The Mindset Mentor - How to Change Your Brain!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to today's episode if you have not yet done so hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode so today we're going to be talking about is how to break the bad habits that you have and how to create the habits that you want and the number one key to that is consistency so more than anything

Starting point is 00:00:24 else what I'm going to be diving to that is consistency. So more than anything else, what I'm going to be diving into today is consistency. I did an episode a couple of days ago where people, I just kind of dove into consistency very quickly at the end. And a lot of people sent me messages. You're like, Hey, that was incredible. Can you go more in depth when you talk about habits and consistency and the way that it works neurologically in your brain? So this video and podcast episode is literally specifically for that. So they say that it takes anywhere between 21 to 100 days to break a bad habit or to create a new habit.

Starting point is 00:00:55 And they say it takes on average about 60 to 66 days. That's the important thing to think about. It takes about 60 to 66 days of consistency. Not 60 to 66 days period, but consistency every single day. Neural pathways are basically just like a pathway in the forest in your brain, right? If you have a pathway in the forest and you have this giant forest in front of you, it's easier to walk down the pathway than it is to go and create a new pathway. And so your brain tends to go down these pathways as often as it possibly can. You have these things called neurons and neurons have these things called neurotransmitters and neurons send neurotransmitters from one place to another. That's the easiest, most simplest way to think of it. They're just electrical signals

Starting point is 00:01:49 going from one place to another. And here's what's important to think about. Now, when you really start to understand why habits are important in the human brain is when you start to understand neurons, neurotransmitters, and this thing called myelin. A myelin sheath is what builds up on the outside of a neuron. So if you think of, for instance, if you have an electric wire, you plug the electric wire into the wall, and you always notice that they're white or they're black. And that's not the actual wire itself. That is the actual rubber on the outside of the wire. Now, inside of the electrical wire is a copper wire on the inside of it. So there's a copper wire on the inside.

Starting point is 00:02:33 And then on the outside of it is rubber. And the reason why the rubber is there is because the rubber insulates the copper wire. And the insulation of the rubber on the copper wire allows the electrical signal to send quicker and more efficiently. That's the reason why you have, you know, on an electrical wire, that's why you have the copper in the inside and you have the rubber on the outside. Now, what the hell does this have to do with your brain? If you think of your brain the exact same way, if you have the electrical wire and let's say that you have a neuron, right? Your neuron sends neurotransmitters from one place to another. Just like if you have your computer and it's plugged into a wall, there's going to be an electrical signal that comes from the wall to your computer. So the electrical signal is from

Starting point is 00:03:19 the wall to your computer. That's like a neurotransmitter going from the wall to your computer, right? And then you have the copper wire. The copper wire is the neuron. And then on the outside, where you would have the rubber, the insulation is the myelin sheath. And the myelin sheath builds up over time. And it can also be destroyed over time. And so the more that you do something over and over and over and over and over again, the more that that neuron gets stronger and the myelin sheath gets thicker because your brain now knows this is something that I do over and over and over and over again. I need to make sure that it does it as efficiently as possible. And so what happens is when you do something over and over and over again, aka a habit,

Starting point is 00:04:11 your brain develops a strong pathway through this forest and it develops more myelin, the rubber on the outside, develops more myelin so that the electrical signal can send neurotransmitters more efficiently and quicker because your brain wants to conserve energy. Your brain is the most energy consuming organ in your entire body, right? That you're the most energy consuming organ in your entire body is your brain. And your body is an extremely intelligent thing. It wants to conserve energy. And so what does it do? It builds up this myelin so it can send from one place to another as efficiently as possible. Pretty simple if you actually think about it, right? And it makes a whole lot of sense.

Starting point is 00:04:58 Now, this myelin, if you've ever heard of a neurodegenerative disease, such as if you think of Alzheimer's or if you think of dementia, that is something where, you know, not going too deep into it, an amyloid plaque attacks the actual myelin itself. And so it destroys the myelin on the outside, which is why people start to lose their memory, why they start to have different motor functions that they lose. And it slowly deteriorates is because the actual myelin sheath is being attacked by this neurodegenerative disease, which usually comes from amyloid plaques in your brain. So when you think about your brain this way, and you really start to understand the way that it works, you start to really understand, okay, now it makes sense why if I'm trying to break a habit, I need to do it every single day

Starting point is 00:05:52 and not miss a day for 60 days or a hundred days. And if I'm trying to create a habit, I need to do it every single day for 60 days to a hundred days to make sure that my brain, if I'm trying to, let's say, create a habit, I need to make sure that my brain makes this neuron as strong as possible. And then it develops a strong myelin sheath on the outside of it to make it hardwired into my brain. Because when something becomes a habit, when it's hardwired into our brain, it basically becomes autopilot, which is what we want, right? We want to be able to create habits that we want that are basically become autopilot. We don't even need to think about that. Imagine that if you had your number one habit that you're trying to create over next year and you have that number one habit and you are literally able to turn that habit into autopilot

Starting point is 00:06:43 where your brain automatically does it and doesn't even have to think about it. Wouldn't that be pretty damn incredible? It'd be pretty incredible. Now a, um, a neuron can never disappear. It can only get weaker or it can get stronger. So if you have a bad habit and you stop doing that habit for 60 days, well then your neuron is going to get in the neural pathway is going to get weaker, right? If you do it over and over and over and over again, it's like going to the gym every single day and working the same muscle. That muscle will get stronger and stronger and stronger. And that's what you're trying to create inside of your brain. So if you're trying to create a habit,

Starting point is 00:07:21 it needs to be daily consistency every single day. If you're trying to create a habit. It needs to be daily consistency every single day. If you're trying to create a habit, it needs to be consistent every single day. If you're trying to break a habit or to create a habit, it's every single day you need to be working at it without missing a day. This is the importance of why you need to work really hard at your goals or whatever it is that you're working for every single day for 60 days because habits turn your brain on autopilot. We all know that there's been times when you've driven to work, you've had a long day at work and you're not even paying attention and you drive home and you get home and you're like, wait, how in the hell did I just get home? Your brain wanted

Starting point is 00:08:00 to not think. So it put it on autopilot. It's a habit now to drive home. And when you don't think, you conserve energy. And when you're on autopilot, you conserve energy. And your brain wants to conserve energy so that it can do other things that it needs to do besides just thinking. So if you can understand the way that your brain works, you can understand the way that habits work in your brain, which make it easier to realize why you need to stay consistent every single day for 60 days. Because you're trying to grow strong neural pathways. You're trying to get those neurons strong, just like a muscle. And the more that you do it, the stronger the myelin sheath on the outside becomes to make that become more autopilot. So that's what I got for you for today's

Starting point is 00:08:43 episode. If you love this episode, please share it with someone that you know and love. And if you're ready to break the habits you want to break and create the habits that you want to create, and you're ready to dedicate 60 days of your time, now you understand why I created the Iron Mind 60 Challenge, because this is the way that your brain works. We're trying to hack your brain to create the life that you want. So if you're interested in joining the Iron Mind 60 Challenge, go to ironmind60.com, I-R-O-N-M-I-N-D 60.com. And I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode, make it your mission, make someone else's day better. I

Starting point is 00:09:17 appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

The Mindset Mentor - How to Change Your Brain!

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