Changing Ourselves Instead Of Putting Out Fires

In this podcast we explore how to keep good habits and change bad habits. Our tendency is to put out fires and not change the old habits. But if we change our bad habits, we can find the happiness that often alludes us. Please note, this is lecture is not a guided meditation.

Transcript

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

As a clinical psychologist now helping people improve their lives for over 30 years,

There's one very common theme that I see pretty much all the time,

Not all the time,

But almost all the time.

People come in to see me because they're in crisis.

There's something going on that's very upsetting to them and they want my help to figure it out.

And after 30 years,

I've gotten quite good at figuring things out.

So after we put out the fire,

I rarely see them again.

But the one thing I've learned about human behavior is human behavior is very habitual.

We are creatures of habit.

And when we develop these habits,

The older we are,

The stronger they become.

And whatever we fix,

We'll go back to our original habit.

For example,

A friend of mine is a heart surgeon.

And he told me once that when he fixes hearts and he's gotten quite good at it because he's been doing it for many years too,

Is that he found that within two years or less,

The people have the same problems again.

It's all about habits.

We create heart disease because of our lifestyle,

Sometimes not totally,

But often.

And if we don't change these habits,

Like the way we eat and exercise,

We're going to just continue to rebuild that plaque or whatever was in there to cause our heart disease.

In the same way psychologically,

We just revert back to whatever we're used to,

Whatever habits we have in place.

Even if we change them temporarily,

We're going to go back to what we went to.

You often see that when people get remarried.

I don't know if you know this,

But the stats recently that I read show that 80% of second marriages fail,

Where first marriages fail around 50%.

I think what happens there is we tend to,

Yes,

Find someone new,

But repeating our old habits,

It just happens again because you've already pulled the trigger.

It's easy to pull the trigger of divorce again.

Or let me use another example.

Another friend of mine used to be a dentist.

He was a dentist surgeon and a very good one,

But he started having hand problems and he wasn't able to do surgeries anymore,

But he was an excellent provider for his family.

So what did he do?

He went into law instead and because he was used to succeeding professionally,

He became a successful lawyer.

Habits are habits.

Good habits are good habits.

Bad habits are bad habits.

They're just habits.

But if over the years we've developed some of these bad habits and we're struggling with life,

Which is why we're listening to this podcast right now,

Then we have to decide that to change these habits it's going to take work,

It's going to take effort,

It's going to take time,

It's going to take commitment because what's going to happen is we may temporarily make some changes,

But most likely our old habits will come back in place.

So if we want to change,

We really have to realize the challenges of change because what we tend to do is when we're in crisis,

We will seek help,

But when that crisis ends,

We'll just go back to what happened before and then the crisis will re-arise and then we'll go back to what happened before and we'll just stay on that cycle going around and around and around.

I don't know about you,

But I have a pretty good memory of people's stories and when I see them again after a long time,

I often can remember what was happening in their life before and now what's happening today and I often realize that what's happening before,

Often 10,

20 years ago,

Is still happening today.

People for the most part,

Unless they really work on it,

Don't change because habits become quite strong with time.

Now the good news is if we have good habits in place,

That's awesome.

For example,

I was 14 years old when I started working out and I realized along the way that working out has a lot of benefits.

It reduces stress,

It keeps me healthy,

It makes me feel good.

There's just a lot of benefits to it.

So I decided that this was a habit I'm going to cultivate and I did and there are a lot of benefits to physically taking care of our body.

One of them is just not so much pain.

As we get older,

We tend to have physical problems if we don't take care of ourselves,

But if we do take care of ourselves in the three main areas,

Through weight bearing to keep our bones strong,

Through cardio to keep our heart strong and through flexibility to keep ourselves from getting injuries,

We can stay pretty healthy throughout our lives.

We'll still have bumps along the way,

But again,

Because we have habits in place,

Those bumps will bring us back to being healthy instead of unhealthy.

So habits can be good,

But what do we do when we have those bad habits?

Is there any hope?

And of course the answer is yes,

But we have to get to that yes through understanding because our tendency in life is to put out fires.

And the problem is with putting out fires is it's not that hard to do.

It really isn't because it isn't,

That's what we tend to do.

We tend to throughout life with our bad habits,

Just put out fires and that's why they just keep reoccurring over and over and over again.

I can give so many examples of this.

I mean,

Think of finances.

Think of a person who's eking by,

Not saving for the future,

Living literally one paycheck per paycheck per month and just eking by.

When a crisis comes,

They may reach out to their family and friends,

They may sell something,

They may get a part time job putting out that fire,

But then as time goes along,

It just gets harder and harder and harder and maybe they have to move in with a family member because they've never really made choices that prepare them to take care of the future and to take care of themselves well so they're not always putting out fires.

Or think of the person that I'm sure we all know,

Someone like this,

Who just dates person after person after person because no one's good enough after a while something happens and it ends and they're upset,

They blame the other person and then they try again and then they blame the other person and then they try again and then they blame the other person and the cycle just continues.

I mean,

Truly,

I can go on and on about examples of this.

There are so many.

The more dangerous putting out fires come when we turn to substances or addictions,

Things like alcohol or drugs or prescription drugs to put out fires.

They do work,

But again,

In the long run,

They make our lives miserable.

So the first thing we have to acknowledge is am I changing?

Am I growing in the areas that I need to grow in?

Or am I just putting out fires day after day and throughout my life?

If we're putting out fires,

Then the next thing we need to ask ourselves is,

Okay,

How do I not just put out fires?

How do I change who I am as a person and start cultivating habits that are good?

Let's use the example of finances.

Again,

If we're living paycheck for paycheck,

How do we undo that?

Maybe we start taking classes that can increase our income.

Maybe we start paying off our debt and saving money by not going out so much.

I mean,

It won't change overnight.

That's the thing about habits.

Habits are habits and change takes time.

And the more deeply we've established these habits,

Maybe we have a hundred thousand dollars in debt.

That may take years to get out of,

But years will come and they will go.

And in those years we can get out of debt and even be debt free.

So that's the hard part about change.

It is slow.

It's not fast like putting out the fire,

But we all know the benefits of cultivating good habits.

We are just so much happier and less stress when we do.

Another way I see it is with couples.

There's a tendency for couples just to repeat the bad habits they have in place and they constantly blame the other person.

When I work with couples,

The key message I want to give them is stop trying to fix the other person and work on fixing yourself.

Be the best partner,

Be the best wife,

Be the best husband that you can be and don't really care what the other person does.

Just do your part really well.

But they'll say,

But Dr.

Puff,

They do this and that.

I know they do,

But be your part,

Do your part well.

And then if you do,

It's going to be a lot easier to make healthy,

Good decisions in regards to the future.

And if that future entails they're better now because you're better or that future entails you leave now because they're not better.

Whatever happens is you're now going to be that better partner and you're going to know how to act.

And because you're looking for certain things,

You most likely will attract them because you're doing your part.

So habits are habits.

They are strong.

They are hard to change,

But they can be changed.

Our tendency throughout life is going to be to put out fires.

I mean,

Truthfully,

Almost everyone listening to this podcast is most likely right now just putting out fires.

It's so much easier.

We get an immediate response and it works in the short term,

But in the long term,

We're just stuck.

We're just repeating the same thing over and over and over again.

If we want to break that cycle,

It's going to be hard.

We have to really commit to it.

We have to get support,

Support from other people,

Support from me by listening to this podcast,

Support from friends that are also trying to change their lives,

Meeting people that encourage us to make the choices that will improve our lives.

Another example I can give,

I live here in the United States and one of the wonderful things about the United States is we have people that move here from all over the world that want to call the United States their home.

Well,

Many of them come without the ability to speak English well or not speaking English at all.

And what they'll do,

Though it's a lot of work,

They dive in,

They get out there,

They learn,

They take classes,

They talk to people,

They expose themselves to English and with time they become fluent.

My children have been in a dual immersion program where over the last decade they've been learning Spanish and they do it by immersing themselves in that culture,

In that language and with time they've gotten quite good at speaking Spanish.

But I have two friends of mine who I love very much and both their mothers are from another culture.

They've lived here for decades and though they've lived here all this time,

They've never learned to speak English.

They can understand it a little bit,

But they really won't speak it at all even though they've been here for decades.

So habits are habits and unless we really immerse ourselves in changing our habits,

We're not going to learn new skills and it's hard.

And that's why we'd rather turn towards putting out fires.

We'd rather just face the crisis right now,

Fix the crisis right now and then go back to our old habit.

But if we truly are aware of the things we're doing that are causing us harm,

That are making us unhappy,

Then we need to make changes,

Not short term changes,

But lifetime changes.

And that's changing who we are,

Our habits.

Everything ultimately is habits.

Again,

There are good habits and there are bad habits or habits we want to change.

If we have habits in place that are causing us harm or others harm,

Then we need to work towards changing them.

And if we do that,

With time we can get quite good at creating new habits.

It's just work.

It's really that simple.

It's just work.

When I first moved to California,

I realized I ate a lot differently than I did because I grew up in the Midwest where I wasn't taught to eat that well.

I had some bad habits in place.

Well,

With time and with a lot of work,

I began to change those habits and I got a lot better at it.

Another one can be perhaps we're angry and we yell at people that cut us off on the freeway.

Or let's say we're depressed and it's easy for us to fall into a morass of sadness.

Or let's say we're anxious and it's so easy for us to get worried over the future.

All these are our habits,

Habits that we've learned over the years.

And these habits can be changed,

But we can't think of them as fires.

We have to think of them like learning the language.

It's much harder.

It's going to take time.

It's going to take effort.

But if we put forth that time and effort,

We will change these habits.

So first thing we have to do is identify what are our habits?

What do we do every day?

And then which are the ones that are beneficial to me and others?

And which are the ones causing me or others harm?

And of course we keep the ones that are good.

And then we begin to work on the ones that need changing.

Let's say we have a high level of anxiety that we want to change.

We want to become more peaceful.

So one thing we could do instead of when we take plane trips and taking the Xanax in order to relax,

We learn breathing techniques.

We learn about meditation.

We learn about ways to cognitively change our thoughts.

Instead,

These are harder,

But what will happen is we're going to create new habits.

And once we cultivate those new habits,

We can then begin to tackle other aspects of our anxiety until that anxiety dissipates and we find a peacefulness cultivating itself inside our hearts.

And now in conclusion,

I want to talk about one last thing,

Which is how far we can go.

We can go far,

Really far.

So if we're choosing today to cultivate habits,

Habits that are good for us,

Then let's choose instead of putting out fires to keep cultivating habits until we say,

Wow,

My life is exquisite.

And that probably is going to take all our lives to do that because often we have a lot of things to work on and there's many things that we can improve.

But if we commit to improving our lives and keep getting better and better every day,

That's what will happen.

It's work,

It's effort,

But the benefits are truly amazing.

And that's what this podcast is all about,

How we can have beautiful,

Amazing lives.

There's so many things here now that we can work on and develop.

Choose one or two,

Develop them,

Get good at them,

Make them habits,

Then choose another two,

Work in them,

Cultivate them,

Make them habits and keep working on them until we find that our lives are just shining.

There's really nothing keeping us from having beautiful lives except our efforts.

We have to put forth the effort.

We have to keep trying.

We have to keep improving.

But the wonderful thing about happiness is we can keep improving our level of internal happiness to the day we die.

We can just keep getting better.

So let's commit to that.

Let's work on that and let's keep going forward in our lives,

Shining beautifully throughout our lives.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

If you are finding these episodes helpful,

I would love for you to share your experience with others.

The easiest way for new people to listen to this podcast is just refer them to www.

Happinesspodcast.

Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

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A testimonial link,

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Often you can leave reviews there too.

The reviews are an awesome way to encourage people to start listening to the happiness podcast.

And until next time,

Love what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Enlightening. Thanks

Wonderful Dr ! Thank you 🙏

I’ve enjoyed a few of these so far, I found in the first one it sounded like you were whispering, this one not as much. Will give all a listen!

That was so inspirational. Thank you!

Excellent talk, encouraging one to consciously consider habits that either help or hinder ones search for happiness. Thank you Dr Puff for another wise, insightful talk🙏

This is so inspiring and I wish everyone could get to listen to it. Learn and feel better

Wonderful. Thank you

Thank you Dr. Robert Puff. I came across this podcast and knew it was something I needed to hear. I am grateful to be in a place where I can be accepting of this knowledge and unknowingly already in practice of moving from putting out fires to making new habits in one or two areas of life. This has been motivating and helpful and I look forward to hearing more of your work. Namaste.

This is the first one I've listened to!! I loved it and can resonate with it. I look forward to listening to more of them. Thankyou🙏👍

I was thinking to myself that I have to stop choosing the poisons (foods, relationships, emotions) in my life and start taking the medicines (healthy choices) I sat down to meditate and found this beautiful affirmation of exactly that - thank you, and thank you Fate 😊 just what I needed, when I needed it. Added to favorites for continued reminder.

So true! Thank you ❤️🙏🏻

That was helpful to be aware of our own habits, we can only change ourselves and try to be with people that are supportive. Thank You Carol

Amazing different perspective on self understanding and making changes from within that late into future that I loved :)

Very Helpful, Thank U Dr. Puff

Thank you for such good advice!!❤️🙏🏽

Lifetime process “make straight your path”