'm not strong or disciplined enough.
Speaker:Maybe the most common internal factor is the feeling that we just can't do it.
Speaker:We're not good, strong, smart, or agile enough to get it done.
Speaker:Often, we compare ourselves to other people who seem to do what we want to achieve quite easily,
Speaker:and we know we'll never measure up to their abilities.
Speaker:We'll never be as good as that actor, that singer, that motivational speaker, that politician,
Speaker:or even that friend of ours who seems to handle everything beautifully.
Speaker:We make all these unfair comparisons while we forget that, at one time,
Speaker:these others' level of expertise was exactly what ours is now, not much.
Speaker:Negative self-image. I'm just not the type of person to do this. I never will be.
Speaker:This is similar to low self-esteem, but maybe even more destructive and tragic.
Speaker:More than just feeling that we can't do something, negative self-image is thinking that we don't even deserve to.
Speaker:All possibilities of change and action are closed to us because we're not worthy.
Speaker:This strain of thought is more dangerous than low self-esteem because it implies that we're condemned to an unfulfilling life,
Speaker:so even attempting to change ourselves isn't waste of time.
Speaker:A person with low self-esteem might still believe they're at least entitled to a better existence,
Speaker:but someone with a negative self-image doesn't believe they merit any kind of positivity at all.
Speaker:I don't deserve a happy relationship because I've been doomed all my life,
Speaker:or I don't deserve to be successful at work. That level of prosperity is only for people better than me.
Speaker:Overtolerance of pain or discomfort. I might be coughing all the time from smoking too much,
Speaker:but the withdrawal would be way worse.
Speaker:Endurance and strength during times of hardship are good traits,
Speaker:but if unchecked, they can obscure realities about our situations.
Speaker:If we suffer injury, tribulation, or distress merely because we have faith that things will eventually get better,
Speaker:we could be promoting inaction. The current situation might be awful,
Speaker:but trying to do something about it might make it even worse, so nothing is done, and nothing changes.
Speaker:This can also be disguised as simple denial and refusing to admit the intensity of pain or discomfort to avoid taking action.
Speaker:Confrontation avoidance. I don't know. I don't want to upset them and make it awkward.
Speaker:The act of change almost inevitably entails some sort of conflict.
Speaker:Certainly, you'll experience tension with yourself against some of your oldest and ugliest truths,
Speaker:but you might also clash with other people who aren't tuned into the change you're undergoing or who might be opposed or uncooperative about it.
Speaker:Rather than deal with these kinds of confrontations in a constructive way,
Speaker:one might be more inclined to retreat into a familiar bubble and avoid the possibility of facing the consequences.
Speaker:The Buddhist meditation class might make my ultra-religious mother upset.
Speaker:Fear of failure or rejection. Everyone's going to laugh at my painting anyway, so I'm not going to take that art class.
Speaker:Every single attempt to bring about change runs the risk of disappointment,
Speaker:but for some, the possibility of failure is a terrifying concept.
Speaker:It reinforces their worst fears about their abilities, or lack thereof,
Speaker:and drives them to believe that they're better off not even trying.
Speaker:Similarly, the often exaggerated fear of being dismissed or criticized by other people can immobilize one's efforts to change.
Speaker:They might therefore reject the proposed change preemptively before they suffer rejection themselves.
Speaker:Their current level of suffering is a walk in the park compared to confirming how incapable or untalented they are.
Speaker:Subconscious psychological factors
Speaker:If they're not immediately recognizable, conscious attitudes are at least well known enough that we can identify them somewhat quickly.
Speaker:Not so with subconscious factors. These forces operate without our knowledge.
Speaker:We don't perceive that they're negatively affecting our drive to change, or that they even exist.
Speaker:They are extremely potent at eroding our self attitudes and often recur in our lives over a very long period of time,
Speaker:to the extent that they derail our entire life story.
Speaker:These are the automatic negative thoughts and beliefs that cognitive behavioral therapy seeks to exercise.
Speaker:Many of these subconscious factors share common points with the conscious ones we've just discussed,
Speaker:but the subconscious factors can be more dangerous because they've been chipping away at our identities relatively undetected
Speaker:and are therefore more strongly woven into our beings.
Speaker:They're working on us under the total cover of darkness, so it's harder to call them up and deal with them head on.
Speaker:Limiting beliefs and narratives
Speaker:That's impossible for me. I've never been that type of person.
Speaker:These are similar to the conscious negativity generated by low self-esteem and poor self-image,
Speaker:but these beliefs are ingrained in us when we're young and become part of ourselves without our knowing.
Speaker:With limiting self-narratives, you're locked into a narrow view of what you can do or what's proper for you to do.
Speaker:You see life through a lens of pessimism and doubt.
Speaker:You mistrust good fortune or positivity.
Speaker:You're obsessed with catastrophe and dismissive of happiness.
Speaker:And if a certain story doesn't fit into your oppositional point of view, you'll make it fit.
Speaker:I'm not going for that promotion.
Speaker:That level of success turns people into jerks.
Speaker:Or falling in love and intimacy are overrated, inconvenient, usually very expensive. I got no time for that.
Speaker:This is the story you keep telling yourself about yourself couched in negative undertones.
Speaker:You've done it for so long, it's become a part of your identity, for better or worse.
Speaker:You literally cannot think in a different manner, and your worldview is skewed in a unique and detrimental way.
Speaker:Fixed mindset
Speaker:It's just not something I'll ever improve at.
Speaker:I'm destined to be bad forever.
Speaker:This is a twist of the self-identity factors, originally introduced by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck.
Speaker:The fixed mindset declares that the traits we have are permanent and unchangeable.
Speaker:Our intelligence, temperament, personality, and creative talent cannot be significantly altered.
Speaker:Therefore, the fixed mindset defines success as how well our traits stack up against those of others, usually in a quantitative way.
Speaker:Since those traits can never be altered or improved according to a fixed mindset, we can only triumph by proving our traits are superior to others.
Speaker:A person with a fixed mindset fears failure, perceiving it as evidence that we're stupid, untalented, or lacking in character.
Speaker:Things that can't be changed.
Speaker:Growth mindsets, though, are oriented towards the tenet that personal traits are malleable and can always be improved upon.
Speaker:You can increase your intelligence, you can learn and develop a talent, you can make adjustments to your personality.
Speaker:Therefore, the growth mindset embraces challenges, seeing failure as a learning opportunity and a pivot toward expanding ourselves, not proof of unintelligence or inability.
Speaker:These mindsets can be implanted in us at a critically young age, and they hold the keys to our behaviors and attitudes toward success and failure in everything, professionally and personally speaking.
Speaker:They therefore have a direct impact on our faculties for satisfaction and happiness.
Speaker:A fixed mindset would say, this job requires skills I'm terrible at and will never get better at.
Speaker:Whereas a growth mindset would say, this job looks challenging and I can't wait to get started on it.
Speaker:Past experience or trauma.
Speaker:I don't know. It went terribly once before, so it probably will be again this time.
Speaker:What we've gone through in the past has an ongoing and direct impact on how we approach or avoid certain situations later in life.
Speaker:While that may seem like an obvious statement few would disagree with in practice, the influence happens without our discerning it.
Speaker:Most of our responses to such stimuli, and indeed the stimuli themselves, stem from our subconscious.
Speaker:We don't understand why we have such aversion or disgust towards certain things or what led to those negative feelings in the first place.
Speaker:It then follows quite easily into our refusing to change our existence behavior or shunning unfamiliar ones.
Speaker:Someone might be scared of romantic commitments because their parents seemed terminally unhappy or abusive to each other.
Speaker:They might not want to learn to drive because they were involved in a car wreck as a child.
Speaker:External environmental factors.
Speaker:This third plank of avoidance in changing behavior is significant enough that it deserves its own chapter, so we'll give it one later in this book.
Speaker:But I'm also briefly mentioning them here because these environmental barriers work side by side with the internal forces preventing us from changing our behaviors.
Speaker:It is notable to mention that some of these are legitimate while others are rationalizations to avoid taking action.
Speaker:Lack of practical knowledge or education.
Speaker:I don't even know what I don't know.
Speaker:Simply put, you don't have or don't think you have sufficient instruction, training, or information to pursue the change you want.
Speaker:Alternately, you can't find any way to get that kind of knowledge, even in the age of super information.
Speaker:I can't even boil water. How am I going to learn how to cook Indian food?
Speaker:I can't afford that transcendental meditation class, so I might as well forget about it.
Speaker:Of course, information has never been easier to find than it is today.
Speaker:If anything, there's too much information available, which would cause analysis paralysis.
Speaker:Yet still, some people don't know where to start.
Speaker:Too many obligations.
Speaker:I'm way too busy for that. I work and have seven kids and eight dogs.
Speaker:Adult responsibilities have this way of piling up to the point of overload.
Speaker:Family, partners, children, work, home maintenance, car maintenance bills, take your pick.
Speaker:This not only affects your schedule for working on change, but also could just drain you so much that you're not even aware of the changes you need to make.
Speaker:Yeah, between driving the kids to school and soccer class, finishing this work project, getting the roof gutter fixed, remembering my sister's birthday and cleaning out the fridge.
Speaker:Sure, I'll start working out.
Speaker:This can indeed be a real concern and barrier, but often it comes with an overestimation of how much time is necessary to really begin to change behavior.
Speaker:It's not difficult to carve out 15 minutes every day, but easier said than done.
Speaker:Big fish, small pond.
Speaker:I'm good here. Don't worry about it.
Speaker:If you're already doing well in your current environment, if you're operating at a level above other people in your immediate view, isn't that good enough?
Speaker:You're so much better than everyone else in your surroundings that you don't understand why you need to improve.
Speaker:You're happy in your echo chamber where nobody disagrees or offers you criticism, so as far as you're concerned, you're doing fine.
Speaker:Why do we have to address my gambling problem? I beat every other guy in this town at Texas Hold'em.
Speaker:Plainly put, you're too comfortable or too insulated from negative consequences.
Speaker:This is not a bad thing, but it certainly doesn't make you hungry for change.
Speaker:Harmful or opposing environment.
Speaker:He doesn't stop talking to me, so I can never get into groove.
Speaker:Sometimes circumstances or settings have a damaging or highly uncomfortable effect on our natures, or they don't have the elements we require to start a program of change.
Speaker:A very introverted person might not be able to operate well in a crowded or loud place, or a person living in a very conservative community might feel discouraged about studying outside cultures.
Speaker:There are many ways our direct environments can impact us, and you'll read about them later.
Speaker:Social inertia or rejection.
Speaker:No one else is doing it, and they might laugh at me and think I'm stupid.
Speaker:This is an external manifestation of the confrontational avoidance and fear of rejection that we discussed above.
Speaker:However, we should also allow for the possibility that you're not merely paranoid.
Speaker:You may very well be part of a social scene where people you see every day are profoundly disinterested in who you are or what you try to do, and, in fact, are pretty much slackers themselves who are resistant to change on a group level.
Speaker:They have no interest themselves in change and actively drag you down to their level, belittling any effort or caring on your part.
Speaker:That's social inertia.
Speaker:Fears of rejection, on the other hand, might stem from worries that your change will disrupt the social order around you to the point where you're treated as an outcast.
Speaker:If I start an exercise program, everybody I hang out with at the sports bar is going to tease me or think I'm working too hard.
Speaker:Although, if that's how they really think, you may just need to find better friends.
Speaker:So anyone who's thinking about making a change in their lives is not at a loss for opposing forces within or outside themselves.
Speaker:All of these forces, even the ones we don't notice or comprehend, can be conquered.
Speaker:They may look like a very tall order at the outset, but it's absolutely achievable.
Speaker:Understanding the obstacles is an important part of the battle.
Speaker:A doctor wouldn't operate without a clear understanding of what to remove, and attempting to forge ahead with behavioral change without first introspecting is similarly foolhardy.
Speaker:Getting started is usually the most overwhelming part of the change process, and it depends on the strength and clarity of our motivation.
Speaker:That's what we'll address next.
Speaker:Takeaways
Speaker:Forming new habits has a physiological, psychological, and a behavioral component.
Speaker:By understanding the psychology of the way habits are made and broken, we can work to create better ones.
Speaker:A behavior needs to be uniform, repeated regularly, and must automatically follow a trigger in the environment.
Speaker:It takes no conscious effort.
Speaker:Establishing behaviors may be difficult to begin with, but becomes easier with time.
Speaker:Likewise, they may not be enjoyable at first, but can become more so with time.
Speaker:By understanding the three-step loop of habit formation, we can create the environment needed to support new habits while discouraging old ones.
Speaker:There are different types of habits, and they can each have both advantages and disadvantages, whether they're good or bad.
Speaker:Even though we logically and intellectually know what we should do, why don't we do those things?
Speaker:Because, despite what we like to think, we aren't really operating on conscious free will most of the time.
Speaker:There are three categories of obstacles to doing what we truly want at any moment, conscious, subconscious, and external factors.
Speaker:Conscious factors are ones we know and readily tell ourselves.
Speaker:They're what we repeat when we fail or decide not to do something.
Speaker:They include low self-esteem, negative self-image, over-tolerance of pain or discomfort, aversion to confrontation, and fear of failure and rejection.
Speaker:Subconscious factors are similar to the conscious factors, yet they are so deeply ingrained in our identities, we don't even realize we hold these beliefs.
Speaker:They're just our automatic thought patterns.
Speaker:They include limiting beliefs and narratives, having a fixed mindset, and being victim to traumatic experiences.
Speaker:External factors are outside of ourselves.
Speaker:They are the environmental or social pressures that keep us from taking action.
Speaker:Some of these are legitimate, some are simply excuses.
Speaker:These include lack of knowledge, too many obligations, being too comfortable, harmful environments, social inertia, or rejection.
Speaker:This has been Neuro Habits.
Speaker:Rewire your brain to stop self-defeating behaviors and make the right choice every time.
Speaker:Written by Peter Hollins. Narrated by Russell Newton.
Speaker:Copyright 2020 by Peter Hollins. Production Copyright by Peter Hollins.
