Why do you keep sabotaging your own success? Just when you're about to break a bad habit, it comes back even stronger. That’s not a coincidence. In this episode, I break down exactly why this happens and how to push through it so you can finally create the change you want in your life. Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube
Chapter 1: Why do we self-sabotage?
Today, we're going to be talking about why you self-sabotage, and then I'm going to teach you exactly how to stop. Now, I want you to think about this. Have you ever tried to break a bad habit, and you really want to break that bad habit? You're starting to break it, but just when you think that you're making progress, bam, it comes back even stronger than it ever has before.
You ever wonder why that is? Why when you get so close to breaking it and you're doing so good and you have so much momentum, you ever wonder why it's so hard and how it just comes back stronger? Why is it so easy to make change in the short term, but then you don't just come off the rails at the end.
You come off the rails, you crash, you burn, and then you give up on yourself and you give up on the change that you were trying to create. That's because there's this psychological phenomenon that's called the extinction burst, and that's exactly what's going on when you're trying to break a habit. The extinction burst is like a temper tantrum that your brain's conditioning is throwing.
Chapter 2: What is the extinction burst phenomenon?
And so your brain's conditioning creates an intense last-ditch effort to get what it wants before finally giving up and starting to change. And if you're serious about it, if you're serious about rewiring your mindset, breaking your toxic cycles, or stepping into a new version of yourself, then you have to understand exactly what this is, how it works, and then how to get past it.
And so if you look at the science behind it, this concept comes from something that's called the operant conditioning. It's a principle that was developed by B.F. Skinner. And so he found that when an expected reward is removed in some sort of way, all of the subjects initially increase the intensity of the behavior before the behavior dies out.
Chapter 3: How does operant conditioning explain self-sabotage?
And so the classic study of the way they discovered this was with lab rats. And so Skinner placed lab rats in a box where they went over to a lever. If they pressed the lever, it would give them food. And after a while, they realized over days and days and weeks, if I go over to this, I just push the lever and it gives me food. And so the rats start eating and overeating.
They start getting fatter. And then he had it where once they push the lever, no food comes out. And once he stopped rewarding them, The rats, guess what? They didn't give up immediately. They pressed the lever more times. They pressed it faster, and they pressed it with more force before eventually giving up a couple days later and stopping. And so this pattern isn't just for lab rats, though.
It shows up in humans all the time whenever we're trying to break our own habits. Your brain operates exactly the same way when you are trying to break a habit. And so how does this show up in your life? How does this show up in your self-development? Well, let's say that you're working on yourself. You've decided you're going to ditch the self-doubt.
You're going to quit all of your bad habits and you're going to just level up your mindset and become a different person. But suddenly... things kind of feel a little bit worse. You get overwhelmed, maybe some of your old fears start to resurface, or these negative habits, these bad habits start to flare up. And they don't just flare up, they flare up with more intensity than normal. Why is that?
It's because your brain hates change. This is why so many people self-sabotage and they're like, I don't know why I self-sabotage because it's not even you consciously doing it. It's the last ditch effort of your brain trying to hold on to its old conditioning.
Even if that change that you're trying to create in your life is positive in some sort of way, your brain has gotten used to operating in a very specific way for a long time. And it knows that if I do this, I get that. If I do this, I get this. If I do this, I get this. And then it does this and I don't get this. Well, then your brain's going to throw a minor freak out. Why is that?
Because it's so used to being rewarded in certain ways, even if those rewards are harmful in the long run. And so when your brain creates a pattern, it creates a habit in some sort of way, believe it or not, no matter what your brain does, it has some sort of reward that it's going to get at the end of this thing. And so let me give you a couple of examples of how this might show up in your life.
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Chapter 4: How can stress trigger unhealthy habits?
Let's say that when things get really stressful for you, you have turned to in the past emotional eating or stressful eating. And so the temporary reward is when you're stressed, you go and you grab a cookie so you get some sugar or you get a bag of chips so you get a lot of carbs and you get some salt.
It gives you in that moment instant comfort because sugar and carbs and salts and all of that trigger a dopamine release in that moment, which is a feel-good chemical in your brain. So you feel, oh my gosh, I'm stressed, I'm stressed, I'm stressed. Okay, I feel pretty good.
So the long-term harm of continuing that, if the habit continues to be reinforced and you reinforce emotional eating, it's going to make it harder to break. And so your brain starts associating stress equals food. Literally creates unhealthy cravings whenever you feel overwhelmed. So then you go and get stressed out. You have a bad day at work. You go to food. Your boss is an asshole.
You go to food. You get in a fight with your spouse. You go to food. So over the short term, it feels good. Over the long term, this habit's not going to be good for you. And so the way that you want to rewire it is you want to figure out a way when I feel stress and I want to go to food, I need to go to something else. Now, is this going to be easy?
No, because your brain's going to be like, whoa, this, it was way easier to go to a bag of chips. It was way easier to eat a cake than to do deep breathing or to go for a walk or to do some form of journaling.
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Chapter 5: What are examples of self-sabotaging behaviors?
And so you want to find something to replace the food with that is a different form of stress relief, which is like I said, going for the walk, doing some form of journaling, doing deep breathing. At first, your brain is going to be pissed and it's gonna throw a temper tantrum and you're gonna get stressed You're going to feel anxious. You might feel sad. You might feel mad.
It's going to demand basically the old habit, which is the extinction burst that I'm talking about. But if you hold strong, eventually the craving will fade and you're going to go, okay, I don't feel as bad. And then the next time you notice yourself get stressed and you want to go to food because it's an old habit, old habits die hard. You go, nope, I'm going to do my deep breathing.
Whatever your new thing is, right? So another example would be like, if you're the type of person that procrastinates and you avoid the things that you need to do, that temporary reward that I'm talking about is you might put off a difficult task by scrolling on social media or watching Netflix. Why? Because it relieves your anxiety in the moment. So it gives you this quick dopamine hit
with the entertainment. You see how I'm saying all of these habits have some form of a temporary reward. But in the long term of avoiding what you need to do, procrastinating, every time you procrastinate, your brain is learning that avoidance equals relief. And so it reinforces this habit, which makes it harder to face challenges in the future. And so how do you rewire it?
Well, at first, your brain is going to fight for distractions. That is its extinction burst. But once you push through it and you decide to take action and take action and take action, that is your new habit you're creating. Your ability to focus and to be better at taking action will strengthen over time and the old habit will start to die off. And we will be right back. And now back to the show.
Let's say that you're in a toxic relationship. The temporary reward, you know the relationship isn't healthy, but you stay in it because it gives you some form of temporary comfort or familiarity or attention, even if that attention is negative. And so that's a temporary reward.
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Chapter 6: How can you rewire your brain to stop self-sabotaging?
The long-term harm is that you reinforce this fear of being alone, which makes it harder for you to walk away, even if you know that you deserve better. And so your brain associates familiarity with safety even if that safety feeling is a toxic person. And so you got to recognize that your discomfort is not a sign that you should go back to that person.
It's your brain's way of grasping and trying to hold on to old patterns. So you've got to stay in no contact long enough. And eventually if you do that, the emotional pull is going to start to fade. And then like the last example is quitting addictions or quitting really bad habits. You cut sugar or alcohol or toxic relationships in some sort of way.
Suddenly those cravings are all going to just be really, really strong. The emotional pull is going to pull you way stronger. And you think to yourself like, Maybe I should just give in, right? Like I'm trying to change, but this isn't working because I want to go back to this old thing so much. But the fact that it's getting so hard, and I want you to remember this, like get this in your bones.
The fact that it's so hard is a sign that the change is starting to work. You know, if you look at this, it's withdrawal symptoms of somebody who is an addict and most addiction recovery, the withdrawal symptoms usually spike before they fade.
And so your brain fights to restore old dopamine patterns before it learns to regulate itself without whatever this addiction or thing that was your bad habit. Make sense? And so you've got to figure out some sort of way to push through whenever you feel like going back to bad habits. You know, most people, it starts to get really hard. And so they think to themselves, this is too hard.
I must be doing something wrong. You know what? I'm just going to quit. And they quit whenever they feel the extinction burst come in. They think something like, if this was working, it wouldn't feel this hard. Have you ever thought that to yourself? Like, if this was worth it, it wouldn't be so hard. If I was changing, I would have gotten results by now.
But you have to understand all of that is a trap. It's your old conditioning trying to get you to quit changing. It's trying to get you to go back to what you used to do. And so you've got to remind yourself about this. Like this is the exact reason what we're talking about today is the reason why the phrase old habits die hard exists. This habit is trying really, really hard not to die.
And it is its last ditch effort. And so you've got to be able to be like, nope, I'm going to fight through no matter what. Because the good news about this is if you keep going in the direction that you want, eventually... The old behavior will fade. I promise you this. It won't fade as fast as you want. Everybody always wants everything to happen faster than it's going to happen.
But if you just don't stop, eventually the old behavior will fade. And so let's talk about real quick how to get through an extinction burst, right? When you're starting to change, there's a couple different steps. The first thing when you're starting to change yourself, you need to just expect that you're going to have this extinction burst.
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