Transcripts
1. Breaking Bad Habits: My name is, and in the past 10 years, I've been on a journey of building good habits and controlling bad ones. This story is about finding balance and happiness in a world full of temptations.
2. Learn and Experiment: Through the years, I managed to build some good habits, but I also had to deal with my bad habits on a regular basis. It's a real struggle. Every time I think I got the hang of it, an old habit will return in full swing and slap me in the face. But your hour, I think it's impossible to get rid of all my bad habits. But this doesn't mean that I have to be miserable about it or that I have to obsess about breaking them. It also doesn't mean that I have to let bad habits control my life. If I manage to just control them and build a few good habits, I can have a pretty happy life. Knowledge is power, and this is the main weapon that I utilize whenever I feel like I'm losing control over my bad habits, the urges to open a bag of chips or mindlessly scroll through my newsfeed are deeply entrenched in my subconscious mind. One of my best strategies to deal with them is to learn as much as possible or a negative effects of a habit and try to proactively convince myself why this is bad for me. For example, as an attempt number 345 to limit my sugar consumption, I decided to read a lot more books on the subject. And I'm going to start with the case against sugar. Also, a while back, I had a discussion with a therapist. Then he had this very interesting theory that if you eat dessert after dinner, all the food that gets into your stomach gets fermented by the sugar, which means that by the time your body breaks it down, most of the nutrients are already gone. I'm not sure if this has any scientific ground, but I don't really care to be honest. It got me thinking and it made sense to me at the time. So that's why every time I have a good dinner or lunch, I think twice before I finish it off with a piece of chocolate. And speaking of chocolate, about eight years ago, I was a warm chocolate per day guy. I just loved anything sweet sneakers, bounty, any kind of chocolates or cookies. I needed to have at least a box of them per day. That was until I learn that sugar gives you a fast but very short bursts of energy, which are followed by actually melancholic state of your body. At that very moment in my life, I really needed every single drop of energy and I wanted to be very sustainable. This led me to discover another way of dealing with bad habits. Experiments. I ask myself what is going to happen if I don't eat any kind of sugar for a month where I have better energy or there will be no change. I didn't want to make any rash decisions. So at the end of the month out, just decided if I'm going to continue eating my favorite sweets or our reconsider my sugar consumption. As it turned out during this month, I had a lot more energy. And by the end of it, chocolate, to be honest, I didn't even taste the same way. Since then, I eat chocolate very rarely and have drastically reduced my sugar consumption even when somebody has a birthday and they offer me a chocolate bar, quite often I refuse. And yet people look at me weirdly by really don't enjoy it as I used to. And I've used this method of experimenting to control other bad habits of mind like my social media addiction. And I also used it to completely transform my sleeping habits. And it has worked for me quite well. This, of course, doesn't mean that if I see my favorite piece of cheesecake in front of me, I'm going to refuse it, but now I can enjoy it guilt free because I know that the bad habits will not take control over me. And this has led me to be much happier.
3. Stop Using Willpower: After thousands of years, our brains have evolved to look for the path of least resistance. In the 21st century. This translates into a life full of quick dopamine hits that fool us into believing that everything in life is great. The good news is that our intelligence has also evolved and we realized that not always the low hanging fruits are the best for our well-being. The bad news is that instead of using the same intelligence to deal with our bad habits, we turn to the one thing that has actually made us what we are today will power every time we want to do when a bad habit or create a good one, we want to take drastic measures. For example, from tomorrow I'm going to stop smoking or January first, I'm going to start working out twice a week, even though the previous year, the closest thing you've got to work out was a walk in the park. We make bold goals and we believe that we are going to we'll ourselves into completing them. Well, I think this is one of the worst strategies anyone can use. Willpower works just like a muscle. Yeah, you can work it out and make it stronger, but it gets depleted in everything we do every single day takes pieces of our decision-making capabilities. There are numerous studies proving this. For example, doctors tend to make bad decisions towards the end of a day. Sure, we recharge our willpower whenever we'd go to sleep. But if you're having a busy day on top of trying to get rid of a bad habit, the chances are that you are going to slip back into your whole behaviors. There is even a bigger risk. If you use all of your willpower just to control your bad habit. Chances are that during the day you're going to make a lot of bad decisions. The alternative to this brute force approach is to take the path of less resistance. In order to do this, we need to look at two specific things, timing and conditions. Instead of trying to completely transform ourselves tomorrow, why not try easing into it? For example, if you are a heavy smoker and you're smoking a pack a day, why not try to smoke half a pack a day for a few weeks after that, if you feel like it, maybe you can reduce this to 1 third of a pack a day. When the timing feels right, then maybe you can try and quit cigarettes all together. Now, what do I mean by the timing is right? Sometimes we all have very stressful periods in our lives that might be a very busy schedule at work or you're having troubles at home. It happens to all of us. And if on top of this you are trying to quit smoking, you're pretty much setting yourself up for failure. However, if you pick the time right, when you have a calmer period in your office and maybe you are planning or two-week holiday with your family. Well, thou will make the transition much easier and you're much more willing to succeed. I've used this strategy when I was trying to put under control my social media habits and actually even replace them with a good habit of reading books. And even this year I'm trying to read a book a week. And this didn't come from more Last year. I was reading about two books every month. And this year probably we're going to have a lot less social interactions in instead of wasting my free time and social media, I want to invest in reading books. If I try to change this a few years back when I actually wasn't in love with reading and I was doing like a few books per year. And I was crazy about going out with friends and meeting new people. I don't think I would have ever achieved at. Another extremely important thing to consider are the conditions under which we are trying to change a habit. For example, every single day, the first and the last thing that I see is my phone screen. If I keep charging it next to my bed, there is no amount of willpower that will keep me away from picking it up in the morning. That's why I started putting it a little bit further away from my bed in order to limit my screen time. At some point when I feel that I'm ready and the timing is right, I'm going to leave my phone away in a completely different room. And instead of it, I'm going to leave a book on my mat stands for that. This is the first and the last thing that I pick up every single day. This rule applies for absolutely any kind of habit that you want to change. For example, if I want to limit my junk food consumption, I'm not keeping my chips in the freezer. By the way, this is a massive life hack. Keeping the chips in the freezer makes it extra crunch. And if I want to reduce my screen time further, I'm going to turn off all kinds of notifications on my phone. Adjusting your environment to support you when you're trying to break a bad habit will put you on the path of less resistance so that when you're ready and when the timing is right, you're ready to let go of it. Mommy. And now really smoking. This is just for the video.
4. Build Fun Habits: The strongest argument I always have against any kind of changes in my behavior is very simple. I just enjoy doing it. I really loved my tips or chocolate. I really love watching my TV series and I really enjoy sleeping late. While these are all valid points. I think that changing our behavior doesn't always have to mean that you're going to replace it with something that you don't enjoy. Arrow, as I mentioned in episode 1 of this series, are all really think you can ever get rid of a habit, any kind of habit. That's why you just simply can find a replacement activity that maybe it will give you even more satisfaction and excitement than the one that you have right now. Let me show you a specific example by using the ultimate habit analyzer. I know it's a terrible title, but just bear with me. You need to ask yourself three major questions. And the first one is quite obvious. What is the habit or a behavior that you want to change it. In my case, I used to eat meat for every single meal like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I wish to change this by introducing some more plant-based meals. The second question is how I'm planning to change this? And in my case, I wanted to replace some of my meat meals with salads. And believe me, at that time, it sounded like Mission Impossible to me because I'm a super picky eater and I really hate a lot of things that go into solids like, for example, olives, onions, tomatoes, and bunch of other stuff. So I thought it's going to be a struggle. The third question is really where the magic happens, what kind of activity I can replace my current behavior that it's actually fun and I really enjoyed doing. And for me, first of all, it all start with listing all the things that I really enjoy eating and make sense to be an assault. So chickpeas, avocados, different kind of fruits, nuts, vinegar dressings. Nowadays, I really enjoy picking all the products and just trying to mix them up and see what kind of Assad our prepare for myself. But even before that, I started having favorite places for thoughts the same way, I have a favorite pizza place or a burger place. I had a favorite place for Assad. And I have exactly the same excitement at UW today. I'm going to go to my sidebar. And this metal has really transformed the way I think about building and breaking bad habits, especially when it comes to eating. You know how you have these urges that you really want to eat something. I really think that I would never be able to get rid of these urges, but nowadays, I don't really have to worry about this. Yeah, I really love my cookies and my chips, but I really also love rho naught, all kinds of nuts. And I will have exactly the same pleasure when I'm eating, for example, Brazil nuts and when I'm eating chips. So instead of eating all the chips sometimes, yeah, I eat nuts and I really enjoy it. I know it's much healthier for me. However, sometimes I've been in a situation that I don't know that I'm dealing with a bad habit, for example, for the longest time ever. I used to pride myself with the fact that I don't really own a TV. Thus, I'm not watching any television. At the same time. I was watching all kinds of TV series and movies, all my laptop, which is basically exactly the same, but I never consider this to be a problem. That was until I started my YouTube channel. I was really passionate about it in the beginning. And I really wanted to give my all to it, which meant to get rid of all kinds of unnecessary things. And the first one to go was to watch TV series every single evening. During the process of building this YouTube channel, I became a lot more disciplined. I was very cautious with my time management. I started creating a lot of to-do list, all other kinds of things that are related to building good habits. But in the process, I never felt like this is something tedious or unpleasant. Actually quite the opposite. This really sparked my interest for learning. And I think this is one of the best ways to get rid of any kind of bad behavior, even if you don't know that it's there, we all have different interests that I'm pretty sure that on top of watching movies, you really enjoyed doing a lot of other things. You just have to dedicate some time developing these passions. And I'm pretty sure that along this period of time, you're going to develop a lot more healthy habits and you actually have a lot more fun in the process. Someday. Maybe I'll quit doing videos. I will not enjoy it anymore, but now I have the template for myself that I won't let bad habits settle in our Chase. My next question and I'll learn more things from it. And I think this is really the key for building a better life and a happier life. And at the same time also get rid of bad habits.
5. Gamify Your Habits: If you have ever played any kind of video games, you know how addictive there. It's like there's the higher power that takes control over you and keeps you stuck in four of the monitor with total disregard for sleep, food, or any other basic human needs. Addictive is a built-in feature of every single video game. The creators want put this on the cover, but their teams responsible for designing features that will not only keep you engaged while playing, but will make your come back again and again. In the past 10 years, this concept has built over to many different areas of our lives. The brightest example of this are social platforms. They have sophisticated algorithms that will keep scrolling, unfortunately, not always with the best intentions in mind. This whole process is called gamification, and in simple words, means giving everyday activities, game-like design, which has the ultimate goal of delivering better results for the creators. However, it's not all bad news. Many companies nowadays use gamification to make sure that their employees are more engaged and that they have overall better job satisfaction. Also, some school systems like in Finland, make sure that the learning process is just like playing a game. You can also use gamification to change your old behaviors. Now, of course, if you have absolutely no desire or motivation to change, gamification won't really help you. But if you have already started the process and you're facing the first obstacles, I think that these principles can really help you to get over this first obstacle. There are a number of ways that you can apply gamification in pretty much every single area of your life if you really want to get creative, I suggest reading the book from Yochai's chow on the subject. But now in this video, I just want to share with you a few examples that you can apply right away. If you're struggling to get out of bed early, get an alarm clock app that charges you cash every time you hit the snooze button. Pro tip, choose a map that donates the monitor caused that you don't believe in by classes or seminars related to her habits. The more expensive the bearer. Higher price doesn't always guarantee you higher-quality. But it most definitely motivates you to not let this molecule to waste. Place a bet with a friend. Last year me and my best friend had a bed at he's going to lose 30 pounds within the next six months. Well, he lost the bet, but he's still off like 20 pounds and he continues to work out and chase. Here's go. And I'm extremely proud of him for this. Find an accountability partner. You don't have to bet with a friend, but you can still convince people around you to keep you accountable for your goals. Simply state openly what your goal is and ask them to check up on your every once in awhile, the more people you have as accountability partners, the better. Pride is something important for us and we wouldn't want to disappoint these people. Make your habit as pleasurable as possible. The same way you will buy the fastest computer for the newest game you want to play by new workout shoes, some motivational slogan t-shirts, a pair of headphones that you can blast your favorite tunes on and find out which is the newest and best equipped gym close to you. Probably this will be the place with the most beautiful guys and girls, which you can awkwardly stare while working out, which will be an extra bonus. Use any kind of gadgets or apps that show you a lot of statistics. For example, my meditation app shows me what is my current daily streak. And probably this was the biggest reason why I stuck to a meditation habit. And this little workout wristband has always give me some extra push of motivation Whenever I'm going for a run and I'm already tired, but I'm not finished with my goal for the day.
Zlatin Georgiev, Crypto Coach and Analyst
