3008: A Brief Guide to Quitting a Bad Habit by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits on Motivation and Self-Awareness

[00:00:01] Wenn jemand Charles und Melanie gesagt hätte, dass sie nach ihrem Tinder-Match gemeinsam einen Channel mit crazy Aufgaben starten, also wirklich crazy, fünf Tage auf einer einsamen Insel verbringen, eine Zipline an einem Gurt runterrasen, eine Million Views knacken, eine Wand mit Saugnöpfen hochklettern und Falschirm springen in Ägypten? Das hätten die beiden niemals geglaubt. Aber das ist das Ding mit Tinder. Es führt dich an Orte, die du nie erwartet hättest. Wohin es dich auch führt. It starts with a swipe. Tinder.

[00:00:29] Kennt ihr auch diesen einen Freund, der morgens einfach so ruckzuck aus dem Bett und danach aus dem Grinsen gar nicht mehr rauskommt? Der sogar noch vor dem ersten Kaffee unverschämt gut gelaunt ist und mit der Morgensonne um die Wette strahlt? Furchtbar. Ekelhaft. Wie kann man nur so... Ausgeruht sein? Ganz einfach. Trainiere deinen Schlaf und werde auch du zum Morgenmenschen. Mit der Galaxy Watch 7 oder dem Galaxy Ring und der Samsung Health App.

[00:00:55] This is Optimal Health Daily. A Brief Guide to Quitting a Bad Habit by Leo Babauta of zenhabits.net. And I'm Dr. Neil, your host and narrator. Hey there, happy Monday. Thank you so much for being here. And welcome back to a new week of Optimal Health Daily. This is where I read to you from some of the best health and fitness blogs on the web. Kind of like an ongoing audiobook. Alright, and with that, let's get right to today's post as we optimize your life.

[00:01:27] A Brief Guide to Quitting a Bad Habit by Leo Babauta of zenhabits.net. There aren't many of us who don't have some bad habit we'd like to quit. Smoking, sweets, shopping, nail biting, excessive checking of phones or social media, other distractions and so on. The problem is that when faced with past evidence of failure after failure when we've tried to quit before,

[00:01:53] we think we don't have the willpower. We don't think we can quit, so we don't even try. Or if we do try, we give ourselves an out and don't fully commit ourselves. Let me tell you this. Quitting a bad habit takes everything you've got. It's hard, but doable, if you put your entire being into it. If you're not good at changing habits, I actually suggest you just focus on creating one new good habit.

[00:02:22] But if you're ready to finally quit something, here's a short guide to doing just that. 10 Steps. Just as good as the 12-step folks. You don't actually need to follow every single one of these steps to quit a habit, but the more of them you do, the higher your chances. I recommend all of them, if you want to be all in. 1. Have a big motivation. Lots of times, people quit things because it sounds nice.

[00:02:51] Oh, it would be nice to quit alcohol, but that's a weak motivation. What you really want is strong motivation. I quit smoking because I knew it was killing me, and I knew my kids would smoke as adults if I didn't quit. Know your why and connect with it throughout your quit. Write it down at the top of a document called your quit plan. 2. Make a big commitment. Now that you know your motivation, be fully committed. A common mistake is to say,

[00:03:21] I'll do this today, but then letting yourself off the hook when the urges get strong. Instead, tell everyone about it. Ask for their help. Give them regular updates and be accountable. Have a support partner you can call on when you need help. Ask people not to let you off the hook. Be all in. 3. Be aware of your triggers. What events trigger your bad habit? The bad habit doesn't just happen, but is often triggered by something else.

[00:03:51] You smoke when other people smoke, or you shop when you're stressed out, or you eat junk food whenever you're bored, or you check your social media when you feel the need to fill space in your day. Watch yourself for a few days and notice what triggers your habit. Make a list of triggers on your quit plan, and then develop an awareness of when those triggers happen. 4. Know what need the habit is meeting. We have bad habits for a reason. They meet some kind of need.

[00:04:19] For every trigger you wrote down, look at what need the habit might be meeting in that case. The habit might be helping you cope with stress. For some of the other triggers, it might help you to socialize, or cope with sadness, boredom, loneliness, feeling bad about yourself, being sick, dealing with a crisis, needing a break, or treat, or comfort. Write these needs down on your quit plan, and think of other ways you might cope with them.

[00:04:47] 5. Have a replacement habit for each trigger. So, what will you do when you face the trigger of stress? You can't just not do your old habit. It will leave an unfilled need, a hole that you will fill in with your old bad habit, if you don't meet the need somehow. So, have a good habit to do when you get stressed, or when someone gets angry at you, and so on. Make a list of all your triggers on your quit plan, with a new habit for each one.

[00:05:15] One new, good habit can serve multiple triggers if you like. 6. Watch the urges and delay. You will get urges to do your bad habit when the triggers happen. These urges are dangerous if you just act on them without thinking. Learn to recognize them as they happen, and just sit there. Watch the urge rise and get stronger, and then fall. Delay yourself if you really want to act on the urge. Breathe. Drink some water.

[00:05:44] Call someone for help. Go for a walk. Get out of the situation. And then the urge will go away if you just delay. 7. Do the new habit each time the trigger happens. This will take a lot of conscious effort. Be very aware of when the trigger happens, and very aware of doing the new habit instead of the old automatic one. If you mess up, forgive yourself. But you need to be very conscious of being consistent here,

[00:06:12] so the new habit will start to become automatic. This is one reason it's difficult to start with bad habits. If there are multiple triggers that happen randomly throughout the day, it means you need to be conscious of your habit change all day, every day, for weeks or more. 8. Be aware of your thinking. We justify bad habits with thinking. You have to watch your thoughts and realize when you're making excuses for doing your old bad habit, or when you start feeling like giving up

[00:06:42] instead of sticking to your change. 9. Quit gradually. Until recently, I was a fan of the quit cold turkey philosophy, but now I believe you can quit gradually. That means cut back from 20 cigarettes to 15, then 10, then 5, then 0. If you do this a week at a time, it won't seem so difficult, and you might have a better chance of succeeding. 10. Learn from mistakes.

[00:07:12] We all mess up sometimes. If you do, be forgiving, and don't let one mistake derail you. See what happened, accept it, and figure out a better plan for next time. Write this on your quit plan. Your plan will get better and better as you continually improve it. In this way, mistakes are helping you improve the method. I'm not saying this is an easy method, but many people have failed because they ignored the ideas here. Don't be one of them.

[00:07:40] Put yourself all into this effort, find your motivation, and replace your habit with a better habit for each trigger. You got this. You just listened to the post titled A Brief Guide to Quitting a Bad Habit by Leo Babauta of zenhabits.net, and I'll be right back with my commentary. Oikos presents 15 seconds of strength. Here we go. Steve's got a trunk full of groceries and no one to help him. Oh, that's tough, Jim. Looks like a five-trip load at least.

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[00:09:38] for stopping those bad habits. Whenever you hear a list of suggestions like these, don't try and tackle them all at once. You may need to work all of the steps, but the best place to start is pick one or two suggestions that made you stop and think, hey, that one's not so bad. I could do that. Now, if I had to prioritize from this list the suggestions that researchers have found to be the most helpful, I would say it's to make that quit plan that Leo recommended and write that plan down.

[00:10:08] And don't let mistakes or lapses stop you on your path. These mistakes will happen. It doesn't mean you should stop and give up. Remember, you're human. Mistakes will be made. Have patience with yourself. After all, think about it this way. How long did it take for those not so great habits to form in the first place? They didn't happen overnight, right? So we shouldn't expect the bad habit to break overnight either. So again, dedicate yourself to this effort

[00:10:38] and give yourself patience because this process will take time. All right, that'll do it for another edition of Optimal Health Daily. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a great rest of your day and I'll see you back here tomorrow with another post and where your optimal life awaits. I believe that you have a 20-year-old who is in the next 30s. .