The Real Way to Break Unwanted Habits: Action, Agency, and Enjoyment

 Have you ever noticed certain unwanted actions and thoughts patterns in your life, that you feel stuck at, and feel like it's unchangeable. That you hoped that if you just did something different in the past, then maybe it feels more hopeful that that unwanted pattern will be rid of your life for good?

I certainly have, and I have found out a couple the solution that works for me. The key is to finding an ideal system, so you can take action to the solution that you've thought, to correct and overwrite that unwanted thoughts pattern. 

So here is the thought process to how I will create my system:

For example, let's say I have a bad habit of watching porn. but it's getting pretty out of hand lately. Sometimes it controls my life as I could feel like my brain is starting to sexualize everything that I see, and I don't feel the guilt in watching porn, and also, the helplessness I feel when I get the desire to watch porn. So, after watching porn, I'll feel bad about it, and I'd want to change my ways so it doesn't happen again. So one of the solution I've thought about could be, finding the root cause of watching porn. For me, it's because I am always chasing the highs, listening to lust and greed, and also my ego to not want to reconnect. Therefore, the solution I've thought about is to be mindful of my ego, try to not feed it, and be aware of the feeling that lust and greed gives of indulged too much, and stop when the same feeling gets invoked.

Therefore, the solution is to cultivate habits to be mindful of my own ego, to not indulge in greed and lust, and also setting a goal for myself to keep myself aligned to the right direction.

In terms of how to cultivate that habit, I need to have a sense of agency in life (This mentality resonates with me the most, due to life experience, find your own mentality that works for you, that propels you to a positive direction). And the ability to take action to the solution that I've came up with. 

Creating a system like what Atomic Habits suggest doesn't work for me, as a system that doesn't incorporate my desire is a useless system, as mindlessly following the system is just like studying for your exam while your parents are forcing you to do it. You don't know why you're studying, and you hate it, and would not want tos tudy if given the choice.

So, creating a system that incorporates activities that you feel good about, while staying away from porn, and also moving yourself towards a more positive direction is the key. Taking action to change your unwanted pattern can be much enjoyable if you can think of a solution that you enjoy, while breaking the habit you want to quit as well as moving you towards a positive direction.

My system includes a few activities that is a must do to keep my stress levels low (yoga, writing and picking up a new creative skill), learning and adopting more mindsets that works for me. Like for example:

 - the mentality that what you did before doesn't matter, and what you do now matters the most.

- the mentality that you can't change the things in the past, greatly helps to put your mind away from things that doesn't help.

- More list of mentality to help me spring into actions, are always be positive, and have a sense of agency in life, as that is your energy. Also, cultivating your unconsciousness can greatly help in springing into action as well. Also, having a deep desire to do something for yourself, and towards something positive will definitely stir you to the right direction when shit hits the fan.

- adopting necessary life skills like patience that is important to have results.

Please realize that mentality is something that resonates with you a lot based on your life experience. You and I might not have the same mentality as we don't have same life experience. So if you feel like my mentality resonates with you alot, feel free to adopt them to your need. Remember to be creative and change the mentality that fits your own goal, desire and making sure that the mentality is propelling you towards a positive direction.

I've realized that all of these doesn't work, if no actions are taken, so the core importance in a system is, the actions you take must be enjoyable, so it's more persistent. It must be moving you away from the habit you're quitting, and also, moving you towards a positive direction.

A real example of my system is: I'm a porn addict, and I want to quit the habit of porn. So, I need to take into account of these few context that is causing the bad habit, and think of ways to correct it that's enjoyable, and incorporate it into my system. The activities I do must l involve activities that I enjoy, but not the bad habit I'm trying to quit no matter what, and must incorporate activities that work on my core issue. Additional mentality changes and skills are incorporated into the system as well to ensure the probability of success.

In my case, ego, lust and greed, and the fear of vulnerability is the issues . Therefore, I will be mindful of the times when I can be vulnerable, and do that. I'll also incorporate activities like yoga and writing and sleeping early that I will do no matter what, so I won't let lust and greed take over me. If I can't do any of the activities consistently, it means that I need a mentality shift and reminder of my progress. This involves reminding myself that having a sense of agency is important to get anything done. (Note that this mentality can differ for anyone, find your own that resonates with you a lot, while making sure that the mentality is of higher vibration). Also, cultivating patience and discipline one step at a time, while adopting the "You can't change anything if you fucked up", and "Let your unconscious mind to it's job" mentality for cultivating these important traits.