The road to vitality and self-attainment is paved with a lot of surrender. Very often, it takes the form of bad habits.
And though this post is part of series on identifying and following your higher purpose, these strategies can be useful for anyone interested in ridding themselves of bad habits or adopting beneficial ones.
There are two ways to go about it: You can use your desire for self-actualization as motivation for breaking bad habits, or instead, first change the behavioral patterns that just don’t sit right with you, and your ideal self will be revealed when there’s less afflictions occupying you mental space. Regardless, it’s imperative to eliminate what is deterring your presence in the here and now.
Anchoring with Linchpin Habits
You can use linchpin habits to strengthen the likelihood you will take on good habits or cut out negative ones, and create entire new, beneficial routines. These actions serve as a foundational habit on which many others are built.
Linchpin habits are habits that when practiced (or dismissed), make others easier to engage in or in the case of bad habits, avoid—the type of habit that has a ripple effect on other forms of conduct.
For the sake of this topic, let’s use vitality as an example. In order to be fully lucid, engaged, adaptive and jovial during the day, I want to ensure I wake up well-rested. I enjoy getting eight-plus hours of quality sleep, mainly because of how I think and feel the following day.
It also provides the benefit of the ability to be opportunistic in whatever situation may arise. As you also may have experienced, I feel like I can take on the world and whatever circumstances life may throw at me when I’m well-rested, and thus fully adaptable.
The intention of being vital in waking life means I have better impulse control over nighttime behaviors that prevent optimal shut-eye. I’ve touched on this before, but these include eating a late dinner (especially hard-to-digest animal protein), ingesting caffeine, blue light exposure, and other forms of stimulation – like watching sports or tv – during the several hours before laying down for bed—basically, any activity that will inhibit melatonin production (the sleep hormone).
If I were still a drinker, alcohol consumption would absolutely be included here, because in additional to have a stimulating effect on yours truly, it dramatically reduces sleep quality for various stages of sleep.
Instead, I strive for things that will help me wind down, and create a smooth transition into quality sleep—serotonin and melatonin-evoking activities. These include self-massage, reading (on good, old-fashioned paper) and laughing.
Another example of a linchpin habit is exercising first thing in the morning, or at least during the early hours of the day. By starting yourself off on the right foot, chances are you will be more likely to follow a pattern of subsequent healthy or productive habits throughout the day—this same principle applies to making your bed in the morning.
However, there is one caveat I’d like to bring up here: rationalization.
Using Linchpin Habits to Rationalize Poor Lifestyle Choices
Like I said, a linchpin habit is one that makes all others downstream from it easier. For most people, the momentous habit will make it easier to want to engage in positive behaviors. But for some, it may be used to rationalize detrimental habits.
I used the example of exercise earlier, which may be the primary habit used to justify poor conduct—for example, working out as justification for drinking. Or worse, using your intention to drink as rationale to not overeat, so you don’t delay the alcohol’s absorption in your stomach—a practice I’ve been guilty of in the past.
Rationalization is a slippery slope, and soon you may not even need to partake in a linchpin habit in order to convince yourself self-indulgence is justified.
If there were an award for world’s best rationalizer, my former self would definitely be in the running.
Let’s look to my past for a few examples:
I remember thinking, “I should probably have a drink because I’m out of clean forks and I want to fill up the dishwasher so I can run it soon.” Or, “We’re having burgers and brats tonight… and how can you enjoy a burger without a beer to accompany it?”
When I’d debate whether I should smoke another cigarette 20 minutes after I just had one, I’ll rationalize it by thinking, “Well, the sun’s out. Better seize that vitamin D opportunity while it’s there for the taking.”
Or after smoking, “Maybe I should have some dark chocolate for the antioxidants and circulation boosts in order to compensate.“
Or maybe, “I did have that second dessert tonight, maybe I should jerk off before bed just to burn some calories.”
“The colder months are just around the corner, I should probably try to bulk up so that I’m not running the furnace all winter.”
While this rationalization can have a snowball effect on poor conduct, by bringing your mind back to your original intention, you can get yourself back on track.
You can also use this principle in reverse, to your benefit. For example, “Well, I better not jack off because I have to work today and don’t want to have too much B.O.”
When you’ve begun building momentum towards a particular goal or identity, it becomes easier to avoid engaging in sabotaging behaviors that will stray you off course. The accomplishment you feel – no matter how small – or guilt when you relapse, can be a powerful motivator against poor conduct.
Staying Mindful of Your Original Intention
Wanting to function at the optimal level in my various pursuits prevented me from engaging in self-sabotaging behavior—as long as I kept that intention in mind.
For example, when I reflected on my long-term vision, and the importance of retaining my voice in realizing it , I was able to refrain from smoking and drank plenty of water, and obviously, objective situational awareness – a key element of my craft – can go out the window with even just one drink, not to mention the brain fog that comes the day after. So I tended towards not drinking, even though it certainly helped my loosen up when recording (but didn’t help my abilities).
With all credit to James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, one question I’ve found beneficial to ask yourself when confronted with lifestyle choices is, “What would a _______ type of person do?” in reference to the character quality you’re trying to cultivate.
By using this context to make a decision, the best course of action for you typically become quite clear.
You could also put it into statement form, like “I’m the type of person who [finishes what they start].
If you find it difficult to use these methods, you can also use a different practice: habit-sequencing to help free yourself of fixations, impulses, or bad habits you’re intent on removing—a technique know as replacement behaviors.
Replacement Behaviors
A replacement behavior is when you undertake a positive habit or behavior immediately following the recognition you indulged in a bad habit, in order to counteract the negative action or thought’s influence on the brain and reinforcement of that tendency.
Default behaviors rely on a set pattern of neuron firings. I’ll try to spare you the scientific jargon behind the mechanism, but essentially what you are doing by applying replacement behaviors is breaking the firing sequence of different brain neurons associated with a particular detrimental behavior.
By engaging in a replacement behavior, you leverage the fact the neurons culpable for producing the bad habit were just active, and start to initiate other neurons that can somewhat dismantle the firing pattern linked to the unfavorable tendency.
Instead of pinpointing your mental state or the occurrences that led to or triggered the adverse habit – which is proven effective but extremely tough to accomplish – you must apply your awareness in the period immediately following it, which the majority of people are conscious of—that moment of disbelief and disappointment.
This instant immediately after the unfavorable habit’s execution is your chance to slip in a different type of behavior—anything that’s out of sync with the unwelcome habit.
In a closed loop system – one action, one set of neural firings – leads to another, then another, triggering this domino effect of complimentary, associated behaviors. But, by changing the number of features (actions) in that loop, it disrupts its closed circuitry, and provides an open loop with a better opportunity to intervene.
This method creates the opportunity to reconfigure neural connections linked to unfavorable habits in a fairly effortless way, making the brain malleable enough to begin replacing them with more favorable ones.
By applying a replacement behavior, you begin to link the regrettable habit to the implementation of this other positive behavior. Neuroscientific research suggests this practice seems to create enough of a cognitive mismatch in the brain that it becomes easier to recognize when you’re heading toward to bad habit.
And so, when you use this technique, it removes the need to be conscious of your thoughts, impulses, and behavior immediately prior to the bad habit—something that’s very difficult to do.
However, it can be accomplished by watching your awareness, an ability developed through a dedicated, habitual mindfulness practice—mindful breathing, or walking.
Putting it Into Practice
There are certainly other techniques you can use, but these two strategies I’ve found to be the most effective and effortless.
It really helps to just consider your soul purpose (if you’ve already discovered it), and reflect on if your habits are an embodiment of that, or instead are deterring you from aligning with or reaching it.
Stay dilligent out there!
– CC
Conscious Consumption 