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hey this is Leo for actualise org and in this video we're going to talk about bad habits specifically how do you drop a bad habit all right let's talk bad habits what are they why do they happen and really in this video I want to do is I want to take you through a process that will help you to begin to drop your bad habit for good so bad habits what do we have to say about this well I think that we've got to start by taking a look at some of the examples of what bad habits are and what they're doing in your life personally for me I really struggled with a couple of habits I had to go back and really dig into my past unearth some of these because I've already forgotten that I've dropped them and they were such negative habits for me my biggest negative habits were overeating and watching television and playing video games so these three habits just took root when I was growing up and I was very overweight my whole life and I watched enormous quantities of television wasted so much of my time doing that and also spent a lot of hours playing video games and waste a lot of my life doing that so those three things were really something I had to overcome in order to start to move towards a self actualized kind of life that I am really living in right now and then I'm shooting for even even higher levels of it as I'm going forward in the next few years and and onwards so with you your negative habits might be the same or they might be different but in the end it doesn't really matter what the bad habit is it's all the same thing it's all you relying on something to give you emotional support emotional stimulation a crutch if you will so this might be hardcore drugs this might be pot this might be food this might be alcohol this might be partying this might be the internet or television or video games or porn or any number of other negative habits besides just those obvious ones there's also more subtle ones these are all very types of habits and a lot of them are socially unacceptable but then you've got the more socially acceptable ones for example constant gossiping and criticizing or being a cynic or being a pessimist or getting angry at people getting mad at people being passive-aggressive biting your nails these are like smaller habits that are still very toxic to your life so you might want to get rid of those and if you do this video is perfect for you I'm going to go into what it takes to actually start to do this because the biggest challenge of course is that we all have bad habits and a lot of us know that we have them but then when we try to drop them what happens we try and then we fall off track and then we get back into the groove of that bad habit again and that's literally what a bad habit is it's a groove in your brain that's just been etched through repetition through conditioning and now that groove is running and you're running along that track and it's hard to switch tracks now to switch tracks is going to require something of you some sort of extra effort and extra awareness extra attention consciousness is required to do this and also some commitments and dedication and some willingness to go through the work so in order to do that you need to really get in touch with your motivation why you're doing this so the most important thing to consider when you're trying to drop a bad habits is asking yourself why am I even trying to drop it now this might seem simple and obvious in some cases but not always is that the case sometimes you want to drop it just because of some sort of extrinsic motivating factor like maybe someone is disapproving of you for doing it or because you think that it would be the right thing to do for your family or for your friends or for somebody else in order to kind of fit in so that's you suck at groupthink that's not a very good and motivating reason instead of what you want is you want to tap into you know why this is destroying your life why it's holding you back from your greatest potential in life that's what's really important once you get in touch with that then you can really start to let it go you're going to have the emotional leverage to do it and I'm going to take you through an exercise at the end of this video it's going to get you a lot of emotional leverage so stick with me for that okay the next point is that you have to take full responsibility for your bad habit a lot of people they'll have a bad habit in the little boy Ament on others they'll play the victim this is not going to work if you want to drop it you only really have two choices in life you can play the victim and stay stuck or you can accept full responsibility bite the bullet and be willing to do whatever it takes to fix the problem and then that's how a winner is made that's how somebody goes out there and makes radical changes in their lifestyle and really improves their life a lot because you're taking lots of responsibility so you can't blame others for your habit if you're getting angry all the time that's not other people or your work situation that's you if you are are drinking all the time that's not because you have a bad job or your family is depressing you or your friends are causing you trouble it's not that it's you you've got the drinking problem alright and if you are watching television all the time and you're playing video games and you're stuck at home and you're not really living in a rich and full life that's also not anything to do with the media or society or the fact that you're tired after work no that's that's you you're responsible for that so take full responsibility you have to do that otherwise there is no chance for you to succeed here and the next point is that you have to believe that you can that's another place where people trip up is that they they will come and they'll say well I've got this bad habit and I try to try to try but it's not possible for me so now I'm just kind of stuck with it and they'll stay now stuck and they'll start complaining and complaining about all this bad stuff that's coming from this bad habit they'll complain a lot but they don't actually believe that they can change see if you don't believe that you can change then I mean how can you you're basically screwed right off the bat you're screwing yourself over from achieving a big life because with that kind of mindset then you're only going to be doing the things that you think you can and it's very very limited thinking in fact your capabilities and your potential in life is so much more than you realize that you imagine and yet you sell yourself so short and you always tell yourself that you can't do this you can't do that it's too hard it's a struggle you know what you have to let that stuff go because either you're going to be a complainer in life or you're going to be a winner and a winner is someone who goes at the challenge again and again and again until it breaks even if you try to quit smoking ten times that doesn't mean that it won't work on the 11th time you gotta try again if you tried dropping television and replacing it with something healthy like reading and that hasn't been working for you and you've tried that five times go and try it a sixth time right this is the kind of mindset that you need to make this happen because with a lot of these habits it probably won't be dropped on the first attempt it might take you two three five ten attempts to do it but you know what it's still worth it because this habit is robbing you of so much in your life and I'm going to show you that in a minute all right the next point is law of attraction if you're familiar with law of attraction what it means is simply that you need to focus on the things that you want in life rather than the things you don't want so you tend to attract whatever you think and focus on and if you're focusing on good stuff you'll be attracting that if you're focusing on negative stuff and the stuff that you don't like about your life you'll be attracting more of that as well so now let's apply that that law to breaking a bad habit what would that mean well that means that instead of just breaking a bad habit and then sitting around and doing nothing or replacing it with some other bad habit what you want to do is you want to shift your attention on something good and positive that you're doing through life so either instilling an opposite good habit or just having something else that you're going to be doing with that spare time that's a lot of times where people go wrong when they're trying to fix a bad habit is that they'll do everything right but then they're now they have all this free time and their attention is just like let left to sit and to wander and to be idle and you know the old saying that in idles idle hands do the devil's work well that is literally the case here is that when you don't have a an important mission in your life when you have no big empowering positive goals then of course your life is going to be filled with bad habits that's probably why you got into this mess in the first place is that you didn't really have anything good or positive that you're doing in your life so for example instead of over eating all the time and going to restaurants and spending a lot of time and money on restaurants and eating out and eating four meals a day or three meals a day or whatever like that if you want to drop the eating addiction that you have maybe now you commit yourself to something else that you're doing maybe now instead of eating out all the time you're going to be spending more time with your kids or you're going to be spending more time on that side project that you were doing for your business that you wanted to launch or you're going to spend more time in your relationship or you're going to go and pick up a new hobby maybe going to go mountain climbing hiking doing something active some sort of sport see when you have some sort of active activity that you're doing it's going to take your attention away from the fact that you're not filling yourself with food and of course this applies to every other negative habit that you've got especially stuff like television video games the reason you're playing video games so much and the reason that you're so immersed in television you're wasting hours and hours on television is because really you have nothing else to do you have nothing better to do see like for me I've got like a business that I want to build I've got big ambitions so for me to sit and spend even an hour watching television my brain will tell me no way like there's no way I'm doing that I need to be reading I need to be need to be contacting people I need to be shooting videos I need to be working on marketing I have so many things I want to be doing plus I have relationships I want to be in so I'm always strapped for time because I set big ambitious goals for myself so you need to have some of those as well so whenever your habit is decide right now what you're going to replace it with or what you're going to do with the time that's going to be free okay good the next point is commitment you really need to commit 100% to have it you've probably realized this before because you try to drop bad habits in your life and they have it hasn't worked that's because there's this hump right there's this hump that you've to get over this expenditure of massive energy have to get over and it takes about 30 days to put in all that energy and then you can start to coast with your habit because the the new habits and the new routines get conditioned in your mind but right now you have to put in energy that's going to take commitment from you and the best way to commit is a hundred percent see a lot of times what people will do is they'll make a 90 percent commitment or a 95 percent commitment or even a 99 percent commitment will they'll say well ok I'm really going to try I'm really going to try and they tell themselves we're really going to try to go to the gym or they're really going to try to stop eating so much bad food or they're really going to try to stop smoking but see that's kind of a that's a really really disempowering way to go about building and breaking habits that's because that 1% is enough for your brain to then start coming up with excuses and it creates a slippery slope where one excuse comes and then you kind of say okay yeah maybe today I shouldn't really go to the gym because it's a holiday and so you don't go to the gym because it's a holiday and then the next day it it continues that slippery slope continues in your wrist as well if I didn't go one day what's what's wrong with missing two days so you missed two days then you missed three days and all the sudden you stop going to the gym completely and the same thing with any other habit so you have to be you have to be pretty disciplined if you be committed or you have to tell yourself you're going to do this no matter what that is how I broke my food addiction is really I had to use a lot of harsh discipline with myself which is not always the best approach but sometimes it is a good approach when you really have a hard addiction like with food or a drug or something like that especially chemical you sometimes really have to like tell yourself that no like god dammit no this is it this is the end of it so that's actually what I want to help you do right now is I want to help you tap into this commitment of why you want to be dropping this habit and the way we do that it was going to do a visualization exercise and I want you to follow along with me as I'm talking to you you're going to sit back and close your eyes alright I'm going to take you to this exercise it's going to get you in touch with the motivation you need to get the leverage to really start to take some action on this bad habit it has been plaguing you okay so let's do that right now go ahead and sit back and close your eyes and relax and keep your back up straight good so as you're doing that and your eyes are closed just listen along and follow along and use your imagination and follow what I'm saying so your eyes are closed now go ahead and take a nice deep breath in and then exhale and as you're exhaling release all the tension from your body good get in touch with your body really feel your body notice it notice every part good now take another deep breath in and exhale and relax your body even more as you're exhaling good feel the rest of your body feel all the other parts of your body that you haven't felt yet good now let's take one more deep breath in and as you breathe in and then exhale on the exhale you're going to release every muscle in your body you're going to let it completely relax and go loose ready good so now we really get in touch with your body get in touch with the soles of your feet feel the soles of your feet feel the tips of your toes feel your legs and feel your butt on the cushion or the surface that you're sitting on feel your back muscles feel your shoulder muscles feel your hands and feel all the way into your fingertips now feel the muscles in your neck and relax those and move that awareness of the muscles in your neck up into the muscles in your face and as you're feeling all your facial muscles relax all of those two good now you should be really relaxed and really in touch with your entire body notice how you're breathing just let a nice even steady pace keep your attention on that good perfect now we're going to do a visualization exercise keep your eyes closed and follow along what I want you to do is I want you to imagine that bad habit that's really playing you that you would like to drop really picture it picture how it plays itself out throughout the day picture house plays itself out throughout the week now I want you to imagine that this habit isn't going anywhere but this habit is going to stay and it's stuck with you forever for the rest of your life and I want you to imagine what the next month will look like of this bad habit continuing to act and act and act itself out imagine all the pain that's involved with that imagine the disappointment you see in others imagine how disappointed you are in yourself the guilt whatever this is costing you good now let's project that a year into the future imagine a year goes by and this negative habit is stuck with you it's not changing you're not changing it and it's been acting for a whole year every single day 365 days imagine what the cost of that is tallied up for 365 days all the struggle all the pain good now let's project that five years into the future imagine five years goes by and you change nothing about this habit this bad habit is with you and in fact it's getting even stronger because the negative habit tends to get worse and worse if you don't work on it now imagine five years worth of all the negative accumulation of the effects and the repercussions of this negative habit how does it affect your work how does it affect your family how does it affect your own psychology how does it make you feel about yourself to be so weak okay now let's project this 10 years into the future imagine 10 years of the Segev habit working on you and working on your life what does your life look like 10 years from now from the ravages of this bad habit what is going to happen if you keep doing what you've been doing really picture it that's the real cost ok good now clear that image out of your mind maybe think of something else totally irrelevant you might think of sucking on a crisp cold lemon wedge feeling the sourness on your tongue that will be a little bit of a palate cleanser for you ok good so keep your eyes closed and now we're going to move on to the second part of this visualization now what I want you to do is I want you to clear your mind and I want you to think about the new habit that you're putting into place to replace this bad habit what's the good habit what are you gonna be doing with all that time and I want you to imagine that new habit operating on you every single day for the next week what would it look like just for the next week for you to be doing that new habit and no longer doing the old one how to feel how would you feel about yourself would you have more energy would you feel more successful would you be more caring would you be more conscious good now let's take that and project that out to a whole month 30 days for 30 days you're doing this good habit how does it make you feel to do 30 days of it 30 straight days of this accumulating positive effect of the good habit how does it make you feel about yourself what does it do for your life how does it free up your life from all those negative emotions what kind of opportunities that open for you good now let's take that and project it a year into the future imagine 365 days have passed and you have been on this good habit for 365 days imagine how much you accomplished during that time the kind of gains you make in that domain where you're practicing this new activity what kind of gains do you make what kind of what kind of successes does this lead to what kind of rewards that create both physical rewards but also emotional rewards how proud you feel of yourself for doing it for that long good now let's project it out five years into the future imagine you were doing this for five years this positive habit how much benefit have you received from it can you see all the little gradual accumulations and how big those have grown how much they've expanded and completely transformed your life how proud you feel of yourself for having done this good now let's project this 10 years into the future imagine 10 years from now you've been on this positive habit for every single day for 10 years picture all the accumulated positive effects feel how you would feel feel how proud you would feel if you did this for 10 years straight think of how this affect every area of your life from your work to your relationships to your family think about how inspirational you would be to everyone around you if you actually were able to do this you could share the success of your story with them and inspire them to also do the same in their lives improve their lives in the ways that you improve yours good so go ahead and wrap that up at your own pace finish that visualization basking it a little bit and at your own pace on the count of three you are going to come out and come back to me nice and refreshed and feeling good so here is the count one two three all right welcome back how do you feel I hope that felt good right this exercise is called future projection both negative and positive future projection that's we did here we helped get you some leverage over your bad habit you saw the costs the real costs of staying on this negative track and you also saw the real benefits of putting yourself on a new more positive track right now because you are in this state where you are receptive and you are engaged right you're ready this is the time they have to commit I want a hundred percent commitment from you that you were going to drop this bad habit we know how toxic it is to your life we also know how much it's costing you in terms of all the potential that you have all the dreams that are going on fulfilled because of it it's weighing you down so much commit right now 100 cent not 99 100 percent they're going to do no matter what to make this work all right no matter what no matter how many times you have to try you're going to do it and you're going to give it your best all right this is Leo I am signing off this what I have to say about bad habits go ahead and post me your comments down below also go ahead and like this click the like button right now if you liked it share this with a friend or maybe throw it on Facebook and then of course come check out my newsletter at actualized org where I'm releasing new videos every single day every single week 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