WHAT THIS EPISODES ABOUT…
Hello Everyone! I’m Shauna Hoffman.
Let’s start with a quick check of your self care this week. I end every episode telling you to take care of yourselves. Eat good food, drink lots of water, get lots of sleep. Well? Did you? I started to formulate today’s episode with the intention of talking about Mother’s and Daughters. OK, I promise that will be next week’s episode. Because if I were to let the universe guide me today, which I try to do everyday, it seems that talking about YOU and your self care is where I am being led! And today we are going to delve into the fabulous word- habits.
Listen in to hear more…
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT DISCUSSED…
• Guy Free Podcast: https://guyfree.com
• Guy Free Facebook Group: https://guyfreeworkingonme.com
• Shauna’s website: https://www.workingonme.com
WHEN DOES IT AIR…
August 15, 2020
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT…
Hello Everyone! I’m Shauna Hoffman
Let’s start with a quick check of your self care this week. I end every episode telling you to take care of yourselves. Eat good food, drink lots of water, get lots of sleep. Well? Did you? I started to formulate today’s episode with the intention of talking about Mother’s and Daughters. OK, I promise that will be next week’s episode. Because if I were to let the universe guide me today, which I try to do everyday, it seems that talking about YOU and your self care is where I am being led! And today we are going to delve into the fabulous word- habits.
Oh yeah there it is. That word! Here’s the thing. We get into habits in life. Some of them help us out every day. They help us achieve our dreams, they help keep us on track with our health, they help us calm our minds and our spirits and they help us get in touch with our souls. And some of them just plain suck…. in the most therapeutic terms!
One of the habits that is so hard to come by is just the THOUGHT of self care. The first mind mess we get into is because we can’t start a good habit for ourselves if we don’t think we are worth it.
Sometimes women need a reminder to take care of ourselves because we are so much more likely to put others’ needs first. We have no problem telling our mates, our kids, our parents, or our friends what they need to do to take better care of themselves.We help them change their mind set and start new healthy changes in their lives. We believe in them and we support them and we stand by them. We remind them to take their pills, or their vitamins, or their medicine. We see them stressed and nurture their needs. So why is it so hard for us to take heed and listen to our own needs? Because women for some reason believe that self care is selfish. I do so much work with my female clients to fight this programming. I have said it in so many previous podcasts.
But today I am moved to dig in and help you do it again by looking at your habits, good and bad! Let’s break down first what habits are. They are those behaviours that we repeat so much that they no longer involve conscious thought. In other words, they are behaviors that we engage in by HABIT!
Now let’s look at the idea that with negative habits there are subconscious negative thoughts “I’m in the habit of not eating breakfast.” Goes along with “I’m in the habit of believing I don’t need breakfast.”
I recently heard that part of changing habits doesn’t necessarily start with creating new habits as much as getting rid of old habits! It’s yet another change in perception!
Ok here is one of mine. I just used it a second ago as an example. I am not a breakfast eater. I start my day with coffee and a cookie! Yup. caffeine and sugar! There’s a pick me up! My holistic doctor and my medical doctor had both tried to stop me from that for years. But I dug into it because I truly believed “I am not a breakfast eater and coffee alone is just plain boring for me.” Not to mention that I have decided if I have a cookie first thing in the morning it satisfies my sugar crave for the rest of the day. Wow.. see how I have rationalized that one?
OK, so for me to start a new habit of eating healthier I needed to get rid of the old habit and the old thought process that “I don’t need breakfast”. One of the things that I have learned about the psychology of changing habits is that taking huge leaps sometimes does not work for people. For me, I have to start small and not build too many expectations of myself. Failing at starting a new habit is one way to set yourself back to just give up and stop trying. So in this instant the first thing I did was had my cookie and my coffee per USUAL and then started to tell myself over and over that “I will feel amazing if I have a little something healthy to eat.” So I started small. I told that to myself for a few days and waited for my brain to catch on. Basically it’s like reciting a mantra or an affirmation every day to reprogram your brain. I knew I had to get rid of that programming that said “I don’t need breakfast”. Then after a few days, a half hour after my coffee and cookie I had something light that was actually good for me. Some yoghurt, or a banana, or a banana with some almond butter. Anything to tell my mind and my body that “this ain’t so bad!” I did that for a week. And to my own disbelief I loved it. I started to look forward to this new habit. And the rest is history. Ok, I still start my mornings with coffee. But I do a good healthy chaser after that!
Food habits are one of the hardest to change. When we like something we like it. And food can be such an anxiety reliever. And what I learned is it can also be an anxiety producer.
So for a second let’s take a look at your food habits. Start in the morning and look at what you feed your body and your mind. Then move through the day. Then take a look at the times of the day that you eat! Do you have habits wrapped around the time of day? Or do you have habits wrapped around activities? When I was growing up, every day, all summer, at noon I would sit with my sitter and we would have lunch and watch All My Children. As I got older I realized that I had created a habit around both food and TV. I loved to have food while I watched TV. It actually brought me joy! And vice versa… I loved to watch TV while I ate. Then that got reinforced growing up with my mom as a single parent. It was me and three boys at the dinner table. So how did she keep the peace? We watched tv while we ate. I had not only created a physical habit, but it was reinforced by my mind. In the world of habits they call that “cues” TV became a cue for me to eat.
What is interesting about that is once I realized that I could break that habit. Remember my favorite saying? When you make the subconscious conscious it can go away? This was a PRIME example. Once I became conscious of this habit and the cue that surrounded it I could try and change it.
So, was I getting rid of an old habit and replacing it with a healthy one? Or was I starting a healthy habit that was purging me of my old habit. For me, in this instant it was proof that when I became conscious of an old bad habit, food and tv and decided to let it go, it was just automatically replaced with a good habit. I didn’t concentrate on the new habit. I concentrated on letting go of the old habit.
So what comes first the chicken or the egg? Oh, I don’t know! I think every one of our good and bad habits are so very personal. Only you will know the mind set that will help you change. But I offer you to allow the subconscious to become conscious and let the bad habits show their ugly faces so you can help them go away.
There is an interesting piece of any habit. The pay off! We repeat certain habits because we are getting some great payoff for it. If its food, it could be the flavor, or the high of caffeine, or the energy after eating a healthy meal. If we can concentrate on what we think the PAYOFFS are then we can see why we repeat certain habits!
I work for myself. I set my own schedule. So I had gotten into the habit of reading my emails before I even got out of bed! The payoff for me was that I knew what the day held for me based on what emails and work showed up that morning. But when I really looked at the subconscious around that I also realized that I was starting my day with anxiety, and problems to deal with instead of getting up finding a peaceful way to start my day. So I stopped reading my emails in bed. Soon I realized that I loved to take my coffee outside with my computer and write! The cats and dogs hung with me, the air was morning fresh. I could hear the birds singing. It was a tiny slice of heaven. But the only way I could start that new habit was to see my morning ritual of emails in bed, and that the payoff or reward for that was not anywhere as valuable to me as getting up, writing and starting my mornings fresh. Did I want the anxiety payoff for the email habit? Or did starting a new habit give me a much more peaceful, invigorating and enjoyable payoff?
Do you see how we need to look at the payoffs for habits sometimes in order to change them?
People ask me how long it takes to change a bad habit or create a good one. There’s lots of research on this and again, who knows which is true. One is called the Three Day Rule. That one says that If you want to break a habit, you need to stop doing it for three days straight. If you want to continue a good or positive habit, you need to make sure you don’t skip it for three days straight.
Another one says it takes 10 weeks! Then there is the 21/90 rule. I kinda like this one. The 21/90 rule says that it takes 21 days to make a new habit and 90 days to turn it into a permanent lifestyle change. It says that if you Commit to your goal for 21 days it will absolutely become a habit. And if you commit to this same habit for 90 days it will become a part of your lifestyle.
So remember, this holds true for both good and bad habits! Hence a summer of eating while watching All My Children created a habit in me I needed to look at. And on the good side, after 90 days I am now formulating this podcast sitting outside with my cats, dogs, birds singing and coffee and it has become my new lifestyle.
So I offer you this week to see what your habits are. Good or bad, positive or negative, healthy or unhealthy. Start in the morning and go through your day. Take a look at your behaviors, the times of the day that you find yourself doing things, the activities that surround certain behaviors. See if you can start to make a list of your behaviors and your habits. Take a look at the CUES- to these habits. Remember the cues are things that trigger the habit. Are there any, good or bad? Take a true self awareness check on what are the payoffs to these habits. Whether they are tiny habits or big, there is a payoff! Let’s make the subconscious conscious! Then I offer you to see if there are any that you want to change!
Here are a few affirmations to help you!
Changing my behavior is as easy as changing my thoughts.
Day by day, I am gaining more control over my past habits.
Each time I challenge a past habit, I feel a greater sense of control and self-esteem.
Every day I am developing new and positive habits.
I know that creating new and healthy habits is the fastest and surest path to changing my life for the better.
I create new routines based on the goals I want to achieve.
Here is my favorite!
The quality of my life is based on the quality of my habits!
HA! I think I will leave you with that one!
Ladies, I so believe in you! I know that just the fact that you are listening today you are on the most beautiful journey to self awareness. Please take good care of yourselves this week! Drink lots of water, get lots of rest, eat amazingly healthy foods and be so so good to yourself! Thank you for letting me into your life today and I look forward to popping back in again next week.
So? Did you take are of yourself this week? And if you did, kudos!!! And if you didn’t what is it that you need to do differently this week?
I feel compelled to really help you look at your self and see what you need to do to jumpstart your health, your happiness, your peace of mind. So today is going to be a wellness check. If any of you have not listened to the podcasts with my guest Dr. Andra Millian, go back and listen!!!
But for now… Here we go. Self check
Let’s think about the food you ate. First of all, are you eating enough? Are you over eating? Think for a second of your menus this week. Haha. menus, Shauna? Sometimes it’s whatever you can grab in the fridge! So think about when you opened the fridge what did you grab? How much was healthy? How much was sweet? How much was carbs? Listen, I am the queen of balance and to me balance means I need to balance out some ice cream or cookies with my healthy food! And I am the worst! I am not a breakfast eater. I start my day with coffee and a cookie! But that works for me. I get the sweets out of the way and seem to eat healthy the rest of the day. My doctor has tried to stop me from that for years. But it actually works for me. One cookie does i because once I get that out of the way I at for me all day. OK, “this is a disclaimer. in no way am I advocating that you start your days with coffee and a cookie.” What I am sharing with you here is the idea that we can take control of our eating and make it work or us. f we consciously think about it.