“A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.”
― Erasmus
The Dark Side Of Habits
Old habits die hard. Think about it for a sec. Almost everything we do on any given day is habitual. Isn’t a shame to realize that the majority of our time on here is spent being on autopilot? The truth is that you can fantasize about pissing excellence all day long, but before you know it your subconscious will catch up with ya. The intentions we make to modify existing habits are made when we’re in a conscious state of mind. Yet the habits we perform stem from our subconscious mind. And in between me and you, you know damn well who gets the last word between conscious and unconscious. Hence why intentions on their own aren’t enough to make any profound changes of habits last.
What’s more is that habits can’t solely be discarded. They need to be exchanged. If you attempt to stop smoking but you don’t replace your smoking habit by something else, what will happen when you find yourself in an environment that once triggered your smoking habits? You’ll be tempted to do what the intentional part of you wouldn’t be so proud of: lighting that fucking cigarette. Habits are triggered by cues, and if you don’t know what these cues are, they’ll run over your best of intentions.
So if habits are linked to cues, and cues are provoked by stimuli, and stimuli are provoked mainly unconsciously, and our unconscious calls the shots, how the fuck do we stick to habits or get rid of old ones ? The answer is simple but difficult. Simple because the formula has solely one variable : control your subconscious. Now you get why following even a one step solution is difficult. Because life isn’t a walk in the park with unicorns and rainbows, in fact it’s quite the other way around.
Life is like walking through a scary af haunted house. You’ll get triggered all the time by people wearing fake scary masks n shit, but you just gotta do your best to hang in there and run to the finish line. (jks. Never rush the process they say) But the point is that we’re vulnerable creatures, and it doesn’t take much effort for a human being to forget about their dieting goals when there’s a massive buffet that meets their eye. What does demand a lot of effort is to resist what you secretly don’t want to have to resist. Or as I like to say, Don’t give me what I want, give me what I need!
Until next time, stay away from trouble and remain in the conscious lane😉