Episode 2: Breaking Up With Your Bad Habits

Wake up and Break up – learn how to wake up to your reality and break the cycle you’re stuck in

Intro

Today’s episode is all about understanding how you can wake up to your current reality, what happens when you do so, and how it inadvertently allows you to move forward and to stop repeating the same cycles that are not serving you well. Welcome to how to twenty something; it’s time to talk about how to break up with your bad habits

Body

I do want to begin this episode with talking about how endless cycles can come from a couple of different places; but there are two most common forms that I’m going to discuss right now

The first one would be when you feel like you’re running on autopilot during your week – mindlessly moving from one thing to the next and before you know it the day’s over only for you to repeat it all again; please note this is different than having a routine, but that’s another episode for another time

The second one is if you are experiencing the same series of events and outcomes in your life and might be the main reason you’re listening to me talk right now, since you’re sick of the cycle you’re stuck in

I feel as though this particular cycle can be further broken down into two different types of habits; short term as in how you’re behaving on a day to day aspect and long term that are more goal oriented and spread out over time

It’s also important to note that you are the common denominator of all the problems you’re experiencing, and therefore play a major role in what’s going on and a major role in how to change things up and this is the type of endless cycle, both on a day by day aspect and on a more stretched out aspect, that we will be primarily focusing on today 

I am going to preface this episode by saying this topic of conversation does take work, this is not something you can just wing and hope it’s get better over time, it’s something that you need to actively work on in order for it to improve

I said it at the end of episode one that this is something you’ll hear me say a lot; and it’s that you cannot change your situation without improving your level of awareness – it’s also why it’s the very first pillar in my signature own your life system; which is the journey I take my clients through in regards to their goals and current reality

The bright side is this is something you can do on your own and I’m not here to gate keep any information so of course i’m going to explain just how you can increase your awareness and start paying attention to patterns so that you can work to disrupt them

Now, in order to wake up to your current reality and become aware of what’s going on in the areas of your life you’re looking to improve you’ll need to make lists, track, journal, or pretty much do any form of written documentation so you have something to refer back to and see where things are not working out in your favor and then start to make changes accordingly

Some version of tracking can be applied to multiple different areas depending on what your focus of change is

First, you’ll need to take a step back and evaluate what experiences are you not loving, what’s within your control, and what outcome you are looking for so you can begin searching for the changes that need to be made 

This is where journaling can be a very powerful tool – otherwise you might forget about certain patterns

Once you’ve done that, then you can start the tracking process to build your awareness and collect the information you need

Remember how in episode 1 I told you to be your own scientist, get curious and question everything? Hint: if you haven’t listened to that episode yet, definitely go do so, because this week is all about collecting data on yourself – applying the concept of not being so hard on yourself with the thought process that you are simply collecting the information you need to then be able to make improvements

So, playing off of that concept, rather than harshly criticizing yourself for being caught in the same loop, thank yourself for doing your best and search for the positive intention behind your habits; knowing that it’s time to change things up

You see, your brain has one goal in mind, to keep you alive, and part of that means staying where things are comfortable, even if those things are holding you back from reaching your full potential

Your habits protect you, they’re familiar, they create stability in the moment, and some serve as instant gratification, whereas change is scary and your brain doesn’t understand why you would want to change something since what you’ve been doing has been successfully keeping you alive so far

Change brings this unfamiliarity to a situation even though you know the new habit you’re working to develop will improve your life and not kill you, your brain is still going to try to stop you because it’s new

So, remind yourself that this is something new, it’s okay to be scared, and you’re not going to die 

But before we even dive into the changes to be made, let’s talk about some familiar versions and scenarios of tracking

I would say the most common known versions are probably in regards to food with calories and/or macros – so we’ll start there

If you want to change your appearance whether that’s lose weight, build muscle, or some other version of body recomposition, you have to know where you’re maintenance calories are and then make adjustments from there

Finding your maintenance would mean consistently see how many calories you are eating throughout the entire week, which is weighing and measuring everything you’re eating to get an idea of where you are maintaining your current weight

Then dropping calories if you want to lose weight, and adding calories if you want to reverse diet or bulk up – it’s not actually that simple but don’t worry I’ll do an entire episode on how you can start your body recomp journey in the future as this is not the main topic of this episode

Another example would be If you’re bad with time, then tracking what you’re doing with your time helps you be more aware of your relationship with it; this can even appear in the form of setting alarms so you can make sure you’re on schedule

Like if you’re always the friend that’s late to something or not true to your time word and you want to fix that about yourself so you’re more reliable, then you need to understand how you plan for the time it takes you to get ready, travel time, and parking time – then add them all together so you can reverse engineer what time you need to start getting ready the next time

This is definitely a Type A personality characteristic and I for one am Type A, but it is easily applicable if you are looking to improve your punctuality! Like, if someone says we’re meeting somewhere at 6:15 then I’m immediately thinking ok if it’s 20 min away and I know the parking situation then I need to leave by 5:50 to account for traffic; it takes me 30 minutes to get ready which includes finding and refinding an outfit, I need to make sure that I start getting ready by 5:20 the latest

If this was in regards to your finances and you find yourself living from paycheck to paycheck and you don’t particularly enjoy living that way then you need to track your finances to see if you’re living above or below your means and where you tend to spend your money outside of monthly bills; I know most of you listening are drastically underpaid as wages haven’t adjusted properly for cost of living, so put that thought aside and think about how often you’re eating out, what you spend on clothes, drinks, and ubers

I have a budget sheet that breaks down all of my bills and income as well as anything miscellaneous so I know on average how much I spend every month

In terms of real life scenarios, let’s say you want to change the outcomes of your nights out – I once had a client come to me after he had experienced his third bar fight in a very short amount of time and was ready to change his behavior; he knew the fights came from blacking out when he mixed both drugs and alcohol in the same night, so we had his starting point of awareness, which every one of my clients have that first step in their awareness that something isn’t right in their life they just don’t know the direction to take to begin making changes and that’s where I come in and build on that conscientiousness

Anyways, finding that commonality in his bad nights was crucial to begin making changes, so then it became a matter of making note of the people he’s with, the alcohol he’s drinking or mixing, and understanding why he was drinking and doing drugs

And slowly changing certain aspects – we’re going to go back to being a scientist again as this is so important when you want to make changes in your life – you need you constant variables and only one independent variable at a time

So first it was let’s try a normal night out without drugs

Then it was let’s see how you feel when you stick to one type of alcohol or eat a meal before you go out

Then try going out with different people and see if it was external influences that triggered you to get all riled up

It’s like if you were to throw 10 darts at a board all at once and one of them hits the bullseye, how do you know which one in particular hit the bullseye for you to repeat that throw again – it’s impossible to articulate which was the one dart

Many times this is what happens when you start on your own journey and you’re filled with motivation so you begin doing everything at once, but you don’t know which was the one thing that was supporting you the best; it’s why I preach a one step at a time approach in everything you’re doing

This also helps to build your momentum, develop a better relationship with yourself and easily be able to trace back what was the one thing that made the most difference that you can rely on even when all of your motivation is gone

It also prevents burnout and overwhelm

Another example would be if let’s say you’re constantly attracting toxic relationships into your life, step 1 would be to realize that there’s something in common about all of the people you’ve been with

Step 2 would be to start recognizing where did you meet these people, what were each of their toxic traits, what did you allow yourself to put up with

Essentially pulling out all of the common characteristics and how they relate back to you – the tracking part comes from writing it all down on a piece of paper 

Now you can start to recognize the red flags quicker and set boundaries with yourself on what you’re willing to accept what you’re not

You want to recognize the patterns that are occurring in whatever area in your life that isn’t going so well by documenting different instances – not making a mental note, but actually putting a pen to paper and writing it all down whenever it appears

We all know history repeats itself, and guess what? That also applies to your life unless you learn from your mistakes or undesirable outcomes, which comes from being aware of what’s going on in the decisions you’re making and the actions you’re taking

ONE THING THAT MAKES ME SO MAD AND GET ALL RILED UP IS WATCHING PEOPLE IN MY LIFE REPEAT THE SAME CYCLES OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS WILL AND DO COMPOUND ON THEMSELVES

So please of all the messages I am giving you let this one really sink in, of when you don’t look your habits, cycles, and problems straight in the eyes you will only make your life harder as a result and your relationship to yourself and those in your life will suffer 

A lot of times it’s easier to start with the positive patterns in your life like recognizing the people or the food or the experiences that make you feel good and pulling out those commonalities

Like asking yourself what activities make you feel alive? For me I love hiking, playing sports, hanging outside with friends and having good conversations, working out on the rooftop of my gym, and going for a walk – I’m a very active person and being outside is something all of these activities have in common

Basically I feel alive when i’m in the sun and getting fresh air

You’ll quickly come to realize how cyclical life can be so it all depends on if you want the outcomes to be an upgraded version of you or if you’re staying where you’re at and repeating scenario after scenario; like a same you different day kind of situation

One of my favorite things to do with myself and with my clients is if we’re going through a bit of rough patch, I like to reflect back to a past rough patch and remind myself how it all worked out in the end, most of the time it was even better than expected

My favorite quote that exemplifies this is everything works out in the end and if it’s not working out, then it’s not the end

For example, as I’m creating this episode I’m in the middle of shifting my community. I realized some of the people I considered to be my inner circle of friends aren’t showing up in that way anymore and while it’s tough to go through, this is not the first time something like this has happened. The last time it happened I was in my Junior Fall of college and I recognized what was going on, knew my own worth and moved on to surrounding myself with people I had lost contact with since Freshman year

I ended up meeting more amazing people, who are mostly still in my life to this day and that I hold dear to my heart

So think about a more broad cycle you’ve been in; not necessarily a habit loop, but a situation that has become all too familiar and consider if it lead you down a better path, did you grow from it, or did it show up again as a lesson needing to be learned

Reflect as to whether you could have handled this scenario better and learn from that experience so that you can apply it next time something similar shows up

With my community situation I reflected that the way I handled my emotions and communication was exactly how I would’ve coached a client through it, and it’s something that I recognize I would have handled much differently a year ago, even six months ago

But I’m learning through experiences and through books that I read and then go and apply the knowledge to my real world situations

Hopefully now you can see how tracking, journaling, and note taking are useful in bringing in your awareness to your habits, but we’re going to shift gears into what to do with the information you’re collecting

Habits usually stem from some kind of cue or trigger and are the result of a soothing or numbing process that can be dealt with in healthy ways and ways that aren’t so healthy

Your habits are generated by a reward system in your brain, so you’re going to gravitate towards the things that make you feel good and release some dopamine rather than what’s best for you

For instance, it’s much more fun to buy a cute, new outfit than to save your money 

It’s much easier to numb out or escape your problems with drugs, alcohol, or food than facing them head on and processing what’s happening in your life or to even switch those escapes with going for a walk, taking a bath, or mediation 

I’m not saying switching your rewards is going to be easy, but it definitely is possible

It’s going to take some discipline at first but once you do it a few times and reap the more long term benefits of your decisions you can then remind yourself of the outcomes you loved based on the better decisions you made

Sometimes, if the delayed gratification is too difficult for you right now, then it comes down to creating a barrier of entry to prevent you from indulging in your more toxic habits; this is where breaking your short term habits become applicable 

A financial one could be putting a certain amount of money on a visa gift card and only taking that card out with you

If you find yourself on your phone late at night and you know that it’s affecting your sleep, then it becomes a matter of charging your phone across the room or even in a different room entirely

I charge my phone in the kitchen because I developed a really bad habit of checking it until I was about to go to sleep and playing on it first thing in the morning

I needed to create an out of sight out of mind approach so I can have more peaceful sleep and a more pleasant start to my day

Tracking with your phone can come from looking at your screen time with the goal to reduce it by 30 minutes a day for one week then an hour until you’re satisfied with the habit and relationship/addiction you’ve developed with your phone

A food one would be not buying unhealthy foods at the store – it’s not saying you can’t have a bag of chips or candy or ice cream, but it’s making it more difficult for you to access it when you have the cravings as it’s no longer a few steps to the kitchen away, but a whole drive to the store process

I listen to a fitness podcast called mindpump and the guys talk about this a lot when they are going on a cut or getting more serious in their training and that’s if you want the chips or candy or ice cream then you’ll need to get dressed, put on shoes, and drive to the store and pick up a single serving

Just like charging your phone elsewhere, this creates moments of pause that allow you to think about how worth it that piece of junk food is, if you’re actually hungry or bored, or if there’s something else at home you can eat, that’s probably a better choice for you

You want to make your bad habit not as accessible to you so you have to jump through extra hoops to get to it and more times than not you realize the hoop jumping isn’t worth it, and sometimes it is!

When you break your habit loops you’ll quickly see your quality of life improve, your relationship to yourself and others get better, and the outcomes you’re generating will trend more positively  

You’ll be able to move forward and achieve your goals because you’ve broken the cycle you were previously stuck in

You’ll find that you’re in a better mood, you have more energy, you feel like you’re getting your shit together, and depending on the habit maybe you start to look better, then your outlook in your life will improve, you’ll surround yourself with better, healthier people, and you’ve discovered this ripple effect that you’ve created because you decided it was time to break the cycle you were previously stuck in

When you change your habits, you change your life and everything becomes possible for you to achieve and overcome

But you have to put in the work and do some form of tracking in order to bring it to the top of your mind and make a conscious effort to figure out the pattern that is no longer serving you

Anything you bring an awareness to will improve – without even creating a barrier of entry for the worse habit or reward for the better habit; yes those definitely will enhance the improvement and results you are after, but the awareness factor alone will get the ball rolling

So start there, start with tracking or note taking or journaling for a week straight, get the pen to paper, and review the findings

Start with figuring out what you can do even on your worst day, how can you show up for yourself even when you have zero motivation and discipline to do so; and then watch your 1% compound on itself until it becomes naturally ingrained in your life

Charging my phone in the kitchen was tough at first and I only did it monday through friday, then I got to a point where it actually made me more anxious to have it next to me while I slept because I got so used to peacefully going to bed without answering any messages; now it’s so normal for me to not feel the need to check it once I go in my room for the night

It’s a matter of starting somewhere and remember, we’re collecting information and data to see the common patterns and then you get to choose what patterns you want to work on to disrupt

But you have to wake up to your current reality in order to break up with your habits that you know are not good for you

You and everyone around you will benefit as a result

If this is a conversation you would like to have with me one on one, please email me or if you want another resource to help you build your healthy habits and break your bad ones, then atomic habits is a great book to read and I’ll link my email and the book in the show notes for you to immediately buy it

But, here’s the thing, you can do all the book reading and podcast listening you want, it’s what you do with the information you’re digesting that matters and I just gave you a hell of a lot of actions you can begin taking within the context of your life

And with that, thank you for listening to another episode of How To Twenty Something, you’re amazing for wanting to know how to improve your life and break your bad habits

And let me know what happens when you start your own version of tracking! Remember, you can always email me at coach.jessdiamond@gmail.com and if you have a story that the world needs to hear that you believe could help someone else within the context of their lives, then please contact me so I can bring you on as a guest!

I hope you have an amazing week and I’ll be in your headphones again on Monday! Don’t forget to hit subscribe so you’re notified the second the next episode gets dropped