Rangan Chatterjee is a physician, author, and podcaster. Breaking old habits can be just as challenging as building new ones. As we step into a new year, what does the latest science say are the best strategies for forming positive habits and letting go of the old ones? Expect to learn what the problem with reliance is and why having minimal reliance is important, why hero worship is problematic, why there are problems with perfectionism, how to let go of the past, why so many people feel the need to be liked, why focusing too much on behaviours is problematic, why people struggle to make changes that last, and much more... Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with any purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get a 20% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get the best bloodwork analysis in America and bypass Function’s 400,000-person waitlist at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period from Shopify at https://shopify.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
What's the problem with reliances? The problem with reliances is that we are overly reliant on too many things in the outside world which we cannot control. And those reliances, Chris, are tying us down. So as a medical doctor, one of my main interests is how do you help people make changes that actually last? Not changes for...
two or three weeks in January or maybe January, February, March, but actually long-term transformational changes. And I realized that one of the reasons why people cannot or they struggle to make those long-term changes is because they're too reliant on too many things. I'll give you an example, right? So many people feel that they can only feel good and live the life that they want if
when everything around them goes right, okay, there's no traffic, the emails are okay, the coffee is given to you by your barista just the way you like it, okay, your boss treats you nicely, there's no traffic on the way home from work. If those conditions are met, we can feel calm and satisfied and we can get on with our life and make the choices that we want to make. But...
If those conditions are not met, then actually we start to struggle. We don't feel good in who we are. And what I've realised, Chris, over 23 years now seeing patients, is that usually the behaviours that we are trying to avoid or cut down on are there for a very good reason. And they're usually there to help us neutralize the internal discomfort that we feel.
So the reason I think that most people cannot or struggle to make changes that last is It's because they're not understanding the role that those behaviours play in their life. They're too focused on the behaviour, but I think we need to be focused on the energy behind the behaviour.
How do you dig behind a behaviour, given that it's quite hard to... We're not crystal balls to ourselves. We don't know why we do the things we do all the time.
Yeah, it's not as hard as actually... It's not as hard as we might think, right? Because let's take something super common and something that people are trying to reset their relationship with all the time. Let's say alcohol, for example, right? So...
What I see a lot of in medicine is us trying to give public health advice to people saying, look, too much alcohol, frankly, a little bit of alcohol is probably not helping you that much. And the way we'll try and facilitate change is by giving people more knowledge and more information, right? You know, too much alcohol will damage your liver. It's not good for your weight.
It's not good for your sleep architecture, whatever it might be. And that can be helpful up to a point. But I submit that most people who are trying to cut back on alcohol or cut it out completely, and you can substitute alcohol for sugar or online pornography or gambling or whatever you want, basically, it's a behaviour.
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