Rewire Your Brain For New Habits (Talk)

As you listen, you’ll learn practical techniques to break old cycles and reinforce fresh ones, enabling you to shift your mindset and create the life you desire. Perfect for personal growth and transformation, this talk guides you to take control of your habits and unlock your true potential. It is a powerful meditation designed to help you build lasting, positive changes in your life. Through guided insights, it taps into the science of neuroplasticity, helping you reshape thought patterns and develop new, healthy habits.

Transcript

Today,

We're going to talk about rewiring your brain for success.

Have you ever noticed that the things that are good for you are hard to do?

And the things that are bad for you are very easy to do?

Isn't this an extremely weird situation to be in?

You'd think that we would be wired to do the things that are good for us and would avoid the things that are bad for us,

But it turns out that the wiring is backwards.

Not in every case,

But in most cases.

Most people find it a lot easier to eat junk food or to eat unhealthy food or to go out to eat or to eat too much or whatever it is,

Rather than eat the exact best food for them.

It's much easier to watch some entertainment than it is to do work.

It's a lot easier not to exercise than to exercise.

You know,

All these different situations keep coming up in our life and if we don't have a method to deal with this,

Then we will just do whatever is easiest for us and oftentimes the easiest thing is not good for our health and not good for our mind,

Not good for our joy,

Not good for our wealth.

Saving money is harder than spending money in most people.

We have to figure this stuff out for ourselves because otherwise we just don't do the stuff that's good for us and who we become in our life is basically down to what we do and what we think.

If you think about it,

Any so-called great person,

Successful person,

The reason they're successful is because of something they did,

Isn't it?

If you think about any famous successful person in any area,

Whether they're sports people or whether they're musicians,

Artists,

Politicians,

You know,

Engineers,

Architects,

Teachers,

Whatever,

Right,

Spiritual gurus,

Whatever,

They all did something or other and in most cases they did lots and lots and lots of things over and over and over again and that's why they ended up becoming what they are now or what they were,

Right?

If those same people,

You took away all the things that they did,

Imagine they just didn't do anything,

They just watched Netflix,

You know,

They read books all day and they didn't do anything else.

Let's just imagine,

Think of one successful person that you admire,

Someone that you think about,

You care about and you're inspired by.

Now imagine they didn't do anything,

They just sat around and made cake and ate the cake themselves in their house,

No one else got their cake.

Would you even know about them?

Would you admire them?

No,

It's because of the actions that they took,

It's the things they thought in their mind,

The actions they took,

The words they spoke,

Thoughts,

Words,

Actions,

They did difficult things enough times to become who they are.

So we have a huge opportunity to move forward and become whatever we want to become but it all depends on our habits and our behaviours and what we do and how long we do them and how often we do them and if we can't get over this resistance then we're never going to get the success we want.

So how do we change this situation,

How can we rewire our brain for success?

Just think back to the last time you tried to do something good for you that is hard to do,

It could be exercise,

A project that you're working on,

Having a hard conversation with somebody,

Whatever it is,

Think of something difficult and just notice,

Just imagine that scene when you were about to do it or you're thinking of doing it,

Maybe getting up early in the morning and just notice what happened internally in your mind,

In your body.

I'll give an example and you can think about this.

This morning I woke up late,

Right,

Why did I wake up late?

Because the temperature has dropped and now I'm,

So it's now colder in the house and when I woke up it was cooler in the room than it normally is and my covers were all so nice and cosy,

Everything was so nice and toasty,

Comfy,

I did not want to get out of bed,

I was like,

Oh,

This is just so nice,

I don't want,

Because I'd have to get out into the cold and I'd rather be in my nice warm bed,

So I didn't get up and then when I finally did get out of bed,

You know,

You pull the covers open and get up,

Right,

I'm like,

What's the big deal,

Really,

This is not a problem,

It's totally fine.

But that initial little conflict was enough to make me get up an hour and a half later than I wanted to.

And some version of this is happening in our life pretty much every day.

So think of something that you had a hard time doing and just notice,

If you remember what that was like,

How did it feel in your body,

How did it feel in your mind,

Your emotions,

When you thought of doing the thing that you wanted to do but you didn't do it or you had a hard time with it,

What was going on internally?

What thoughts did you have?

When I think about doing exercise sometimes,

I'm thinking,

Oh,

I don't want to,

Even going out of the house sometimes,

I'm like,

I love going on walks,

I live in a beautiful place,

Loads of hiking here in Sedona in the desert and in Kauai,

But sometimes I just don't want to leave the house because I'm doing something or I can't be bothered.

And so there's a resistance,

Just can you notice that resistance in yourself?

So what's happening there with that resistance is that the brain has neural pathways,

Which I'm sure you've heard about.

In other words,

They're like roads in the brain between the connections in the brain.

The more we do something,

The more powerful those connections are.

It's kind of like going from hacking a path through the jungle with a machete and there's nothing there and then making a bigger path and then a bigger path and then a little road and then a paved road and then turning it into a highway and then a superhighway,

Right?

So if you do something again and again,

It becomes like a superhighway,

It's very,

Very easy to do that.

So many,

Many things in our life,

We have a superhighway connections in our brain,

Which is good because it makes our life easier,

We don't have to struggle through doing something.

If you're learning a new instrument,

Learning a new language,

Doing anything new,

It's like hacking a new path through the jungle.

And so if we're hacking a path through a jungle,

Part of us is like,

This is really hard work.

I'm much better off just getting back to the highway where I at least know what's going on and it's fast and easy.

So there's initial resistance in our physical brain.

It's not just like we're lazy people,

There's actually a brain issue going on here.

And so a lot of these habits,

When we're trying to develop a new habit,

The actual brain itself isn't connected.

The neural pathways in the brain aren't powerful enough so that the habit becomes automatic.

So it takes effort and anything that takes effort has some level of discomfort and stress around it.

And we don't like discomfort and stress,

Do we?

We like ease and grace,

Fun and games,

Convenience,

Don't we?

It's much more pleasant for us.

We like to feel comfortable.

We don't like to feel uncomfortable.

So this is the dilemma we find ourselves in.

The things that are going to improve our life will most certainly make us feel uncomfortable for at least a temporary period,

Which might be days or even weeks or even months,

Until it becomes a superhighway in our brain and then becomes easy and then we don't think about it.

This is the thing that we have to come to terms with,

That doing new things that are good for us is going to have discomfort.

It's not that bad though,

Actually.

It's just initial discomfort.

It's initially unpleasant,

But it's actually fine.

For example,

I get up early most of the time,

So I might not feel awake when I wake up.

I've just woken up half asleep.

And so I said,

Just get out of bed,

Just get out of bed.

So I get out of bed,

Put some water on my face,

Have something to drink,

Have some water,

Turn some lights on,

Walk around a bit,

And I'm awake.

I might not be fully,

Fully awake right away,

But it's not that bad.

It's just an initial period of grogginess or slightly out of it,

And then I feel fine.

Same thing with exercise.

Oh,

I don't want to do it.

I don't want to do it.

But then I do it.

I'm like,

This is great.

Many,

Many times I'm like,

Oh,

I don't want to go for a walk.

I go for a walk.

I'm like,

This is so wonderful.

I'm so stoked I did this,

But I could have been stuck in the house.

So in most cases,

It's the initial part of the practice that is most uncomfortable.

Same thing with having difficult conversations with people.

I don't want to talk to them.

I don't want to upset them.

I don't want to have to have this conversation.

But then you have the conversation and you feel really great because you've got it off your chest.

You've cleared it out.

You've moved forward in your life.

You've just taken things to the next level.

So how can we deal with this initial unpleasant feeling?

There's a couple of ways that are very effective.

The first way,

And I've done a meditation on this,

Which is called rewiring your brain for new habits,

Same as this audio.

And in that meditation,

Basically what we do,

And I'll explain it.

You can do this yourself and you can also listen to the meditation if you want.

So you imagine how it feels at the beginning of wanting to do a habit.

So like if I want to do exercise,

Like I have weights and I don't use them as much as perhaps I'd like to.

Because when I think about it,

I'm like,

Oh,

Lifting weights is a pain in the ass,

Right?

But when I do it,

I feel really good afterwards.

So first of all,

You imagine how it feels when you think about doing your new habits or doing the hard thing,

And it doesn't normally feel good.

And then you imagine how does it feel after you've done it?

How does it feel once you've achieved success?

Once you've done the thing that you want to do,

How does it feel then?

And normally it feels really,

Really great.

If you do exercise,

Normally you feel great after the exercise.

If you finish a project,

You feel great after doing it.

There's many,

Many things.

It's like a huge success.

It's a real charge.

So you get that feeling.

You then create a thought that connects to the feeling.

For example,

With exercise,

What I like to think is to think success,

Success,

Or yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Right?

Because it's a wonderful feeling.

So you can think that thought again and again,

Whatever thought you want to have.

Bring it into that feeling state,

So you're basically building up a wonderful,

Good feeling.

And then you can anchor it in by like putting your fingers together.

An anchor is where you put your fingers together or you like touch your heart or touch your head or like make a fist or something.

So you're thinking the thought,

You're using a physical anchor of the body,

And you're coming into that visualization,

That feeling.

So you're consciously creating good feelings in your being.

And then what you do,

Once you've got that good feeling and that anchor,

You pull that energy to the beginning of the habit.

So for example,

I've done this with doing weights,

Right?

Just some dumbbells,

Right?

Not a big deal.

I'm not like benching.

You know,

I'm not like got this whole gym in my house or anything.

But just like doing some basic exercise.

So I've taken the feeling I get after doing it,

Which is a really good feeling,

And I've put it at the beginning,

And I've clenched my fist,

And it's like,

Yay.

And now,

When I do that,

I want to lift the weights,

Like I want to do it,

Like I actually feel good about doing it,

Rather than,

Oh,

I don't want to,

I actually feel,

Yes,

This is going to be great.

I need to do it now.

Does that make sense?

So what you're doing is you're taking the end result,

Which is a wonderful feeling,

And then you're imagining the beginning part of that habit,

That new behavior,

And you're replaying those good feelings and that good thought,

Superimposing it on top of that experience.

And that replaces that negative,

I don't want to do it,

Resistant feeling with an excited,

Inspired feeling.

Another thing you can do,

That really works well,

Another thing you can do is to connect the habit with some reward,

Either at the beginning or the end.

So for example,

When I was writing a lot of books,

I would get up at four o'clock in the morning,

Do my meditation,

Then I'd have a big cup of mate tea with local Hawaii honey,

And then I'd write for a couple hours and go for a walk on the beach.

And I really like my tea,

And I like writing anyway,

But like I had a routine,

Like here's my tea,

I'm going to have my tea,

Which is something I like,

Then I'm going to write,

Which I like anyway,

But I need a bit of motivation,

And then I go for a walk on the beach.

So it's sandwiched between two things that I enjoy.

Another example of this is,

I have an espresso machine,

I don't actually think coffee is good for me,

To be perfectly honest,

So I don't do this now,

But when I was doing it,

I would turn on the espresso machine,

Because it takes like,

I don't know,

Five minutes,

Something to warm up.

And while it was warming up,

I would do exercise,

So I'd click the machine,

Do my exercise,

And then I would reward myself with espresso,

Cappuccino,

Whatever it was.

So that connects the habit to some pleasure.

So think about this for yourself,

What is a habit that you want to change?

You want to create?

And how can you rewire your brain by doing this first method we talked about,

Of imagining the end result,

And pulling it forward,

And putting it in front of,

Connecting it to the beginning of the practice.

This is extremely powerful,

This is something you do in meditation,

In your mind,

Again and again and again,

Until you want to do the thing,

You're like,

Ooh,

I can't wait to do my exercise,

Hooray,

I can't wait to eat my healthy food,

Whatever it is,

I need to get out of the house and go for a walk,

This is the best thing ever,

Right?

That's how it should be.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if it was already wired that way to begin with,

But such is life.

It's a cosmic joke being played on us,

Frankly,

That the things that are good for us tend to be hard,

And things that are bad for us tend to be easy,

But we have to realize it's a joke and figure a way of dealing with it,

Otherwise our life will be wrecked.

So one way is to do that,

The other way is to connect your new habit with some other form of pleasure.

It could be tea,

It could be something else,

Make sure that what you connect it to is a thing that isn't really bad for you.

If someone's like,

Oh,

Every time I write an hour of my book,

I'll have a shot of whiskey,

It's like,

Yeah,

I'm not sure how well that's going to work out for you.

Do you see what I mean?

So we want to,

It can be a little bit like,

For example,

This tea has honey in it,

And I'm trying not to have sugar,

But I think the pros override the cons in this case.

So think about,

It needs to be something that you like,

That the side effects are not bad enough to cause you other problems.

This is the wonderful challenge of life,

Is that we're dealing with a situation where the wiring is all off,

And we have to figure out a way of dealing with it.

So just tune into this for yourself.

What is one habit,

And how can you rewire it based on the things we've talked about?

It's worth you coming up with a few options for yourself and then trying them out,

And recognize that you will need to try them out long enough for you to get a sense of whether it works or not,

Because that initial resistance doesn't just disappear,

It's still there.

So it takes a certain amount of time to deal with it.

And the last thing I want to mention is success,

Redefine success.

Success means you did the thing,

It doesn't mean you got the result you're looking for,

It meant that you just took action.

We live in a rewards-based,

Results-based society,

It's all about how many likes did you get on social stuff,

And how many blah blah blah,

And how much money,

And whatever else,

Right,

Outcomes.

You can't guarantee any outcome with anything you do,

Nothing is completely guaranteed.

But we are responsible for our inputs,

You're responsible for what you do,

But you can't force the outcome.

So we have to rewire ourselves that success means that I took the action,

I did the thing,

I took the step.

Like if someone wants to lose weight and they're always looking at the scale,

You can't force your body to drop the weight,

But you can go on walks,

Do weights,

Change your diet,

Have positive thoughts,

Change your attitude,

All these things we can do,

And after a while it will have a change in the scale.

But we can't base our success on the scale today,

Because it's going to be a bunch of things we do over a certain amount of time that leads to that transformation,

And if success is only based on the scale and not based on the action,

Then we're always going to feel something's missing.

So I want you to reframe success for yourself,

Success means you did the difficult thing that you wanted to do.

So if someone's writing a book,

Success doesn't mean you're a bestseller,

Success means that you wrote for an hour today.

If you want to do meditation,

Success doesn't mean you're enlightened,

Success means that you sat for 10 minutes,

Congratulations.

If you want to learn the piano,

Success doesn't mean that you're a concert pianist with a huge crowd,

It means that you sat down for 20 minutes and practiced something.

You might have practiced it in a way that you didn't particularly like very much and it didn't really lead anywhere particularly,

But the fact that you did it and then you did it again and did it again and did it again means that success is on the way.

So when we reframe success as doing the thing,

Then we get immediate feeling of success,

We enjoy the inputs and then we surrender the outputs,

Whatever happens is fine.

The biggest benefit we get from personal transformation is that we become a better version of ourselves and ultimately being a happier,

More disciplined,

More loving,

Kind,

Self-sovereign,

Masterful version of ourselves is the greatest gift because everything in our life physically can all be taken away from us.

There can be earthquakes,

Floods,

Hurricanes,

Natural disasters,

Wars,

Economy can collapse,

I mean who knows what's going to happen,

We can physically die,

But who we become,

Who we have become as a result of all the work we've done on ourselves,

That is something spiritual that's inside of us.

That's the real success and so all these little things that we do are building our character,

Building our deeper success and we can relax,

The results will come.

This is how it works in life,

Results will come,

It just might take a little bit longer than we think but that doesn't matter when we re-attribute success to feeling good now and just doing those things.

So that's how you rewire your brain in a nutshell,

Thank you so much for being here and I'm wishing you every success,

Every little success,

I'm wishing you thousands and thousands,

Hundreds of thousands of mini successes every day so you feel good again and again and again and then whatever comes of it is going to be wonderful as well so you're already winning and then you continue to win on the internal level and the external level as your life gets better and better and most importantly you'll become somebody who has self-confidence,

Who loves yourself,

Who respects yourself,

Who's taking action,

Who's the real deal.

That is the greatest feeling,

That's the feeling of strength,

Of joy and of power.

Thanks so much for being here,

Lots of love,

Talk to you soon.

Reviews

There were a number of jewels in this no nonsense talk. Success is doing the thing. 😂 I've always seen success as the end result. I'm trying to learn Spanish and I get in the dumps all the time with my overall failure. From this moment I'll see the study practice as the success and let the rest take its time. I also really liked the part of the talk about character building. How important a learning is that for people!!!!

I’m already doing most of these things. Thank you for affirming. I’m on a good path.🌙⭐️🌈🌞🌙⭐️🌈🌞🌙⭐️🌈🌞🌙⭐️🌈🌞

🙏🏼💖☀️💞