Find a Mentor, Stop a Habit, and Remember to Listen
Hi Folks! Connor and Nick here from Healthy Living With Nick and Connor. Thanks again for being on our email list, it means a lot, and we are excited to share our weekly email with you. We hope you enjoy it! Here is what we hope you take away from this one:
We can all use a little more helpful feedback in our lives, and the value of a good mentor cannot be overstated. Go out of your way to seek regular feedback about yourself and your perspective, ideas and goals.
Is there some habit you’ve always wanted to stop, but have had a hard time dropping? Try a 4-week dopamine fast for that behavior and turn whatever it is on its head. Habits are predictable in that they are hardest to give up in the short term, but it gets easier and easier the more you avoid them. This is especially true if you start to recognize the fact that your minds’ natural pull to that particular behavior is the first sign you are successfully giving it up and so can and should be looked at positively.
Listening is an often under-appreciated and underdeveloped skill. Improving your active listening can be the catalyst to enhance your general observation and deepen relationships. Listening is a master level skill that leads to both personal and professional growth. To listen fully requires that you are totally present and your mind is quiet.
Starter Mindset Tip: Seek Feedback, Find Mentorship!
As we age, the number of people in our lives who naturally fill the role of mentor or helpful life-guide, for lack of a better term, drops, and with this so does valuable feedback. Not only do these key figures disappear, but many of us won’t ever seek out someone to specifically look critically at who we are and what we do. It is unfortunate because this is such an important and crucial way to grow and improve. Sometimes we can’t see the obvious thing about ourselves as it requires an outside perspective. So, if there is someone in your life you feel would make a good mentor, or someone who could give you helpful input regularly, that you trust, ask them to do exactly that. With these relationships, it helps to label them as such, and is generally more formal than one you would have with a close friend. They will help naturally develop humility in yourself and enhance perspective. Also, if you are in the lucky position to be a mentor yourself, we encourage you to jump on it as it can teach you the challenges, joys and benefits of the role from the other side as well.
Health Recipe: Stopping a Habit: A 4-Week Dopamine Fast For Any Behaviour You Want to Stop
Timing: Around 4 weeks to truly reset your brain’s reward pathway
Level of Difficulty: Easy - hard depending on the behavior
Serving Size: Try this out with a small behavior first to give yourself a win
Spiciness: Mild - spicy depending on how much reward the behavior brings you
INGREDIENTS
Yourself, your mind, your willpower and desire for change, and the thing or behavior you want to change
REASONING AND BENEFITS
Is there a behavior or a habit that you have always wanted to stop doing? This could be drinking pop, playing video games, an afternoon chocolate bar, or anything in between. Have you tried to give it up before, and then given up after a week or two? If you have answered yes to either question, we are asking that you give it a shot again, but try for 4 weeks this time. The reason for this is because this is the minimum amount of time it takes to reset the brain’s reward pathway. (Lembke, p. 76) Everybody knows the feeling of craving even after you have just had or done that thing that you crave. The easy next step is to just feed that craving and go back again and again, but this is a great example of choosing the harder path, and feeling uncomfortable in order to grow and achieve a goal that you set. When you continuously give in to the craving, your pleasure will actually get less and less, and your brain will adapt to requiring more and more of that thing or behavior that you crave. Eventually you will never be satisfied, and you will constantly want it more and more. This dopamine fast will make it way easier to avoid this behavior in the future after the pathway is reset. Teach your brain to make its own choices again.
INSTRUCTIONS
Pick a habit or behavior that you want to either stop or do less of.
Write out your plan. Think of things that could cause you to fail. Maybe there is a place, a thing, or a person you have to avoid for the next 4 weeks because they are associated with this habit, and will make it hard to fight the craving.
4 week dopamine fast time. Do not do this behavior for 4 weeks.
We say 4 weeks, but it could be shorter or longer to reset your reward pathway. Aim for 4 weeks, and see how you feel. Decide if you should push it longer or not.
Sometimes it is not realistic for your lifestyle to cut something completely out, so stop for 4 weeks, and then allow yourself to do it every now and then in a healthy manner after the reset. Make it an exception to your normal, not your normal.
PRO TIP: Think about the current behavior that you want to stop doing or having. If you don’t try this dopamine fast, where will this habit or behavior bring you in 1, 3, 5, 10 years? Is this something that you want to fix now for your future health and happiness?
* We often just roll through life without thinking of the decisions we make, this recipe will remind you and your brain that you can make choices for yourself.
** Choosing to fast from this behavior will translate to other habits and behaviors and habits being questioned. You will be holding court in your mind again!
*** We humans are really good at searching out pleasure, so this can be a tough battle, but it will feel pretty amazing when you complete this 4 week dopamine fast and show yourself that you can still make decisions around here!
Dessert Quote:
"To listen is to continually give up all expectation and to give our attention, completely and freshly, to what is before us, not really knowing what we will hear or what that will mean." - Mark Nepo
Now we want to hear from YOU! Please let us know what you think of today’s newsletter, and send us an example of how you applied the health recipe to your life! We would love to share how you introduced this week’s recipe into your life’s unique menu. Thanks and have a great Sunday!
Sources:
Learn more about how to stop a habit, and create new ones:
Lembke, A. (2021). Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. Penguin.
