Shadowing Practice: What to do when willpower doesn't work - Learn English Speaking with Video
Les maken...
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Hello everybody
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and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s the podcast
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where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.
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Hello everybody welcome back to the show welcome back to the podcast new listeners old listeners wherever you are in the world.
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It is
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so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s.
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Today we're going to be talking about the psychology of toxic habits.
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The little rituals that we you know we swear we're going to quit.
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The behaviors that we hide, that we justify, that we laugh off.
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The ones that make us promise to ourselves that tomorrow is going to be different and then unsurprisingly it's not.
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Now for you that could be procrastination, that could be smoking, that could be using your phone way too often,
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self -sabotaging, impulse buying, whatever it is this covers it all.
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I think what's so difficult about these toxic habits is that we do want to stop.
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We know that they are not what's best for us
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and we can't and I want to let you know it's not
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because you don't know any better and it's not
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because you don't care about yourself it's not
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because you don't have the willpower or because you're lazy
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or lack discipline it's
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because your brain is doing what it has trained to do
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it is performing a pattern rather than learning a new one i want to make it
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so clear this isn't a discipline discipline problem it's not a willpower problem as people may have you believe.
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It is deeply rooted in your psychology as you can expect
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but it also can be undone and rewired using that same psychology if we understand it.
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So today I'm going to give you
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that guide for breaking toxic habits plus four of the biggest mistakes we make
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when we try to change and what actually might help instead.
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Without further ado let's get into it.
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So let's firstly pin down what we really mean here.
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The idea of toxic habits is a very tidy phrase right
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and it can mean anything from I go to bed too late to I can't stop replaying the same relationship pattern.
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Let's give it some more shape.
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Firstly what is a habit?
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A habit generally refers to a behavior that is repeated regularly,
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often automatically, triggered by a cue and reinforced by a reward.
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You go to the gym every night at the same time
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because you get the same good feeling when the clock strikes six.
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You go because that's a pattern that your brain has learned through association.
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A toxic habit cycle refers to that same cycle but the behavior that is occurring is in some way negative or harmful.
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A habit becomes toxic when it crosses three thresholds and we call them the three C's.
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Number one, compulsion.
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You feel an urge to do it often without conscious thought.
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Number two, control.
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You cannot stop or limit the feeling.
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Number three, consequences.
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It costs you something.
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It costs you time.
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It costs you health, money, trust in yourself.
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It costs you relationships.
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There is something that you are exchanging that you don't necessarily want to, to continue performing this habit.
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Now, not every habit that we necessarily dislike is toxic, but a habit becomes toxic again when And the cost outweighs the comfort.
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When it starts to make your life feel smaller.
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That's like the best definition I can give you.
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One of the clearest signs that a habit has crossed over into something toxic is
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that you want to stop and you can't.
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Which has you questioning your ability to control yourself.
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You tell yourself this is the last time and you genuinely mean it.
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That's not the problem here.
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You genuinely want to do better.
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Maybe you even go a couple of days, a week without performing the habit.
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But then something happens.
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You have a really stressful day at work.
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You're really lonely.
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You're bored.
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And you're right back into it.
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This is because you're in the territory of what psychologists call the intention behavior gap.
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The intention behavior gap is basically the space between what we intend to do and what we actually do.
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A lot of the research actually suggests that intentions only predict around 30 to 40 percent of our behavior,
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meaning that simply wanting to do something,
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simply want to change is only a tiny fraction of the overall process and the more emotionally loaded the habit is,
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the more it stews you, numbs you, distracts you, comforts you, the wider this gap is going to be.
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When a habit is doing the job of regulating emotion, not just like occupying your time,
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it becomes psychologically really hard to break.
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You may find that, you know, your toxic habit rapidly increases when you're really stressed, you're anxious, you're isolated
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because it does feel good in response to a negative emotion
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it also equally feels bad afterwards as well the behavior it
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kind of gives with one hand it takes with the other
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that relief crash emotional arc i feel good i feel bad i feel good i feel bad
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that is the clearest marker of a toxic habit cycle like
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we said this really is an emotional process rather than a conscious one.
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You're not doing these behaviors because they are what's best for you or because they align with your values.
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You're doing it
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because it is a way to regulate internal emotional states rather than being able to make a choice
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that feels better for you.
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The emotional trigger because you've been performing the habit in response to it so often it has nowhere else to go.
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It has nothing else to comfort or soothe.
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This thing remains the one and only.
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Spending $100 when you feel terrible remains the only coping mechanism.
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Going out and drinking a bunch with your friends remains the only coping mechanism.
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Another sign that this is a toxic habit is the mental choreography that begins to form around the behavior.
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You start justifying it, you start hiding it.
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You start delaying thinking about it.
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You start giving yourself like timelines and deadlines for when you're going to quit.
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The amount of thinking around the behavior actually becomes larger than how much you're even performing the behavior itself.
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So you think a lot about drinking.
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You think a lot about your phone even when you're not on it.
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You think a lot about these toxic habits or behaviors even more than you're doing them and it just becomes this
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balloon that gets bigger and bigger and bigger in your mind and just pushes everything else out to the sidelines.
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Another subtle sign is also escalation.
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So this is something that you're using to emotionally cope.
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It occupies a huge part of your mental real estate and you notice it's getting a little bit more intense.
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The consequences are getting a little bit larger.
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This is not because you're spiraling, it's because the brain is adapting.
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It learns to expect the behavior and it learns to expect the emotional relief
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but as time goes by it needs more of the thing
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that you're providing it to feel that same level of numbness
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or pleasure or relief and so it just gets worse and worse and worse.
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These signs are important not just to label yourself
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or to label the habit but just to understand the reality of what's happening here.
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If any of this sounds familiar what I really want you to realize is
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that your habit has shifted out of the realm of conscious decision making into this space of automatic emotional coping
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and it's your brain doing what it's meant to do.
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It is repeating what has worked in the past to help you survive uncomfortable feelings.
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So this is the foundation of every habit, whether it's positive or not.
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Here is where we talk about, and we can talk about, this idea of the habit loop.
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This was made very famous by the book, The Power of the Habit, but there has been decades of research that supports what's happening here.
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The habit loop is basically what happens when we experience a trigger
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or a cue and respond in a way to receive a benefit.
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This is what's going on in your mind right now.
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This loop that you can't consciously see, but you are, you know, unconsciously stuck in.
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What's really interesting is that the research on habit loops has found
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that your brain doesn't care whether the reward is healthy or harmful.
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It only cares that it provides relief.
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This is where repetition begins.
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It's just chasing the thing that it has the easiest access to to make you feel better.
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The thing is, you can actually overcome that feeling if you provide your brain with an alternative.
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Before any habit became a toxic habit or became a habit at all, you had to actively choose the behavior
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that you were partaking in, right? somehow you stumbled upon this thing
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that made you feel better and you actively chose to partake in it
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but over time the repetition actually transferred the behavior into a completely different region of your brain called the basal ganglia. So
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when we begin with the habit it starts in the prefrontal
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cortex then it moves into this deeper part of our brain when our brain begins to associate it with relief.
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In particular it's the basal ganglia within it's called the dorsal striatum and this is what specializes in routines, in patterns, in automatic actions.
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What's happening here is basically just another form of neuroplasticity.
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Your brain is physically rewiring itself based on your experiences.
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Synaptic connections form when we continue to associate a behavior with a specific outcome.
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This actually has its own name.
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It's called Hebbian learning.
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It's named after Donald Hebb.
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Every time two experiences happen close together, for example, a feeling and an action, a cue and a behavior, behavior and relief, the brain links them.
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And the more they occur in sequence, the stronger that connection kind of becomes.
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So if periods of stress are followed by scrolling or loneliness is followed by texting, texting someone who isn't good for you,
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or social anxiety is followed by pouring another glass of wine
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or having a cigarette the brain learns that connection
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and here is the emotional part science often overlooks these feelings these habits persist
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because they are preventing us from feeling something worse
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that is really what this whole loop this whole pattern thing is bringing us to.
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The emotional need remains.
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The emotional pain remains.
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This habit loop is just creating like a layer of bubble wrap around the deeper emotion that you don't want to feel.
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And eventually the thing is, you are going to outlearn.
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Your brain is going to outlive the habit so that it no longer helps.
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That's why this escalation thing happens.
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That's why we have to keep seeking something bigger or newer
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or better or more intense to keep us from this emotion
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that the habit is trying to wrap up and soften and blunt.
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I want to be very, very clear.
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I can confidently say
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that all of us at some point in our lives have picked up a less than desirable habit for
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that very reason without even realizing.
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It's not unique to you.
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It doesn't make you weaker.
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It doesn't make you less than another person.
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We just need to understand how to approach them better.
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There are also some people who are just more vulnerable to developing certain habits and maybe you are one of these people.
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Again, not because there's something about you that is flawed but
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because of the way your brain and your emotions developed or operate to seek out comfort or to handle big emotions.
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So we're going to dive a little bit deeper to that in a second.
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Why are some people more prone to toxic habits?
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What are the alternatives to performing this toxic behavior loop after this job break?
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okay so why do toxic habits impact some of us more than others
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because all of us have
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that implicit habit loop system in our brain some people just
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find themselves unable to resist it more than other people
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and it's a combination of things like genetics of upbringing of trauma but you know, for the more emotionally sensitive among us, me included,
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sometimes it is purely just because the emotions that this habit is trying to bubble wrap run a little bit louder.
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We feel stress more intensely.
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Loneliness, it's not just that it's uncomfortable, it genuinely feels unbearable.
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Boredom feels horrendous.
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We refer to this as a high emotional level of reactivity or high emotional reactivity.
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And research shows
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that people who experience emotions more strongly who may be seen
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as more sensitive are more likely to use habits especially soothing ones to regulate numb or minimize those big big feelings
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For example, there was a study published in 2019 from Mastricht University, I think, in the Netherlands.
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And it found that participants who displayed higher cortisol reactivity, so stress reactivity, were actually more likely to fall on more automatic ingrained habits
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that they actually didn't want to perform rather than engage in flexible goal -directed decision making.
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I don't necessarily think that's a surprise, but I think it's just important to understand maybe that's why it is
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so hard for you to quit there's also the brain's reward system itself I think we typically think
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that every single one of us has the same brain has
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the same operating manual has the same hardware we should be
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able to do the same things we should be able to have the same level of wheel power
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and convert that into behavior that is just completely untrue We actually have differences,
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all of us, in how our brain signals dopamine.
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And that is controlled by two genes in particular, the DRD2 gene and the COMT gene.
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You can literally look these up.
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They influence dopamine regulation in our brains.
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They are switched on, switched off, different in all of us.
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And therefore, they regulate how strongly our brain responds to rewards, but also how strongly our brain just responds to emotions
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and we have follow -up research that shows
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that certain variants of these genes are associated with stronger reward -seeking behavior and faster reinforcement learning.
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You don't have to perform the habit actively as many times before it becomes you know subconscious or automatic.
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For example individuals who have more dopamine receptors do experience rewards more intensely in the moment.
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So they're going to go after it.
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They're going to chase it more.
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They also feel the absence of reward more painfully, which makes it so hard to stop.
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If all that sounds very complicated, basically all you need to know is that the decisions that you are making that you think are conscious, that you think are deliberate,
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that you shame yourself for performing even when you want to stop, sometimes the level of which you had a choice is not as great as you think it is.
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So that's the nature element as to why some people form toxic habits more than others.
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Let's talk about the nurture element, more specifically, the environment we grew up in.
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How does that influence toxic habit loops?
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You know, some of us learned that emotional expression wasn't a safe thing
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and it wasn't a welcome thing and it wasn't something that was going to be tolerated.
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Maybe you grew up in a household where feelings were ignored.
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They were mocked.
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They were punished.
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Maybe you were taught to be self -reliant before being taught how to self -regulate.
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Maybe you were bullied and you knew that an emotional reaction would just encourage the people bullying you.
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In those environments, we don't learn how to process emotions in a visible way.
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We learn how to manage them in a way that makes them invisible and that makes them our problem, not an outside problem.
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And often off the back of this, there's this deeply ingrained belief that has been shaped over many, many years that, you know,
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letting that emotional reaction out, letting people see it, will only hurt us more.
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Maybe we don't actually deserve to feel better.
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Maybe this is just how we are.
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This is just who we're going to be.
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We're going to be somebody who just keeps it all in.
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The barrier sometimes isn't just the desire to change.
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It's whether you feel worthy of change in the first place.
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And this belief shows up in really subtle ways.
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You know, you hesitate just before you want to try something new.
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You apologize for asking for more.
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You feel this familiar pull back into the same cycles
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because at least you know how they work the brain interprets this as familiar as as safe even
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when the familiar is draining us when a habit becomes tied to our identity
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or our sense of self
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or our sense of coping like i'm the type of person who you know is lazy
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so of course i'm going to be somebody who stays up
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to 3 a .m i'm the type of person who doesn't deserve love
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so of course i'm going to text my terrible terrible ex it becomes a lot harder to let go not
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because the behavior is pleasurable remember a toxic habit doesn't actually have to feel good it just has to provide relief
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but because it feels familiar
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and your brain is always going to choose the known over the unknown even
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when the known hurts this attachment to familiarity is often something that fuels one of the biggest mistakes we face when trying.
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to break certain habits.
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So with that in mind, let's talk about those big mistakes.
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What are the five things that we do that stop us from being able to change when we want to?
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Mistake number one.
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When most of us try to break a toxic habit, we tend to approach it with this really great intensity,
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a kind of this ends now idea.
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We suddenly decide like tomorrow will be different.
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this is going to be the time we're going to be stronger.
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We're going to be more disciplined.
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We're going to be more determined.
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And because we genuinely do mean it, that feels like enough.
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You know, you want it really bad.
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You want it bad enough this time.
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This is the time that things change.
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What I need you to know is that motivation is great, but it's more like a spark than a fuel source.
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And what often happens next,
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what often happens after this big promise is that life continues on and all those previous triggers come right back.
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And the thing is, is that as we encounter these same triggers, we actually don't have other skills or habits to manage.
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And so we repeat the same habit we swore we wouldn't in that moment because what else are we meant to do?
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And then also after we've done that, we feel a lot of blame.
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We feel a lot of shame that kind of creeps in.
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It makes it harder to change the next time.
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The truth is, is that you, you set yourself up to fail.
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You were just set up to fail by this approach, not because you didn't have the desire, but because you underestimated the power of, of a toxic habit.
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The first common pitfall is this.
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We believe that we can win through willpower alone.
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Willpower is great.
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It's a short -term resource.
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It's affected by things like sleep, by stress, by hunger, by hormones, countless things that we experience in our day -to -day life.
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It is not designed to carry us in the long term.
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So if you're relying on sheer effort alone, here is a way to do that better or to counteract this.
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Plan the alternative.
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You can't just expect yourself not to scroll if you literally don't have anything else in your house to do instead.
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you don't have a book that you're really into, if you don't have plans, if you don't have a project you're working on, have a plan B habit.
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If you're like really trying to break smoking, chew gum.
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Like that's what they always say.
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Have something that you're going to swap out to make it easier.
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If you know that you really want to drink less,
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make sure that you have non -alcoholic alternatives just completely withholding yourself from any kind of behavior will mean
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that the habit
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and the urge just become stronger another really powerful thing we can do is just adjust your environment
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so that the habit becomes harder to perform
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and the alternative becomes easier your brain loves the path of least resistance
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so create some resistance for things you don't want to do
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and reduce resistance for things that you do want to engage in.
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If alcohol isn't in the house, you know, you can't just reach for it.
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If your phone is in the other room, you can't hit snooze.
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If you stock the fridge full of like really yummy, delicious foods, you're not going to order takeout.
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So by creating less friction between you and your ability to carry out these more positive alternative habits,
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it just increases the likelihood that they will be done.
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The second big stumbling point that we tend to do is we start too big.
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It's similar to the previous one, but we set out to be perfect and we set very dramatic rules.
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We often also set multiple rules.
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We go cold turkey.
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We outwardly at the start line promise we're never going to do it again
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and we plan too many big things that we're going to do in advance.
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We as humans don't respond well to dramatic change.
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We respond well to consistency and to baby steps.
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So when the bar is set at perfection, the first slip up is always going to feel really detrimental, and it's going to feel like,
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why did I even try?
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That's going to mean that you're just going to abandon ship, not because you're incapable of change,
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but because you've made up these terms for what change looks like that are really hard to sustain.
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So the alternative to this, the alternative to starting too big is to start incredibly small and imperfectly.
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And that begins with just one rule.
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Make one really specific rule for yourself about the behavior
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or the habit that you want to change that you know is doable.
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So I won't vape until midday.
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I can scroll, but only up to three hours instead of four.
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I won't drink on weekdays.
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I can buy the things I want, but only after I've sold something else I already own.
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One rule, one tiny rule that just moves the needle a little bit,
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that just minimizes the friction of beginning and creates like a platform that you can build better habits on.
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the third pitfall is
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that a lot of us try to change the behavior without addressing the emotion
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that drives it we decide to stop doom spending
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and we don't ask what feeling am i avoiding we say we're going to stop drinking alcohol
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but we never investigate why it is we feel so socially anxious
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or why it is that our body feels the urge to to drink or to be soothed in that way.
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If the habit is soothing something within us,
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removing the habit without replacing the need for the soothing effect does leave a really big void
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and the brain is always going to again return to the fastest source of relief and the source that it knows.
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The alternative is that you confront the habit by asking yourself what am I avoiding?
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By really not just trying to address the symptoms but the root.
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Here are some questions that you can kind of sit with, maybe now, maybe later, that might help you investigate what's really happening below the surface.
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Number one, what am I afraid might happen if I don't engage in this behavior?
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And why does this outcome scare me so much?
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Secondly, what need is this habit trying to meet?
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is it the need for comfort connection control distraction are there other ways
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that I can give that to myself
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and how could I try those third what would it look like to face
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that uncomfortable feeling for just 30 seconds without acting on it is
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that something that I'm that I'm capable of
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and like before what's your plan b what would an alternative to all of this to this habit look like
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and could it satisfy me enough just to not perform the habit I really want to.
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This brings me to my final point, the final pitfall of trying to change a toxic habit, which is
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that many of us put all of our attention on stopping the old habit rather than on cultivating a new one.
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We focus on addition purely through subtraction rather than through addition rather than filling our life with other things
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that feel equally amazing.
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What all these mistakes, pitfalls have in common is
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that what we're really asking ourselves to do is to fight ourselves
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and to fight against the part of us that is a lot stronger than our current conscious self,
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the unconscious parts of us that have had years and years of experience, years and years of repetition to form.
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And we assume that discipline is stronger than a habit, that intention is stronger than conditioning, that we can think our way out of something
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that the nervous system has learned is an emotional necessity for us and has learned that over many, many years.
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The thing is we learn through small steps.
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We learn through consistency.
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We learn through being incredibly imperfect and just gentle with ourselves.
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Let's talk about some of the other ways that we can go about this that are going to prove more effective.
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You've probably heard about this before, but it's known as identity -based change.
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And it's another thing that is going to be really, really helpful.
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Behavior follows identity, not the other way around.
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When you begin to see yourself as someone who is capable of change, that is when you are actually going to change.
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That is when the behavior is going to begin to align with the story that you are telling yourself.
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Not perfectly, not instantaneously but gradually
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if you stay within the confines of I'm just someone who
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does this I'm just someone who jumps back into bed with
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my ex after a few drinks I'm just someone who is
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impulsive I'm just someone who is lazy I'm just someone who
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doesn't have them in them you're not going to change
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because you're fighting against how you view yourself
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and the deep truths you have about your identity so you need to challenge those parts and replace them with new ones.
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I want you to write down five statements about the kind of person you want to be
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and the kind of person who would beat this habit and why they are the same.
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For example, I want you to deliberately write down statements right now like, I'm someone who values my health.
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I'm someone who is in control.
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I am someone who is a good spender.
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Whatever it is that aligns with your goal convince yourself show yourself repeat to yourself that you want somebody
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who by your very nature by your very personality
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and identity would do this thing
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if you've read atomic habits you will know this sounds very very familiar
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but the science and the research backs it up
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when a new behavior feels more aligned with your identity than
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an old behavior you are more likely to do it another
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way we can teach the brain a new path a better path is through mental rehearsal there is
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so much research on the overlap of neural circuits that are used when imagining
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and actually carrying out certain behaviors basically thinking about something you know it's not as good as doing
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but it actually might be pretty close
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so there was a 2018 paper from researchers at the university of colorado in boulder
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that found that mentally imagining a fear -inducing situation helps us process
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and unlearn that fear just as effectively as actually seeing it and actually living through it.
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Another study found that people who imagined themselves lifting weights,
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who mentally practiced and rehearsed lifting weights without actually even doing something, saw an increase in muscle mass, saw an increase in strength,
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saw an increase in how much they were able to lift purely by thinking about it.
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You think that you can only break this toxic habit through action.
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You can do it by picturing yourself encountering a trigger and doing something else.
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Encountering a trigger and not taking the route you don't want to take.
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You can just do it by imagining yourself being confident, imagining yourself being capable, imagining yourself choosing the alternative.
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And so when that moment does inevitably come, when you are met with a trigger, because of course you will,
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your nervous system isn't shocked because mentally it has a script that it can follow.
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It's encountered this problem before in your imagination and in your mind.
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That is an incredibly powerful act that you can do right now, that you can practice without needing anything on you, anything around you, just in the moment.
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And I think it really brings us to like a deep theme that comes through all of this.
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If you want to fail at breaking a toxic habit, the easiest way you can fail is by looking for perfection
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and wanting it so badly that you don't put any other guidelines,
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any other skills, any other helping cues in your environment and in your hand.
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All you think about is how much and how deep your intention is to change.
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You don't actually help yourself change the structures around you that will allow you to.
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So what we really want and what I really want from you is just to practice this in the smallest, smallest of ways possible to begin with.
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Give yourself the confidence by doing, by resisting for just a second to show that, you know, after a second, there's two seconds.
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After two seconds, there's five seconds.
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I can keep resisting and I can keep changing the neurology
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and the plasticity and the repetition of the habit that is built around this behavior.
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I think it's also worth knowing and remembering that there will be days when the old habit wins.
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That's just part of it.
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And this is where the most important part of it all comes in.
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Knowing that relapse, if we can call it that, reverting to an old habit, that is not the end of the process.
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It is part of the process.
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It is an essential step.
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The brain doesn't unlearn a pathway in one quick motion, no matter all the things that we've talked about, even if you do them all, sometimes you just have to be patient
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and sometimes you just actually have to fail in your objective
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to beat this habit to know where you went wrong
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and to know what to do the next time remember
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that throughout all of this what you're really trying to do is just take care of a version of you
416
that once needed this habit to survive that maybe still needs that habit to bundle up,
417
avoid, numb out really hard emotions.
418
You didn't set out to do this habit, to perform this habit, to become addicted to this habit because you wanted to.
419
You did so out of a need for survival.
420
You did so out of a need for emotional preservation.
421
And the version of you that started and that needed
422
that the most deserves a lot of love and a lot of understanding
423
and not shame and not this idea that you're just too lazy to quit
424
or that you just don't have what it takes
425
so you're not strong enough like that's not going to get
426
you anywhere other than into a shame spiral you are completely capable of doing this through a pathway of love
427
and through a pathway of gentleness and just persistence So I really hope that this episode was helpful.
428
I hope it helped you think about the habits
429
that you have a little bit differently
430
and understand the psychology behind where they came from and I guess how to make them disappear.
431
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure that you share it with a friend.
432
Make sure that you are following us along wherever you are listening
433
and give us a five star review if this was helpful, if you feel called to do so.
434
I also want to thank our research assistant Libby Colbert for her contributions to this episode this episode
435
if you are listening anywhere other than youtube you should know
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was on youtube as well we are now doing video episodes
437
so if you prefer to watch
438
and listen rather than just listen you can find us at
439
the psychology of your 20s on youtube you can also find us at
440
that psychology podcast on instagram
441
but with all in mind until next time stay safe be
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kind be gentle to yourself good luck with whatever habit you are trying to break
443
and we will talk very very soon
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you’ll practice understanding and discussing the psychology of toxic habits, a relatable topic that’s perfect for building conversational skills. You’ll learn to explain why willpower alone doesn’t break habits, describe the "three C's" of toxic behavior, and use everyday examples like procrastination or phone overuse. This is great for IELTS speaking practice, as it helps you articulate complex ideas clearly and naturally.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Toxic habits: Harmful behaviors repeated automatically, like smoking or impulse buying.
- Compulsion: An urge to act without conscious thought (e.g., "I feel a compulsion to check my phone").
- Reinforced: Strengthened by a reward (e.g., "The habit is reinforced by the quick pleasure of scrolling").
- Self-sabotaging: Acting in a way that harms your own goals (e.g., "Procrastinating on studying is self-sabotaging").
- Rewired: Changed or adjusted (e.g., "The brain can be rewired to break bad habits").
Practice Tips
The video’s tone is warm and conversational, with a moderate speed—perfect for shadowing! Start by listening to short clips (10-15 seconds) and repeating them immediately. Focus on matching the speaker’s rhythm and emphasis, especially when she stresses words like "not a willpower problem" or "three C's." Use a shadowing app or shadowing site to record yourself and compare. For "shadow speech" practice, pause the video and rephrase her points in your own words (e.g., "She says toxic habits aren’t about being lazy—they’re about brain patterns"). This helps with fluency and is excellent for IELTS speaking practice, as it trains you to think and speak on the spot. Keep going—you’re building real, practical English skills!
Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?
Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.