Breaking Bad Habits is Uncomfortable. Not Impossible
We’re in the age of convenience.
These days, there’s an app for everything. It seems to be a never-ending quest by all of us to make the world an easier place to live in than yesterday.
I remember, back when I was still “going to a traditional job,” I would see ads all the time on the subway for things that were really, in their bare essence, just digital properties to make life easier. And honestly, for those things, I’m grateful.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a person who likes convenience more than I do. I love ordering coffee on an app. I had to do active work to break my Seamless habit during the pandemic (because I want my favorite restaurants to survive it.)
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine told me I should read a book, and I groaned that it would take two whole days for it to arrive from Amazon before I could start it. It was my second thought that I could just “walk to a bookstore.” That’s how reliant I had become on my Amazon app.
There’s no problem with a world of convenience. It suits us. However, unfortunately, the hard science of breaking bad habits is still rooted in our brain chemistry and our biology, and those two things are nearly as old as dirt.
We have the same brain and body as the people who were walking around hundreds of years ago.
So, what happens? We think to ourselves “this must be easy. I can download an app for “x” exercise or an app for “x” food tracking.
Those things are indeed HELPFUL for your journey toward change. I personally utilized apps for both quitting smoking and stopping drinking.
What the apps did was provide me reinforcement when it got hard, but they did not eliminate the hard itself.
Any time you want to break a bad habit, you’re going to go through a period of being “uncomfortable.” There are all sorts of things you can do to add a little ease to the discomfort, but the discomfort will still exist.
That’s because the old-ass grey matter in your head is doing everything it can to remain in a predictable routine. That’s what it knows how to do to keep you safe. It develops neurological patterns that it recognizes and runs programs it has developed to keep you moving through your day in the most efficient, energy-saving manner.
You could say that your brain is the optimal tool for convenience. It’s for this reason that you don’t have to think too deeply about making your coffee or driving your car. The grey matter has you covered.
It’s less convenient when you want to break a habit.
You have to go through a period of discomfort, and active work.
I’m using the word “uncomfortable” here because that’s exactly what breaking a bad habit is. It’s uncomfortable for a little while until your brain forms new neural pathways.
People like to use other words, like “hard.”
They also like to say nonsense phrases like “I’m incapable,” and “I’m a failure.”
None of that is true. They just don’t know how to identify the experience they’re having appropriately.
When breaking a bad habit (or are creating a new one,) you’re going to be uncomfortable. The feeling is “uncomfortable.” Get used to saying it. “I’m uncomfortable.”
You just have to get through the change, one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time. Eventually, the discomfort will pass.
AND SPEAKING OF CHANGE—
I have put together a FREE email series called “Drunk and FAT to Fit and FIERCE in 10 Days.” to help get you started on rewiring some of those old thought patterns that are keeping you unfit, lethargic, and maybe even drinking too much.
Check it out if you can. It’s loaded with a ton of great information.
