Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Addiction Unlimited
podcast, where you get to learn everything you
wanna know about addiction and recovery.
I'm your host, Angela Pew, cofounder of Kansas
City Recovery,
life coach, and recovering alcoholic.
To learn more about me, you can listen
to episode 0 on your podcast app or
find us on the web at addiction unlimited.com.
Hello, my friend.
I'm your coach, Angela Pew, life coach, recovering
alcoholic,
entrepreneur.
We talk about getting it together, leveling up,
living better than you've ever lived before, and
that is our goal. We have an awesome
topic today. We're gonna talk about breaking habits,
which of course, is super challenging
for everybody,
and we're all doing it all the time.
Right?
We are not only trying to break habits,
change habits, but we are regularly
adopting
new
habits.
So, this is gonna be a good topic,
I found this fantastic article, and I'm gonna
share with you a lot of what it
said, it's right up my alley,
being very scientific and brain oriented in its
action approach. And, you know, I love that.
Everything I talk about on this show is
science based. It's proven stuff, because for me,
in the beginning,
learning about my brain and how it worked
is what made me feel like I was
fixable. Like when I first got sober
and I started to understand things on the
brain level, like how my brain worked and
how my brain was hijacked with alcohol,
that's what allowed me to really understand
that I could be fixed.
Because my self esteem was so low, I
felt like such a horrible
human being,
I didn't believe in my own ability to
fix myself.
But when I understood the science of it,
I was like, oh, okay. So I can
still be a crappy, horrible human,
and
I can be fixed.
Those two things can live together. I can
still be crappy,
and I can be fixed.
So that's my approach to everything. Right? I
approach it from
a science based brain
kind of level. This is how we change
our lives,
change ourselves, change our perspectives and thought processes.
And all of that is what helps you
change your behavior.
Right? And all of that is what helps
you create the life you actually want
instead of
that shit show I created when I was
drunk. I mean,
that thing was a mess, you guys. That
life I had before was a hot
mess.
So, of course, I wanna do it differently
in my sober life. You know, I got
this second chance to live,
and I wanna live,
and I wanna have the life I always
dreamed of.
So that's how we do it. Science based
factual stuff. If you follow
a kind of process,
and you stick to it, and you have
some good tools,
there really is nothing on the planet you
can't do, and that's what I want you
to know and believe about yourself and your
situation.
It's all fixable, I promise you.
If you want to get sober and stay
sober,
you might be moving toward that and doing
really well and putting some time together,
whether that's days or months. And you're doing
it. Right? And then all of a sudden,
you drink.
Self sabotage,
because
you have some fear
attached
to sobriety.
But what I know on the sober side
is that it gets so much easier. It's
not this
concentrated level of attention that it takes in
the beginning. Right? In the beginning,
getting sober, I have to be so mindful.
I have to be so aware of what
I'm doing,
where I'm going, who I'm hanging with, what
kind of activities I'm partaking in,
what am I doing for my recovery?
It takes a lot of energy in the
beginning,
and your thoughts are going crazy because you
haven't learned how to deal with those yet.
Your feelings are going crazy because you haven't
learned how to deal with those yet,
and it feels like this kind of crazy
manic thing sometimes in the beginning.
It doesn't stay that way.
You know what I mean?
That's the part I want everybody to understand.
Your whole
rest of your sober life is not going
to feel like it feels in the beginning,
especially if you're doing good work on yourself,
especially
if you're working
with a coach, or working a program, or
doing things
to be involved in consistent growth and self
improvement.
I always say one of my greatest keys
to success in my life and my businesses
is
I have to have an understanding of what
my shortcomings are.
I have to know what I'm not good
at, right? Because I have to put things
in place to work around
my weak spots.
So if I know I'm not good at
a certain part of business, then I have
to put the right people in place to
handle that part of business. I'm not gonna
try to force myself to do it.
I probably do for a little while, right,
to see if if I'm teachable in that
way, or if I get better at it,
do I enjoy it more? If I have
a good system or process in place, will
I be better at it?
I'll try those things for a little while
because I always wanna challenge myself. But listen,
if I just suck at something, I just
suck at it. I gotta have somebody else
do it. And that is one of the
greatest understandings you can have about yourself
is where you're not good because you have
to provide reinforcements for yourself.
If you know that
you make it,
you know, weeks or even some months at
a time in sobriety, and then you fall
off,
well, then you better be thinking about some
things you can do in that spot where
you usually fall off.
Like figure something out to support yourself.
Don't just sit back and do it exactly
the same as you've always done it before
and expect a different result.
You gotta do something. You gotta make a
change. If I know I get to 2
weeks, and then I drink again,
then at 2 weeks, I'm gonna have some
things in place. I'm gonna
plan a call with a coach, or I'm
gonna plan
a coffee with my sponsor, or I'm gonna
plan
a lunch or
a weekend away with my sober friends. I'm
gonna put something in that weak spot
to make it stronger. I mean that's only
if you really wanna be successful, if you
don't really wanna be successful then you won't
do anything and you'll have the same result.
So think about it like that, you have
to know your weak spots so you can
have reinforcement.
One of the biggest things to under understand
in habits too is
a habit is its own process in your
brain, and it is largely
an autopilot
situation.
And this is where you'll hear people talk
about,
you know, I'm driving home from work, and
all of a sudden I was in the
liquor store.
Because your brain really does go on autopilot.
It has a system. Habit is a system.
And your brain is created
to find shortcuts,
to preserve energy.
Right? So the less you have to think
about something, remember how we've talked before about
brain fatigue, decision fatigue,
when your brain is making a 1000 decisions
a day, it gets tired.
So whatever
shortcuts your brain can create
to conserve energy, that's what it's gonna do,
and that's really what a habit is. So
when your brain recognizes that you're doing the
same thing, you're repeating
the same pattern over and over again,
it creates a little habit wheel.
And the habit wheel is
cue routine reward. That's the basics of it.
Right? Something cues you, we call it trigger
a lot of times. Right? That's a cue.
Something cues the thought process,
your brain goes into autopilot into the
routine, and then you have the reward, right?
So take my little ice cream addiction for
example.
I can be sitting on the couch, just
minding my own business, having a wonderful evening,
and all of a sudden,
literally, you guys, it could be anything. It
could be
the tiniest word. It could be
a commercial on the television.
It could be
a smell. I mean, it could be anything
can trigger me to want ice cream because
there aren't very many moments that I don't
want ice cream. So whatever the trigger is,
the cue,
then my brain immediately
starts going to the routine. What is my
routine for ice cream? What do I have
to do? I have a few places I
like to go. As much as I'm obsessed
with ice cream, I really only eat a
few different kinds. I'm very picky.
None of them are really easy to get,
which is fantastic
because
otherwise this would be a much more challenging
battle.
But anyway, see the cue or have the
trigger, and my brain immediately goes into the
routine. Okay, what do I do? Where do
I have to go? Do I need to
get ready? Obviously, I have to get in
the car and go somewhere, so it's just
my brain immediately goes into that process, the
routine. Then the reward is,
that process, the routine.
Then the reward
is whatever the ice cream brings me. Right?
For me, it's not only that ice cream
obviously tastes really good,
but it's this whole
comfort thing.
Right? It's an internal
thing. The reward is an internal thing
that the habit satisfies.
So it's this comfort
thing for me,
and this ritual
of and I'm the same way with food.
It's this ritual of
getting home,
getting really comfortable,
cozy on the couch,
turning the television on,
and it's just this warm fuzzy feeling. It's
a ton of fulfillment I get from those
moments, right? And it can be food or
ice cream.
That's the reward.
So the first thing you wanna do when
you break a habit or you wanna change
a habit
is figure out those pieces.
What's your cue? What's the routine?
And what's the reward?
And you guys have this in a 1,000
ways
that you already do every day. If you
really start thinking about it, like I worked
with a client a long time ago who
was trying to stop eating candy at work
because there was all these candy and donuts
in his office building.
And he had created this habit of after
lunch,
he would go down the hall to his
buddy's office. He would sit at his buddy's
office and chitchat for a few minutes, and
he would eat candy
out of his buddy's candy dish, and it
just became this thing, or it just became
a habit. Right?
Now, the cue
is lunch
because he always goes to his buddy's office
after lunch. So lunch is the cue. It's
already putting that thought process in motion.
The routine is
going to his buddy's office after lunch and
sitting down to chitchat.
The reward is
comfort,
companionship,
conversation.
Right? All those things are the reward.
So when we were working on breaking that
habit or changing that habit,
I had him
start going for a walk after lunch instead
of and I was like, get your buddy
so you can still get the reward.
Right? But go walk around the perimeter of
your building. Go outside, stay inside. I don't
care. Just make this your new habit instead
of going and sitting down and eating candy.
And it worked really well.
But we had to identify
the pieces, right, the cue, the routine, the
reward.
I know a big one for me with
candy,
and here we are back at sugar.
A big one for me with candy is
I had all of these routines
in place in all the different places I
would go.
So if I'm stopping to get gas in
my car
at whatever place, I would have a certain
candy that I would always get or a
bag of chips or whatever the thing was.
At every place, I started recognizing
every single place I go.
I even have places that I shop. You
know that you know department stores how they
have, like, all the shelves and stuff by
the registers that are just full
junk food. Now they have little coolers full
of drinks,
but chips and candy and everything by the
registers. Even my clothing
stores, I created these rituals, right, where I'm
getting my favorite 12 flavored gummies.
I'm getting my gummy at the clothing store.
Now my whole shopping experience gets tied to
an unhealthy habit.
But I started noticing every place I went,
I had these routines in place, And it
was challenging, like, to really start breaking that
was challenging.
But you have to start with identifying.
What's your cue? What's the routine? And what
is the reward?
When I recognized the reward for me, whatever
the emotional thing was,
when I could recognize that it wasn't anything
that really was connected to the food or
the candy,
that made it a lot easier.
Right? It's like, if I want comfort and
connection of some sort,
I can get that a 1,000 different ways,
and that's how you start problem solving it.
Right? It's like how can I create the
same thing
with a different
routine?
The other thing
that's really big, and I do this with
my 6 week clients, you guys have probably
heard me talk about it before, is change
your environment.
This is huge. You need to create your
environment to support what you're trying to do,
your new lifestyle,
rather than
your environment
supporting your old lifestyle.
And there are a lot of different ways
to do this. But
one thing for me,
like I just talked about the routine of,
like, even stopping to get gas, I started
going different places to get gas.
And I know that sounds silly, but that's
just what I did for a while because
I didn't wanna already have it in my
mind. I'm pulling up at the gas tank
or at the gas pump, and I'm thinking
about going inside and getting the candy because
I know what candy is there, I know
exactly where it is, and this is my
routine.
Well, if I switch it up, and I'm
not going to that place, then I don't
have to worry about
that trigger and that routine.
I'm switching things up, and that's your environment.
It's everything around you. Think about changes you
can make in your office to support
what you're trying to do
and support your new habit.
They did a study with students changing their
habits,
and they found that the students who transferred
to a new school
were more likely to change their habits than
the students that stayed at the same school,
because
they weren't exposed
to the same
familiar
cues and triggers.
All of that changed.
That's your environment.
The next one,
reframe your goal as positive.
This is a fantastic
practice, and I learned it through law of
attraction. I'm a big law of attraction person.
Obviously, you guys hear me talk about the
universe, that's my thing. Law of attraction is
just an amazing lifestyle
that really fits with my belief system.
And in law of attraction, we always talk
about,
think about the thing
you want to
achieve, not the thing you want to get
rid of.
So
when it comes
to weight loss,
I don't think, oh, I really wanna lose
£5, lose £5, lose £5. I think, oh,
I can't wait
to be able to fit in those jeans
again.
Like, you always think about what you wanna
move toward
instead of what you wanna get away from.
Does that make sense?
So instead of thinking I'm gonna stop eating
junk food,
think I will start eating
healthier food. Right? Always think in terms, reframe
it,
not the negative, what you wanna get away
from, but the positive, what you're moving
toward.
I hope that makes sense.
And this is a brain thing too, by
the way.
Your brain,
the habit system in your brain
doesn't understand negative goals.
Your brain understands
forward motion working toward a positive goal.
And there's research behind this too that shows
you're more likely to achieve a healthy eating
goal than eliminating
that I'm gonna stop eating junk food. Right?
Your brain doesn't understand it. So when you
reframe it in that positive way,
research shows you're more likely to achieve that
goal.
And there's a whole emotional component to this
also.
When I was researching this episode,
I found this piece that said, I'm gonna
read this to you really quickly.
Psychologists say pursuing negative goals is associated with
feelings of incompetence,
decreased self esteem,
and less satisfaction
with progress,
and these emotions
deter us from taking action.
On the other hand, it's much easier to
become excited by the thought of reaching
a positive goal, which will increase our chances
of achieving it.
You see what I'm saying?
Switch it to that positive, what you're moving
toward, what you wanna achieve rather than what
you wanna get away from.
And on that same note,
another reason
your brain doesn't grasp negative goals is
it's hard for
your mind and your body to stop a
habit
altogether
because it becomes so instinctual.
Right? That habit wheel that I was talking
about, the cue, the routine, the reward,
it becomes very instinctual
for us to complete the routine
when your brain
recognizes the cue
and is craving the reward.
So telling yourself
you're just gonna stop doing it is not
gonna cut it. And this is the next
one. So rather than trying to cut out
the habit, which almost never works, right, it
kicks in this whole deprivation thing and all
those psychological aspects I just talked about. The
best way to do it is to to
create a new routine to replace the old
one.
Again, this is another thing. I talk to
I work with people in the 6 week
program about how to do this. Right? It's
always better when you remove one thing from
your life, replace it with something. You don't
wanna just take it away,
but replace it with something happier.
So when you have the cue,
you wanna still get the reward,
but you insert a new routine. Right? Like,
I was talking about with my candy. Once
I realized what the reward was, and I
realized the reward doesn't really have anything to
do with the food or the candy,
then I could figure out a different routine.
Instead of going in and getting the food
or the candy, I could figure out something
else to plug in there where I would
still get the same reward.
Next one, tell your friends about your progress.
We always talk about this, the importance of
a tribe in sharing your experience with people
around you. This isn't only because
it creates accountability for you. It also makes
it more exciting. And
the beauty of being a part of a
tribe and having some accountability
is your experience
is helping
your other tribe members also.
We get so self centered and only thinking
about what's what's it gonna do for me.
You forget that
you sharing yourself and sharing your experiences helping
other
people. Even if it doesn't seem valuable to
you,
it's valuable
to the people around you.
So create that tribe in whatever you're doing.
Create the accountability.
It makes it more fun. You get to
share your experiences. You know you're not alone.
You have to have a tribe, people. I
know you're tired of hearing me say it,
but I'm gonna keep saying it.
And the last thing I'm gonna cover in
this is be nice to yourself.
Give yourself
some grace.
This is a long term
journey.
It's not going to be fast. Right? Changing
habits
doesn't happen overnight.
This is not an instant gratification
situation.
Sometimes it will be. Right? Sometimes
you'll do it, and you'll nail it, and
you'll be like, heck yes, dude. Check me
out.
But the mind frame has to be,
this is a journey. This is a long
term goal that we're working on. There are
going to be mistakes. There are going to
be missteps.
The only thing I don't wanna make a
mistake in is drinking
because I don't want any alcohol in my
body, period. I will go to any length
to not drink.
But with my food stuff and just being
a more health minded person,
be more conscious of that,
you guys I'm working on
5 decades
of bad habits.
It is not going to change
quickly,
you know,
And I have to give myself some grace.
And I have to find progress
in small ways because it's all progress.
I don't just make the decision to be
better and I'm magically better. I'm working on
some really deeply ingrained things that, again, 5
decades that I've been practicing bad habits. So
it's gonna take some time. Be nice to
yourself.
Give yourself a little bit of wiggle room,
and recognize your progress
even in the moments that you don't do
things exactly right.
Progress, not perfection.
Be kind to yourself.
I love you guys. I hope you're having
a fantastic day and I will see you
next week.
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