Your habits are learned; therefore, they can be unlearned. – Darren Hardy
It’s time to learn, unlearn, and relearn again.
You’re basically a boat/ship that’s anchored in. For you to set sail in a new direction, it’s time to pull those anchors (bad habits) up, dispose of them, and drop new ones in (although you won’t sail…but you get the point).
You need to make that “why-power” strong enough that it overwhelms your urges for instant gratification.
- Identify your triggers.
Figuring out the 4 w’s: who, what, where, when.
- Are you more than likely to act a certain way around certain people?
- Is there a particular time of the day that you have something sweet?
- Is there a particular meal that derails the rest of your accomplished meals?
- What emotions tend to provoke your worst habits—stress, fatigue, anger, nervousness, boredom?
- When do you experience those emotions? Who are you with, where are you, or what are you doing?
- What situations prompt your bad habits to surface—going to work? Riding the bus? Coming in contact with specific individuals?
- Take a closer look at your routines. What do you typically say when you wake up? When you’re on a coffee or lunch break? When you’ve gotten home from a long day?”
I’ve distanced myself from all teachers who I work with currently (for the next month) because I’m more prone to complain with them. I dropped out of the “whiney-bitch club” back in June of 2016, and I never looked back, either.
Between 1-4pm, I have a craving for my gummy bears. Instead of having gummy bears by my side, I can have mixed fruit (natural sugar) instead — only if I prepare it.
Dinners, because they’re so late at night, completely throw off my entire day. If I finish work at 7:40pm, I normally eat a very bad dinner if I don’t prepare thoroughly. Moving to Bangkok and buying loads of grocers (because now I will have proper pantry space) is going to set me up for great breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.
I have an anxious feeling when I walk into my job. Not only that, I’ve been having it for year because my every move that’s being watched. When I walk into those doors, I have a very peculiar feeling. Sunday mornings, I walk pass the teachers room and see a group of men sitting in a circle talking about how bad life is. What Did I Do: I found a new job and five new projects to get me out of a dead-end job.
Riding the bus gives me a very uneasy and tense-filled feeling. What Did I Do: Today is the last day I’ll ever take the bus in Bangkok ever again (because geographical and demographic reasons).
What do I typically say when I wake up? Well, the past week has been stellar….so saying “thank you” is imbedded in my vocabulary book. However, other people say “not again” on Monday morning. What can you do to change that?
2. Clean House
“Get to scrubbin’. And I mean this literally and figuratively. If you want to stop drinking alcohol, remove every drop of it from your house (and your vacation house, if you have one). Get rid of the glasses, any fancy utensils or doo-dads you use when you drink, and those decorative olives, too. If you want to stop drinking coffee, heave the coffee maker, and give that bag of gourmet grounds to a sleepy neighbor. If you’re trying to curb your spending, take an evening and cancel every catalogue or retail offer that flies in through your mailbox or your inbox, so you won’t even need to muster the discipline to walk it from the front door to the recycle bin. If you want to eat more healthfully, clean your cupboards of all the crap, stop buying the junk food—and stop buying into the argument that it’s “not fair” to deny the other people in your family junk food just because you don’t want it in your life. Trust me; everyone in your family is better off without it. Don’t bring it into the house, period. Get rid of whatever enables your bad habits.”
Numbers 3-5 are in the podcast down below!
Podcast
Arsenio's ESL Podcast 
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