Journey to the Sunnyside

Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Journey to the Sunnyside. I'm Mike Hardenbrook. And today, we're doing another one of these ten minute Mondays. But in fact, it's Tuesday because of the holiday yesterday, and I'm gonna pull from the master class. The master class is on mindful drinking that I did.

If you're a current Sunnyside member, you can access that inside of the app in the resources section. And I'm really proud of the way that this masterclass turned out. And today, I'm gonna pull a lesson from that on strengthening new habit pathways, something that we're all working on now that will help to reinforce what you're doing now for long term sustained change. So let's jump into that on this ten minute Tuesday. Okay.

Strengthening new habit pathways. And we'll start out with talking about reinforcing new habits through consistency. Consistency is key. You cannot change habits overnight. And a recent study that's really well known in the habit space is called the Lalli study, which estimates that depending on the complexity, habits can be formed anywhere between eighteen and two hundred and fifty six days with the mean being sixty six days.

Now the complexity ranges. So you have basic habits. Let's say you go to the dentist, you're already brushing your teeth, but they say you need to floss more. So adding flossing to your brushing your teeth, that would be something like a simple habit. A more moderate habit would be, I need to go for walks after dinner, or maybe I need to go to the gym more often.

That would be a moderate habit. And a complex habit would be, I'm gonna start training for a marathon. And so you have this real rigid schedule of extreme, exercise that you have to get to. That would be a complex habit. Alcohol sits in the moderate to moderate to complex, and it it has that range because it really depends on our environment, our personality, our upbringing.

There's a lot of different things at play. It's a very complex kinda habit. But as far as changing it, it's the moderate to moderate to complex. So we're sitting in the sixty six or let's just say sixty to ninety days range for actually forming a new habit around alcohol. So we need to give it some consistency and some time.

Another part of staying consistent is chunking the time down. So as I said, sixty to ninety days ahead of you to actually form a new habit and change an old one, that seems like a really massive project. But if we start thinking in terms of daily tracking, weekly review, and planning, it starts to chunk it down into a more manageable actual project for us. And so that's why I have the Sunnyside app here. This does this beautifully.

It's really simple to plan out your week, to track how your progress is. And but, of course, you can do all this on your own. And this is also something that the abstinence model does beautifully, though one day at a time. That actually works as far as forming a habit. So don't think in terms of I have sixty to ninety days ahead of me.

Think in terms of what can I do today to stick to my commitment? What's the one habit that I want to build? And that's where you start. Okay. Techniques to enhance habit formation.

And this is the key technique to forming a new habit. Small, achievable goals that have a positive outcome. And a lot of us, especially around alcohol, depending on how you're feeling about it right now, tend to bite off more than we can chew. We say, maybe after a long night drinking, we say, that's it. I'm done.

But that's not an achievable goal if you're somebody that drinks, you know, four or five times a week or maybe every single night and just say, I'm never doing it again. That's really difficult. And that's why many of you are here because that isn't an achievable goal in your lifestyle right now. And so I think setting small achievable goals to start. So let's say you drink five nights a week.

What would be in your mind something that's not completely restrictive that you're not, you know, white knuckling it through it where you say, you know what? I can I can drink one night less this week and start moving towards my goal? Even if your goal is much less than that, what seems achievable today? Because if you think about it, even, like, let's say, going to the gym. Let's say one day you wanna be able to do, 10 pull ups or something like that.

You know, if you go in the gym and say, I'm gonna do 10 pull ups and just start right away, it's not realistic. You have to build up to that. And it once you get five, once you get six, once you get eight, that 10 is much easier to achieve. And think of it in those terms here. So first key is set small achievable goals that will fit your lifestyle that you think you can do.

Again, if you actually think that you can go from five nights a week to one night a week and it wouldn't be that difficult, go for it. I'm not saying to limit what you really want to do, but if that doesn't seem achievable, don't overdo it to start because then it's just gonna make you feel defeated. Now the role of rewards and habit formation are extremely crucial because this moves us from something of limitation and moves us into something of reward. And when we reward ourselves for a habit that we're doing over time, then that actually becomes automatic for our brains. So let's say, for example, we decide that we wanna cut back from five nights a week to two nights a week.

Well, on those nights that we're not drinking, we need to find something to occupy that time with a reward. And on the flip side of that, when we actually do earn those days that we said, hey. It's okay for me to have a couple drinks on these nights. That's also tied to a reward. And so setting up those rewards is extremely important.

You know what makes you happy. There are a bunch of different things that you can decide are tied to reward that makes you feel good that you could see yourself doing on a regular basis. Another one is adapting habits to changing circumstances. So let's face it. You know, life happens.

Work might change your schedule. You might have a new baby. Congratulations. You know, there's all different things. You might have to move or you have vacations or family are coming in.

You have to be able to roll with the punches when it comes to habits. So let's just say for the example of you're having a baby and all of a sudden, you started to build this habit of going to the gym after work instead of happy hour, and it's really working for you. You feel great, but all of a sudden, your schedule doesn't fit in anymore. What are some things that you could do to then tie a similar reward, get some exercise, and still build on that habit in a different way? So for example, let's say, before you went to the gym, well, maybe now you come home and find some other habit.

Maybe it's going for a walk with your spouse, and then you guys can enjoy time together. You feel good and you get a little exercise together. Or maybe it's coming home because you have more responsibilities with the kids, and you just decide to take them to the park, and you have more family time together. You just need to be able to roll with those punches as they come and find new ways to tie rewards and continue building habits that support the change in the goals that you're after. Okay.

That's a wrap for today's ten minute Tuesday, the first one ever. And I hope that you took something away from this. I hope that it gives you a little bit of wind at your back to keep moving forward, to keep on everything that you're doing, knowing that it's gonna become more automatic. It's going to make more of a difference the more you put into it. Pretty much, that's kind of the way that life goes.

And so I just like to part today by wishing you a wonderful week and excited about the holidays to come to share those with you. And I'll talk to you soon.