Shadowing Practice: 4 Principles to Upgrade Your Life With Neuroplasticity - Learn English Speaking with Video
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In this video, I want to share four principles in neuroplasticity that, once you really understand them, can completely upgrade your life.
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You see, we often feel like we're stuck in who we are, like this is who I am and there is nothing I can do to change that.
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But your brain is so much more flexible than that.
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It has real proven ability to rewire itself, to learn new things, to change at literally any age.
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So today, I want to share what I have been learning about all of this over the past few years
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and more importantly how i have been putting all of this
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into practice in my own life with my real habits
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and with my real goals before we start i want to remind you guys
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that i'm currently working on my new course the dopamine reset
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so if you want to be the first one to get notified
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when it goes live the link to join the wait list is in the description
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all right so now let's talk about the first neuroplasticity principle that has been helping me so much.
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Your brain doesn't care what you're building.
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And before you think that it sounds dramatic, let me explain what I mean.
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There is a very famous principle in neuroscience and it was first described by a psychologist, Donald Hebb.
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And it's usually summed up in one line.
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Neurons that fire together, wire together.
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You probably hear this phrase really often when you read books about habit building, because pretty much every time things happen in your brain at the same time,
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like a thought and a feeling, a trigger and a behavior, the connection between those things gets stronger, a little bit more efficient,
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and a little bit easier to activate next time.
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And we say that with enough times, this behavior becomes automatic.
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It becomes your habit.
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But here's a very important part to this full story that was so important for me to understand.
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This process has zero opinion about whether what you're building is actually good for you.
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It's not actively filtering what's good for you, like neurons that fire together, wire together only when it comes to your good habits.
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Unfortunately, it works for everything in our lives.
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This process is simply reinforcing what you already do most,
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which means that it can strengthen your patterns, whether good or bad.
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Whether it's a behavior that you would like to nurture, like a new healthy habit that you would like to create,
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or something that you would want to change, like grabbing your phone every single morning.
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It feels like you're doing it on autopilot
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because you've been doing it for years and years
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and now you're realizing that wait a second i actually want to change this behavior
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and so if we dig a little bit deeper behind this principle
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that is also why we often choose not what's good for us
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but what is familiar because you repeat it over
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and over again your nervous system gets used to it and
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so it feels familiar that is why you keep on choosing it
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that is why in the morning you keep on reaching for your phone instead of doing something else because it feels familiar.
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Your nervous system isn't always looking for what's good.
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It's looking for what is known.
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Familiar feels safe, even when this familiar is actually exhausting.
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Because your brain has created this path, you're repeating this behavior over and over again, so that is why you keep on doing it.
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And the unfamiliar, the healthier option, just doesn't have this path built yet.
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And to fix all of this, we are not going to rely on discipline.
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The reason why this knowledge is helping me so much in particular is
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because I understand that it is not a discipline problem.
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It doesn't mean that I'm lazy, it doesn't mean that I'm not disciplined enough, or I lack willpower.
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It's just how my brain works.
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My nervous system is always looking for something that's familiar.
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Everything is working exactly the way it's designed.
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It's just not pointing me in the right direction I want to go to.
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So with all of this, what I like to do is I like to offer myself this reframe.
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Instead of asking myself, Veronica, why do you lack discipline?
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I ask myself, what have I been repeating without noticing?
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Is it something that I want to keep on repeating or is it a behavior that I actually want to change.
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For so many of us, reaching for our phones in the three seconds of silence before the elevator door opens feels extremely normal.
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We're heating up our food in the microwave and what do we do?
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We immediately start scrolling because waiting for a minute without doing anything feels unfamiliar.
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it feels weird.
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We stop at a red light and we immediately pull out our phones because this behavior is already automatic.
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There are so many things we do in our lives, not because they are actually good for us, but because they feel familiar.
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And I think this is where most of us choose productivity or constant perfection over the actual process of self -improvement.
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And the actual process of self -improvement isn't always about addition.
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You're not supposed to be only adding good healthy habits into your life.
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Sometimes your biggest wins are going to come from removing the friction from you know those boring things
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that you actually don't want to do.
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You're trying to regulate your emotions in a way
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that feels familiar even though now you're realizing that okay this is not something that I want to keep doing.
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Instead of actually dealing with the situation like in the morning I decide that I'm not going to reach for my phone,
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we pack our mornings with like more and more habits,
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more and more healthy things when in reality your biggest win can come from just charging your phone in another room.
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Your morning routine can stay the same it doesn't have to be super productive
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and super complicated sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is removing certain things not adding more habits
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the next neuroplasticity principle
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that i want to talk about is all about designing around
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your environment not around your discipline like i'm going to do it
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when i feel extremely disciplined we are working with our environment instead.
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This is one of the most powerful things you can do.
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There is an amazing book Good Habits Bad Habits by Wendy Wood and I highly highly recommend reading it.
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In this book the author explains
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that our habits are triggered far more by our environment than by our discipline or our willpower.
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Maybe you're in a specific room and that is a cue for you to do a specific behavior.
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Maybe it's a specific time of the day and so now that's a cue for you to do your habit.
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Your environment is quietly doing all the work.
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It's quietly remembering everything that you need to do, whether you're actively noticing it or not.
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It's running the behavior almost before you've consciously decided to do it.
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Pretty much all the habits i have i'm only able to stay consistent in them
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because of my environment because of all the cues
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that i've set for myself let's say
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when i have unhealthy snacks at home i bought chips
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and i have them in my kitchen do you think i'm
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not going to eat them absolutely not i'm going to eat those chips
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because i have this amazing delicious snack in my kitchen i'm not going to fight my willpower
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or fight my discipline because i know that
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if i have chips at home i'm going to eat them
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if i want to change my behavior i'm going to work with my environment instead
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so recently i realized that i actually wanted to add more nuts
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and seeds into my diet of course i eat peanut butter here
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and there but i realized
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that it wasn't really enough like i wanted to eat different seeds and different nuts like cashews and walnuts.
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So what I decided to do instead of working with my discipline and just telling myself, okay Veronica, you have a bag of cashews in your pantry, go and eat them.
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It doesn't really work for me.
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So I asked myself, what is going to work?
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I personally really like eating those little like energy balls
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or energy bars that you can make with nuts and seeds and oats and so I decided to make them myself.
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I literally packed them with nutrients, with everything that I wanted to include into my diet and
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so now I naturally eat more seeds and nuts every single day
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because I like eating those healthy snacks and so reaching for them feels natural.
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It doesn't feel like something I have to make myself do.
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When I don't have chips at home and I only have energy balls, of course I'm going to reach for the things that I already have in my pantry.
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And plus, I actually like those things.
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I know that maybe, you know, comparing chips to sweet energy bars is a little bit weird, but if you really like chips,
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you can make healthy chips for yourself with nuts and seeds.
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It is extremely easy to do.
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This is something that I tell you guys all the time.
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The most reliable way to build a new habit
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isn't to try harder it's to ask yourself like why isn't it working for me
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and what do i need to change what do i need to tweak to make it feel natural
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and usually the answer is going to be you need to design your environment
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that is basically going to guarantee that the behavior
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that you want to happen is going to happen and the behavior
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that you don't want to happen isn't going to happen like
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when you're trying to study to work
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and your phone is right there next to you it's buzzing you're receiving a ton of notifications
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so of course you're going to get distracted it is absolutely natural
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so when I work my phone is always on do not disturb
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because I know that when I am doing the hard work
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when I am trying to do the thing that is important for me I don't want to get tempted by my phone.
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And see for the habits that you want to introduce into your life, like eating more nuts and seeds,
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we're not trying to suffer our way through this habit.
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We're trying to make it suck less.
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Don't try to get better at suffering your way through a healthy habit
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that you're trying to build because that is not sustainable.
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That is you relying on your willpower and on your discipline.
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And one day, all of this is going to crumble.
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That is natural.
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Instead, attach something pleasant to it.
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Make it more fun.
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Reduce the friction.
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In my case, I don't really like washing the dishes.
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And so what do I do?
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I listen to audiobooks when I wash the dishes.
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Because this is something that makes the process feel way less boring.
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now let's talk about principle number three find your anchor habit
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if you guys read a lot of like self -help books
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especially on the topic of habit formation you've probably come across this term an anchor habit
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but to be completely honest the phrasing
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that i like to use more in my everyday life is something like a big wave habit
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and i'm going to explain why your anchor habit is basically this one habit
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that once it's in place it pulls a wave of all the other good changes in your life almost without you trying.
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For a lot of people exercising in the morning is
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that anchor habit because when you know
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that you have a workout scheduled for 7 a .m
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and you already paid for it so you can't miss it you're probably going to go to bed on time.
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You're gonna wake up, you're gonna put on your workout clothes, you're gonna drink some water and go.
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After your workout, you're probably going to eat a healthy breakfast and then jump into work.
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And so see how the dynamic of the whole day has already changed.
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This one single habit exercising in the morning has pulled a wave of all the other positive changes into your life.
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So of course we can call it an anchor habit,
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but I just like to call it a big wave that gently pulls all the other good behaviors into your life.
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We often think that to be able to be productive and disciplined and, you know, achieve our goals, we need to be perfect absolutely everywhere.
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But I think more often than not, we can realize that if you find one or two
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or three of those anchor habits or big wave habits in your everyday life,
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then the whole process of achieving your goals and staying consistent starts to feel easier.
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Not like a constant uphill battle anymore.
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I can tell you guys that in my case, if in the morning I change out of my PJs, I do my makeup, I get ready,
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I'm more likely to record,
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to, you know, do all the things that I have on my to -do list because I feel ready.
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I feel ready to approach all the things that are written on my to -do list.
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It creates this beautiful momentum for me.
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One consistent habit just drags all the other good habits along with it.
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And the fourth neuroplasticity principle that I want to talk about is make your future self feel real.
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There is a psychologist, Hal Hirschfeld, who has a great book, Your Future Self.
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I highly recommend it.
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In the book, he talks a lot about his research on this topic of your future self
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and whether people actually feel connected to this concept of, you know, a future version of me.
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He had people think about their present self, their future self, 10 years from now.
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and a complete stranger
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and for a lot of people in his study the brain
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activity for the future you looked a lot more like
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when you're thinking about a stranger than about yourself
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so for most people their future you barely registers as you at all
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when we don't feel the strong connection between us in the present
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and us in the future we tend to think less about our long -term decisions We become less patient with money,
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less likely to save, less likely to act with integrity when no one is watching.
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But of course, the good part is this gap isn't fixed.
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You can always work on deepening this connection with your future self.
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When in Hal Hirschfeld's research,
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people were shown age -processed images of themselves or spent even a few minutes actually interacting with an older version of themselves,
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that gap actually closed and their decisions with it.
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They saved roughly twice as much money.
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They were more honest.
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The more your present -day choices will start lining up with what you actually want to achieve,
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with how that person would be behaving.
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And when I was reading this book, Good Habits, Bad Habits, I honestly couldn't stop thinking about the other book i just finished reading we should all be millionaires
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because there the author asks us a beautiful question how would a woman who already has a million dollars act
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and yes i understand
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that the instinct here is to think okay i'm going to
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be spending all of my money i have a million dollars
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you who i'm gonna buy the expensive thing i'm not going to worry about anything
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but the goal of the question is actually to promote a certain feeling.
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How would this woman handle a hard conversation?
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What does her day look like?
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What is she saying no to?
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And I actually have this beautiful poster on my wall.
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I've had it for years and years and years.
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It says, be the woman you wish to become.
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And I literally have it right here so that, you know, the moment I walk into my room, that is what I see.
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It helps me get closer to my future self, actually embody that feeling.
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When I think about my future self, like who I want to become, what does this person's day look like?
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Let's say for you, the answer could be something like, I stay focused on my goals.
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I don't get easily distracted or sidetracked.
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Alright, so how can you embody that person now, at least a little bit we're not talking about perfection we're
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talking about getting closer to our future self maybe by 10
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by a little bit the answer might be in the morning
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when i wake up i don't spend an hour scrolling on social media
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and that is it you're already closer to the future version of you who stays focused on the things
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that are important for you maybe you start exercising in the morning so that this becomes your big wave habit,
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your anchor habit that pulls all the other beautiful changes into your life.
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So when we think about neuroplasticity and behavioral science and mindset work that I'm genuinely obsessed with,
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none of this is about forcing yourself into a different life through pure willpower.
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I always say that the biggest thing that I'm learning from therapy, from reading all these amazing books,
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is I'm actually getting closer to me.
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I have a deeper understanding of who I am.
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The habits that you have right now, the patterns you follow, all of that was built through repetition,
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which means that you can also rebuild certain things with repetition if you want to.
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And to me, all of this knowledge is really freeing
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because it reminds me time and again that I am not a lazy person.
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I'm a human and I act in a very human way.
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So instead of fighting myself and then feeling shame that I can't be perfect, why not instead work with myself,
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not against myself, and help me feel a stronger connection to my future self.
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This way you can finally stop fighting yourself and start consistently getting closer to who you are,
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to becoming the person who just lives this life and has all of these habits.
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Yes, sometimes you get tired, you get distracted, but you trust yourself that you will always come back.
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Alright guys, so I think it's going to be it for today's video.
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I really really hope you liked it.
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If you did, don't forget to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel.
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I really appreciate it.
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Just a reminder, I'm currently working on my course, The Dopamine Reset, so if you want to be the first one to get notified when it goes live,
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you can join the waitlist in the description.
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If you're thinking about what to watch next, I highly recommend this video right here.
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Otherwise, I'll see you guys in my next video.
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Ciao!
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Speaking Goals for This Clip: Master Natural Fluency & Confidence
This video is perfect for boosting your shadow speech skills—you’ll practice mimicking natural rhythm, emphasis, and conversational flow. By shadowing the speaker’s tone and pacing, you’ll hit a key fluency milestone: sounding less “scripted” and more like a native. It’s a quick win that builds confidence in real-world conversations!
Phrase Bank: Reusable Expressions to Elevate Your Speech
- “upgrade your life” – Use this to talk about positive changes (e.g., “I’m using new habits to upgrade my life”).
- “stuck in who we are” – Describe feeling unchangeable (e.g., “I used to feel stuck in my old routines”).
- “neurons that fire together, wire together” – A catchy phrase to explain habit formation (great for discussions about learning!).
- “on autopilot” – Describe automatic behaviors (e.g., “I check my phone on autopilot every morning”).
- “familiar feels safe” – Explain why we stick to old habits (e.g., “Even bad habits stick because familiar feels safe”).
Fix Your Weak Spots: Rhythm & Emphasis in Casual Speech
The video’s conversational style helps you tackle a common challenge: natural rhythm. Notice how the speaker pauses before key points (“But here’s a very important part…”) and stresses words like “zero opinion” or “simply reinforcing.” To practice, use a shadowing site to replay short clips—repeat them aloud, matching the pace and emphasis. This trains your brain to “shadow speak” like a native, making your English sound more fluid. Pro tip: Focus on the phrase “neurons that fire together, wire together” – its rhythm is tricky but perfect for mastering stress patterns. With daily practice, you’ll turn these weak spots into strengths!
Learning English with videos like this isn’t just about vocabulary—it’s about shadowspeaks skills that make you sound confident. Start small: shadow 1 minute today, and watch your progress soar!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been learning · have been putting · has been helping |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has created · i've set · you've probably come |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is known · are triggered · are written |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | woman who already · person who just |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.