The Mindset Mentor - Change Your Habits & Your Brain

Episode Date: January 19, 2018

Episode 378 - In this episode I teach you how to change your brain so that you can get rid of your bad habits and create new ones! Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to the MWF Motivation Podcast, one of the top-rated motivational podcasts in the world. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I come out with a short, to-the-point, no-BS podcast designed to transform you from who you are today into who you want to be. There's no fluff here, just life-changing content. My name is Rob Dial, and the podcast starts now. Welcome to today's episode. If you have not yet done so, please subscribe to us, however you listen to us. And also, if you have not yet signed up for group coaching, and it is something that you're

thinking about doing, go ahead and send me an email, rob at mwfmotivation.com. There is just over a week left for you to try it out for seven days for $1 before I completely close the group coaching down to focus on them. So by February 1st, if I have not received an email from you, if you're interested, you will not be able to join the group. So if you are interested in joining the group coaching and trying it out for $1 for seven days, send me an email rob at mwfmotivation.com. Okay, today I'm going to talk about how to change your brain so that you can change your habits. Now let me explain something. There's a part of your brain called your automatic brain,

which is the part of your brain that usually functions about 90 to 95% of the time throughout the day. I'll give you an example. If you've ever driven home from work or from someplace that you're very familiar with and you get home and your first thought is, how the hell did I get here?

And you don't even remember driving because you were so on autopilot. So your automatic brain is what your brain develops your autopilot so that it doesn't have to use as much energy because the more that you have to think about something, the more energy your brain consumes. Now, just so you know, your brain consumes more energy than any other organ in your body. About 20% of your energy on a daily basis is just your brain. And two-thirds of that is actually just your thinking, your neurotransmitters firing from one to another and sending signals from one place to another. So that's how your brain works. So why do habits, how do habits fit in that and how can we get past it? Well, here's

the first thing that you need to realize. You can reverse any pattern or any habit that you have, but you should never identify yourself with a pattern or habit. You should never say, I am lazy. I am a procrastinator because that is you identifying with that. It is just that sometimes you are lazy and sometimes you are a procrastinator. That is a habit or a pattern and that can be overcome. So as far as the way the brain works, just so you have an idea, if you're looking at any cord that plugs into a wall, on the outside of that cord is a rubber, it's just rubber on the outside of that cord. On the inside of it is a copper wire that sends the electrical signal. Now, your brain has something exactly the same, and it's something

called myelin. And myelin is something that builds up on the outside of a neurotransmitter when it's used over and over and over and over again. The more that you do something, the more it becomes a pattern or a habit, the more myelin builds up in your brain around your neurotransmitter because that makes it easier and more efficient for a neurotransmitter to fire a signal from here to here, which then requires less energy from your brain, hence the autopilot. So if you have any patterns or habits you need to break, you probably have a lot of myelin on it, just as the same as the rubber cord. The reason why the rubber is on the outside is because it sends the signal more efficiently. The myelin sends a signal more efficiently throughout your neurotransmitter.

So it doesn't mean that you can't stop or break a pattern or habit. It means that you need to identify it and then take these steps. So the way that you want to think about your brain is like this. Imagine your brain is like a forest and you see a really well-worn path that people have walked down over and over and over again in the forest. That's going to be the easiest route to take to get from point A to point B, whatever it is, right?

That's going to be the easiest path. It'd be a lot harder to walk off the path and go a different direction and push through forests and all of that. It's a lot easier just to take the well-worn path. Your patterns and habits and the myelin built up in your brain is like that well-worn path. It's easy to travel down that way, but you don't want to travel that direction anymore. So what you need to do is this. You need to get a pen and paper and identify the patterns and habits that no longer serve you that you need to get rid of, right? You're not lazy.

You're not a procrastinator. Those are just habits that you can overcome. Why are you lazy? When do you get lazy? Maybe it's when things get hard, you shut off and you get lazy or you procrastinate when things get hard or you have too much on your plate, right? So you need to identify the habit that you want to get rid of. You need to then identify what makes that habit happen. So when you become a procrastinator, why is it? Because there's too much in your plate and you just shut off completely. And what you need to do is realize that well-worn path. And the reason why you want to identify the pattern and habit and then identify the reason why you take it is because then you'll become very self-aware the next time you start to go down that path in your brain. And the next time you go down that path in your brain, you need to become self-aware so that immediately you can snap yourself out of it and say, all right,

I'm walking on this path. Oh crap, I don't want to take this path anymore. And you go down this path. and say, all right, I'm walking on this path. Oh crap, I don't want to take this path anymore. And you go down this path. And what happens is if you do this enough and walk off of that path, walk off of that path and walk off of that path, it will start to regrow the grass. And what happens is your neurotransmitters, they'll never go away. But what happens is the really strong ones, if they're not used, will start to shrink to give way for other patterns and habits in your brain because your brain wants to be as energy efficient as possible. So if you want to break a pattern or habit, first off, understand everything that I said and the way it works in your brain.

Second off, identify the pattern or habit that you want to break. The third thing is that you need to identify when you take that pattern or habit. What needs to happen in order for you to take that pattern or habit? And the fourth thing is you need to know when you start to walk down that path and you don't want to walk down it, what is your automatic response to do something different? If you get lazy and you're procrastinating when things get hard, what is that automatic response going to be that's going to change it? Because you can change your automatic brain, you just have to work really, really hard at it.

The myelin on the outside of that neurotransmitter will start to shrink and shrink, and your brain will give way to other directions, other neurotransmitters that your brain will take when something happens. So you need to realize this is exactly how your brain works. This is why it works. This is why those habits exist. And now that you know it, get a pen and paper and identify the habits and patterns you don't want and identify what you're going to replace them with. Well, that's it for today's podcast. If you want the show notes for this episode, they can be found at mwfmotivation.com. Also, if you liked this episode, please spread the love and share it with a friend, because it's our mission to help as many people as we can. And to keep in touch,

you can follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Both handles are at MWF Motivation with no spaces. Now you know what time it is. So go out and make your dreams a reality.