TLDR: in this post I am going to break down how exactly you can quit your bad habits, and change your life as a result. This shit is raw, straight from my journal, and exactly what went through my head.

Intro:

Since exploring many things I struggled with years ago, I have actually made them come to fruition years later. As a result, and now that I have made it through quitting these bad habits (some as long as 24 months ago) and starting new great ones, I decided to break out my journal and share with you what I learned, and discard the things that did not work for me. At the time of quitting, I didn’t find something so inclusive. There wasn’t some step by step guide for me to understand how I could quit these terrible things. Instead, there was just a shit load of people telling me that I should quit.

A little background... when I say I struggled with these bad habits, I mean I really struggled. I wanted so bad for these things to be gone from my life when I first started after them, but I couldn’t quite get it. I had the best intentions, but tried and failed for so long. Again and again and again. It wasn’t until time had passed, my strength had increased, and I tried so many things that I was able to easily quit all of these things and transform myself. This series will pinpoint exactly how I made this transformation.

Body:

A quick note: I am not telling anyone here what to do or that this is the way you have to do it, you all know yourselves best. Instead, I am sharing my experience with you so that you can take with it what you please.

Quitting these things we call ‘bad’:

You have to realize, it is much more important what you should NOT do, then it is what you do. What this means in a nutshell is that if you’re spending your time playing video games, it isn’t necessary to replace this habit with the healthiest thing a person can think of. What it means is that you just need to quit video games. Part of this is that you will become bored once you do quit.

When I quit watching TV near bedtime, there was a couple weeks where bedtime came around, and I was sitting on my couch. I sat there thinking to myself, “What the fuck do I do?” I didn’t want to read a book or anything at this point because I was fighting off this urge to not watch TV. I actually just sat there staring into space each for for a couple of weeks, feeling sad there wasn’t TV. Then, after some time had passed, I wanted to read a book out of pure boredom. My point is that it is much more important for you not to do these terrible things, than it is to worry about what you will do… that will come. Once you get rid of the bad, it is ironic to see what it forces you into. For now, keep your mind on quitting the thing, don’t worry about what you will do instead.

I thought about Monk Mode almost always. Not about doing it, but about the theory behind it. This time of isolation. What I came to realize is that Monk Mode is not the best solution for me because it takes you away from your natural habitat. It can be a helpful route for some. However, an even better solution is to ultimately create a life for yourself and set it in stone. In other words, to stop indulging altogether and give these things up that are bad. To do so while keeping yourself in your natural environment. Now you are fighting temptation head on and transforming yourself into something different.

There came a point where I asked myself, “Why do I waste energy flopping between quitting something and indulging in it?” it was a nowhere road that ultimately stopped me from really progressing forward. I realized it was time to change things altogether. I wanted to become SUSTAINABLE in my natural environment. Instead of removing myself, just to get pushed back into the world and start the cycle all over again several months later.

Bottom line, anything you’re not in control of needs to go. What does this mean? Can you go out and have one or two drinks, then not drink again for a whole month and not even notice it? Cool. But, why are you drinking at all is an even better question? Mostly, what I saw in myself was a bunch of excuses. But I saw this in shit tons of other people also. I saw people who would drink their booze, tell me how they didn’t really need it and they “could quit right now”. Then, the next day, drink again. It was bullshit. It was how they justified it to themselves.

What I didn’t realize yet, is that I should quit these ‘bad things’ forever. The truth is, I was never really in control if I kept going back. Why did I need these things in my life at all if they weren’t productive? I was also worried I wouldn’t always be as strong as I am now, and in this particular mindset. What I mean is, I was worried I would justify it to a means of no end, where I just accepted these ‘bad things’ as part of my life. But, knowing how habits work, if I quit permanently, even later on when I may become weak, going back would be very unlikely. That is because habits don’t like to go, they like to stay. So, creating habits that were healthy for life, would ultimately be the most sustainable thing I could do.

Some other things I realized:

  1. When I did give in or cheat a little, it always made going back to harder. If I drank a little tonight, it made drinking a little in a few days much easier. It felt kind of like I was starting the game over from a save point over and over again, rather than just finishing the game through to the end.

  1. I don’t really know what it was that gave me the ability to ultimately quit everything. I honestly cannot pinpoint it. I read a book called “Habits” by Charles Duhigg. When I did, I remember him mentioning a woman at the start who completely changed her whole life, this sort of chain reaction began to happen. So where it was really hard for me to quit originally, it became very easy some time down the road and all the bad habits at once begun to compound.

  1. There was a stage where I finally decided to quit these things and never go back. I came to realize it was the only way… I hadn’t really quit anything by this time, but once I thought on it for a while, I knew what I needed to do. There was probably a yearlong period where I knew it had to be lights out for all of this shit.

  1. After coming to accept that it would be forever, I did quit them one at a time. Whereas back when I tried to do everything at once, it was almost out of fear or desperation. I wanted to get rid of the bad, and I was worried that I would not stay on track to quit all of the things I wanted, so I thought to myself there was no other way to do it. I thought I had to do it all at once.

  1. However, the second I started to take each of these habits one at a time, they began to all be quit easily. I didn’t give it a predetermined amount of time, they naturally fell off one at a time. However, after looking back at my journal, there was about 6 weeks of gap between each.

  1. Very important: The things that were most difficult to quit began to easily be quit once I changed a couple of things. Changing my sleep schedule to ensure I was well rested made quitting everything else easy. Changing my diet, was the other one. If I had to give advice to anyone, it would be to start by changing my sleep schedule first.

  1. You should lump your habits into groups. I think writing them all down is crucial.

  1. You have to get over that speedbump first, then it gets really easy. You begin to gain confidence and momentum.

Here is the order in which you should quit things:

Note: If at any time you revert back and fuck up on a step, you need to go back to that step and fix it. Do not press forward or move up a step until you have it down. Enough time needs to pass (this will be different for each person, it could be a month, it could be 6, but you will know for sure in your gut when you get there) that you are confident in yourself.

Other important note: If you are already kinda doing some of these things, that is great. But, don’t go and change any part of those things. If you do half ass lifts or aren’t pushing yourself, that is fine. When you get to step III you address that. Don’t go intermingling the steps. If you are watching porn, keep going until it becomes that things turn to be quit.

  1. Create a spreadsheet. On this spreadsheet, list out everything you hate about yourself. First, you’re going to create two separate groups. One is about you, and the other is about what you do. The “You” group is your mental state, how you treat yourself, how you treat other people, and how you communicate with others. The “What you do” is about the habits you have related to most actionable behaviors. What this means is the things you do, such as smoking drinking, biting your nails, picking your face, touching your face while talking, drinking coffee, not sleeping at the same time each night, doing drugs, not brushing or flossing your teeth, not reading books, watching porn, jerking off, you name it the list goes on. A third and fourth column should be created regarding the things you want to be, and the things you want to do. Don’t fill this in yet, but remind yourself to after some time has passed and you thought about it. For example, getting your pilot's license, learning to SCUBA dive, these things can be on here. But, give it some time and fill one in a week.

  1. For step one pick one simple thing from your list that you do every single day and quit it. That first thing could be something as simple as chewing gum or deleting your social media. The point is, it should NOT be something you’re in love with. It should be something that you can detach yourself from and not be feigning for it every second of the day. The point of this first exercise is to get you to prove to yourself how easy it is to quit a habit.

  1. After you have completed this and some time has gone by. You must know in your mind you will never go back to this thing you have quit. It is gone forever. Once you are convinced the next stage is to change a few things about yourself, in order to become stronger. These are two important things, sleep and diet. The rest will come. For now, this is your only focus. See post I, on sleep to fix this. The one on diet will becoming soon.

  1. Once some time has gone by and you are successful with these two things, you will notice a change in yourself. You will feel incredibly strong. The next things to throw in is your exercise regimen. Ensure that you beef this up if you were already there. Throw in some heavy-duty lifts, or more if you already were, put cardio in the mix. Workout 5 or 6 days a week.

  1. Now that much time has passed, you will notice strength has become paramount. Now is the time to use this list of bad habits. Start with one hard thing. Not the hardest on your list, but closer to it. Now tackle this. Quit FOREVER.

  1. Once time has passed, go to one easy thing. Quit FOREVER.

  1. Once time has passed, do 2 easy things.

  1. Now one or two hard things.

  1. And so on.

Now you can begin to move yourself to the things you should be doing. Those include meditation, reading, and many more things. What you will fill your time with now is very easy to see.

The two posts on visualization and diet will come out soon. I wish you all great luck on quitting these things we call ‘bad’.