The one behaviour of drinking alcohol can alter you in a myriad of different ways. It can alter your life in so many different and negative ways as well.And the opposite can also be true. One positive habit that you build into your life can change it irrevocably into the future.
Habit Change – One Behavior Change Can Transform Who You Are Forever Transcript.
Today, I want to talk about habit change and how one behaviour can completely transform who you are.
This behaviour can be good or bad, and it can transform your life in a good or bad way.
I love the idea of cornerstone habits, and foundational habits.
It’s usually one specific behaviour that you have in your life, and it can either be good or bad.
From that one basic, cornerstone habit, everything else is built around.
I’ll go for the bad habit and the drinking alcohol first because that’s what we’re all here to try and stop.
When you’re drinking alcohol, it takes up a lot of your time. And I don’t think that alcohol builds the framework of your life.
I think alcohol is a part of that framework.
It’s a part of this instant gratification model that we try to live, part of this fast-paced life of what we want to have, we want to have now.
We want to relax right now.
We want to be able to take a pill or a potion or eat a food that not only gives us an end goal in the reward that we’re seeking, to get us into the relaxation mode or to get us quickly into feeding our hunger if it’s food.
But we also want to be entertained.
But alcohol drinking is definitely a cornerstone habit.
It’s the same as smoking.
Smoking brings you down on all levels.
When you smoke, it affects your breathing, it affects how your body responds it affects how you respond to other people.
It permeates so many different areas of your life and it’s the same with alcohol.
When you’ve got a hangover, the last thing you want to do is go out exercising the next morning, or eat the next morning.
When I used to drink, all my senses were saying to me: hangover time, eat loads of greasy, fast food, fry up a breakfast that’s called an English or an Irish breakfast with bacon and eggs, sausages, all greasy foods that hit straight to the point of what I wanted.
It was supposed to make me feel comforted.
That’s what it basically boils down to, the comfort.
But then it starts to snowball and it causes an avalanche in your life.
You get over the hangover and you feel good again.
You start to think ‘well, that wasn’t so bad.
I’ll go out and have some more of that tonight.’ Or ‘while I’m in the hangover, I’ll have some more of that to cure me of what I’ve done to myself.’
So it’s more instant gratification instead of letting it overcome you.
It’s like a negative spiral, you’re going downwards and downwards.
It’s like a snowball, it’s one basic habit, it’s gathering momentum and it’s pulling on all other negative habits.
You’re eating bad food, you’re hanging around people who are doing the same thing as you, not getting exercise, not eating good food and smoking and drinking and all that kind of stuff.
It happened to me at a very early age.
This was my life for a long time.
On the other side of that, I also tried to work, I had a business.
I always tried to improve myself as much as I could.
But this one foundational habit that I had in my life of smoking and drinking kept dragging me down.
It’s the same way as when you quit drinking and you bring in some new habits into your life.
My habit every day since I stopped drinking was to get out walking every day.
It was my foundational habit.
I’m still doing it, and trying to get back into it with a lot more walking than I have been doing.
So, that one foundational habit of walking picked up my health in so many ways.
It took my thoughts and energies away from drinking alcohol.
It made me a lot more aware of my body and my thoughts.
It led me on to do other things; I started yoga, I started to eat healthy.
It took me a year and a half before I started to look at my nutrition.
First of all, I went vegetarian and then I went completely vegan.
It’s the most nutritionally beneficial diet that I’ve ever come across.
When you’re thinking about things from that perspective, you’re thinking about taking things out of your diet and putting things in. you’re mixing and matching foods.
For me it was taking out meat and dairy and all animal products out of my diet and replacing them with fruits and vegetables, beans, legumes and just fresh, whole foods.
That sort of spiralled down into my business and I was able to do so much with my business.
I’ve written three books.
I’ve made 2 video courses and nearly got the third one finished now.
I’ve done so much with regards to making these free videos, building a website and building my content.
Unbelievable to where I was before.
And that’s all because I was able to get rid of that one foundational habit that was holding up the other bad behaviours, and bringing in a new foundational habit.
It’s not all be-all and end-all, it’s not the walking that is responsible for everything else.
I’m not saying that.
But when you start to persistently do one thing, and regardless of what you’re doing every day, you make time for that one habit, that one positive, healthy habit, then it starts the ball rolling for more optimal thinking, a more optimal framework around your life.
For me, it brought in better nutrition, better health, better relationships and a better life in general.
It is about getting rid of one and bringing in the other.
When I’m talking about quitting drinking at the beginning of this thing, focus on the one habit at the one time.
I think you should focus on replacing one habit with another.
For me it was getting out walking.
I was a walker before, but I wasn’t walking every day.
I didn’t consistently do it every day.
So, for me, stop drinking and get out walking.
Replace the drinking with the walking.
There’s no such thing as negative space when it comes to habits.
You can’t take something out of your life without replacing it.
You’ve got to replace it with something else.
When some people stop drinking, they start with coke.
They bring in something else which is feeding another addiction in their lives. You don’t want to do that.
You want to look at this as optimal thinking, habit change and behaviour change.
Try and think of what you can do to build yourself up instead of just overcoming the urges.
Trying to overcome the cravings of drinking by feeding yourself with sugar is not a good idea because you’re just replacing one bad habit with another.
Try and replace the bad habit with a good habit, even if it’s walking or dancing.
Do whatever you think.
Walking is good because it’s easy.
You get up in the morning, put your shoes on, go out the door and just walk.
If you think walking is boring, then listen to music or audiobooks.
I love listening to audiobooks when I’m out walking.
That’s two objectives.
One is I’m walking and the other is I’m learning as well.
The whole theme of all of these videos is to move onwards and upwards.
That’s the whole ethos behind alcohol mastery.
And, it’s moving away from alcohol and into something else.
Not just denying yourself of something that you want, it’s finding the reasons why you don’t want to do this anymore, finding reasons why this thing is shit, killing you slowly and destroying your life in the process.
Finding the positive, optimal ways that you can live your life, that’s what it’s all about.
I’m just saying that that one foundational habit will kick-start your new journey.
It will bring you so many more benefits and make you think about yourself in a completely different way.
It will make you look at your life and see where else you can make improvements.
The improvements that you’re making because you quit drinking and getting rid of this negativity and bringing in this positive influence into your life.
You’ll see that and think if you can do that, you can do something else.
You build and build as you go through this.
That’s what it’s all about.
If you have any questions or comments, leave them down below.
If you want to listen to the audio, you’ll find it below the video, along with the transcript.
Until next time, stay positive and keep the alcohol out of your mouth.
GOOD HABITS ONCE ESTABLISHED, ARE JUST AS DIFFICULT TO BREAK AS BAD HABITS
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Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!
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Hey Mr K,
Thanks for all the videos, been a great help in this journey I have started. This is the second time around and I have managed 27 days ( the first attempt lasted about 26 days – in 2015). Your daily videos are a great help in getting over the irritating craving each day. Please keep up this service you have started, thanks for all the efforts you keep putting into the videos and books.
M