Dare to Habit

March 16 2020

What is a habit?

By definition it is:

A settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

What does this mean?

A habit can be anything that is regularly done. It is a continuous performance day after day of a thought, emotions, actions, that can be either negative or a positive nature or even both. This is what creates the cycle of a habit.

What is the cycle of a habit?

The first step is that you create. A thought happens, then down the rabbit hole it goes. That thought starts a pattern of creation that is then empowered; our second step, by the bodies reaction to it. Thirdly it is then implemented by action. Lastly it then becomes.

For example, if I start to think about my day and all the things I have to do, I create a checklist. With me, this is my habit so I can stay on top of things that need to get done. Then I start to think about what time I have to be where, how long, and so on, this empowers the thought so that it can then become action. From the creating stage I then empower it with goals and knowledge of how to achieve it. Then as I start to do all the things on my checklist I have now implemented those thoughts into action. Finally once I have completed those thoughts I first had, they have now become. Everyday I repeat the same pattern and this cycle of create, empower, implement, become are the keys to making and keeping habits.

Everyday we have thought after thought, emotion after emotion, and action after action. When you first wake up what is the first thing that happens? Do you have the same patterns? Make the bed, brush your teeth? Think about everything that needs to be done? Whatever your morning routine is, this is a habit.

As humans, habits are part of our nature. The more and more a habit is done the deeper the groove in the brain and the faster the neurons route to its destination. In our brains when a habit is formed a groove is dug. Like imagine if it rained on a hill, then that rain started to trickle down the side of it. As the water runs down it starts to form a groove in the hill. The rain keeps coming and the groove gets deeper and deeper. Finally the waters path is set quickest by falling into the groove of the new stream. This is what happens with a habit. That is why it takes at least 30 days for it to start to become a part of your routine. It must create the fastest route for the neurons so that it is automatic, instead of something that you have to think about.

So now that we know how it is created and what must happen for it to become habit lets talk about the noise surrounding starting a new habit, or breaking one.

Let’s say you have a negative habit like smoking. Why is it hard for so many people to quit? Because this habit has created deep neural grooves with a lot of attachments to it. Speaking as a former smoker what finally helped me to quit was realizing why, when, and where I do it. For me there was an emotional component like so many others, Stress. The second reason was an addiction to a substance, and third it was part of my routine. These are my reasons, not everyone will follow the same patterns as I have, however what I am trying to encourage others to do is to become aware of your reasons. What are some of the reasons you continue a habit you don’t want to do anymore? Sit with it, meditate on it. Honing in on what this habit really means to you can allow you to change it and transform from a place of resistance to a place of embracing change.

My first reason, stress; what happens when you have stress? Your body goes into sympathetic mode, fight or flight, your breathe becomes faster and more shallow. You stop breathing. When you stop breathing, your mind goes into panic mode. That panic causes stress, and what does the brain do in order to terminate the stress? It lights up a cigarette. As you pull the cigarette to your lips, you take a deep breathe in and then breathe out. You start to breathe again. That is why the cigarette relaxes you, not because there is components in there like lavender to relax you, but because your lungs take large breaths in that triggers the parasympathetic, rest and digest to start.

So for me this was the first step in changing a habit that I wanted to stop. I started to take deep breaths in and out when I started to get stressed or when I had cravings. This was hard at first, I fought it. I wanted to cave all the time, but I remembered my goals. The reasons for why I wanted to end this in the first place.

Make your reasons for why you can outweigh your excuses for why you can’t as an anchor, so that when you need a reminder you can always come back to it.

My second reason, addiction. An addiction lights up our brains when we give in to it. It’s an instant gratification, and sometimes chemical dependency to an action, emotion, substance, or even person. Cravings last about 15 seconds. It’s intense, and comes on hard like a wave crashing you in the face and all you want to do is just succumb to it. During this time I tried numerous things, chewing gum, holding a pen to my mouth and just breathing. It took about 3 days for the cravings to get less, and a week for the addiction side of it to the substance to just go away. This isn’t always an easy process, it can be damn right unbearable, but picture it, where you were before you ever started doing it. Knowing that it is possible to be free of it gives you the real image in your head to visualize. I was smoke free once, I am capable of being there again.This powerful image empowers you to be able to follow through with it. Let images of where you want to be inspire you to get there.

My routine of smoking was empowered with thoughts. I will be less stressed if I smoke. I made smoking a positive, and the process of quitting a negative.

So what does this look like? If I quit smoking it will hurt, and be hard. I’ll be more stressed, I will get angry and irritable. I will probably gain more weight if I quit.

These negative thoughts associated with quitting made the routine even more reinforced. Those negative associations were so strong that every time I tried to quit those thoughts would be empowered and then, the routine would continue.

What could you do then?

Well I’ll tell you. I changed my mindset here. This is hard to do when you have a skewed perspective of the situation. If you want to change your reality, you have to ask a different question, and gain a different answer.

I changed the act of quitting into a positive, What would I gain if I quit smoking?

If I continue to smoke it will be harder for me to breathe. If I quit smoking then working out will be more enjoyable. Quitting smoking will make my skin brighter, my breathing better. Any type of positive I could think of to enforce the quitting process, I used. I made the habit of smoking a negative and the habit of being smoke free a positive.

What does this mean for all habits?

Positive reinforcement is huge.

Seriously, let's take the opposite of this now by starting a healthy habit such as working out.

When you think about working out, what may come to mind if you are trying to start a new habit but you have a negative association with it. It could look something like this:

Ugh I don’t want to get up and workout it will be painful. I don’t have time to workout, it takes so long. I won’t have time for other things. I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ll never get this. I don’t know why I am doing this. Etc etc...

What happens then? Well you don’t make it a priority or do it. You reinforce exercise as a negative and you never start. You hype yourself up to do it then because of that negative reinforcement you do not follow through, and this cycle is a cycle of anxiety when it comes to working out. You psyche yourself out and then punish yourself for not doing it, all because your view of exercise= pain.

Now lets change, exercise=pain —— exercise=pleasure.

I will feel better after I workout. I enjoy working out, I get to be around a supportive community. I enjoy working on figuring out the movement. Exercise is fun and I love doing it.

Making the process enjoyable and fun will in turn take that task and create consistency.

What does consistency and practice do? Creates habits! Knowing how to create, empower, implement, and become will lead to habits that you will love and keep. The next blog entry lets talk about Creating. This is when we test our imagination. When we figure out what it is we truly want to create. Let us open ourselves up to that little kid inside and let’s figure out what is going to make those habits want to stick!

March 17 2020

Create

Doesn’t that word just spark magic? What does it mean to create? It is the ability to conjure into existence. It is the part of your imagination that has been awakened and wants to come to fruition. This can be anything: music, art, human life or even the way you exercise and dance. Creation is fun, it is when you get to be the master of your reality. It is when you get to be real with yourself. What do you want to spark into existence in your world?

So many times people don’t see the truth of the world, which is that we create every single event that has happened to us. Wow, so your saying I asked for a shitty life? No. That’s preposterous and to view it that way is only seeing it through the eyes of a victim. Let’s get past that and take a second to view it another way. Everything in your life i.e. the good, bad, boring, mundane or great, whatever it is, you created it. Why? Because it’s shaping you. Everything from being bullied in school to marrying the person your with is of your mind. It is constantly creating and as it does, law of attraction makes it so. As you dream and as you become the person you are suppose to be, all the things necessary for you to be that person must happen. You want to be courageous, maybe learning how to stand up to a bully might come into your life. Or maybe you use your voice to speak up about it in the future to help other kids. All your life experiences are lessons for you to be the person you were always meant to be.

When we are all born I truly believe we have a purpose. Yes I know there are millions of people, how could this be so. Well we shape each other, we help each other to become who we are suppose to be. Some of us may have more of an impact than others and that is okay. Not everyone is a rock star or a doctor, we are all unique, and because of this we have purpose. It’s like dominos, we line them all up then we hit one and it hits the next and so on until you have a cascade of one after the other knocking against each other. We enter others lives for a reason, it may just be background noise or it may be to show them something. Why? Because we create it.

What we think, those thoughts have energy and power, the words that we say are magic, and cast spells on others. So all the time when we are not in control of what we want to create it can seem like chaos, and like nothing is happening. It can seem like we aren’t getting exactly what we want, but the truth is we are. Those thoughts you obsess about, those are what have the power and that is what you are truly creating.

So if you think, I’m ugly no one will find me pretty, then when someone tells you that you are pretty, you will never even hear the words. You will ignore the compliment because that creation you made is a truth you are making. The truth is a powerful thing, what are some of the “truths” you tell yourself?

Me: sometimes i feel like a joke. Sometimes I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing, and I have no desire to try. That “truth” or creation becomes my reality. When I go into work, I may not see all the wonderful things I am doing, I may not see the following I have, or that people consider me a true healer. I may not even see how excellent of a teacher or a communicator I am because hey that’s not part of what I created.

Have you ever done logic in school. Well our brains are exactly like that.

I am a joke- so therefore when someone offers me a compliment about how amazing of a healer I am- this doesn’t truly register with me because it isn’t following the truth I created. So instead I keep chasing harder and harder after perfection so I can be taken seriously, when all I really need to do is re-create the truth of how I view myself.

It goes the same for everything in life, we create the people in our lives to help us learn what we want and don’t want.

Do the same kind of things keep happening to you just a different set of circumstances? This was me all the time, It wasn’t until about 5 years ago that I started to see the synchronicities of it. Hey this reminds me of something from my past, something that I keep creating because it is my truth, why does it keep happening. Because I’ll say it again, the law of attraction. Science has already proven this, yet we don’t listen. We think we know best and then complain about the problem. But how do you solve a problem? You have to view it from a different perspective in order to achieve the answer. You can’t solve a problem that you made with the same mindset. It’s impossible.

That is why create is the first step in making a habit. Everything we do is habitual. The thoughts we have, the interactions with people, the actions we do, the reactions to things, the emotions we have. So how do we create then. After all of that explaining about that we create, and we don’t realize we are doing it, how do we do it then?

To create you must use your imagination, what do you want to do, think, say, feel, be? Don’t think about the limitations of it, I want to stop you right now. There is no limit to this. As soon as you start to put a limit on it then the creation is over. You tell yourself that’s not possible and already halt the process. You must imagine without limits, with true belief in what you are creating. I’ll tell you what I am creating, and visualizing.

I saw myself up on stage, for a ted talk. I saw myself speaking to thousands of people from my heart and from my experience. I saw that I owned a center that people came to gain full awareness in their minds, bodies, and spirits. To become in touch with emotions, energy, and themselves. It had a gym, with geothermal pools, and saunas, and steam rooms, and hot tubs, cold tubs, massage therapist, acupuncture, chiropractors, life coaches, nutritionists, therapists, and more. I saw how light and bright it was, I saw how it was changing people and felt the gratitude for this place. And the biggest thing I saw for myself was how I could give back to the world because of this. How I could help people in need and provide people with basic needs. I could help people with going to college and when I saw all the things I could give I started to cry because thats what I want more than anything. To help and heal and create future healers and altruists. This is what I am creating for myself. That is why I started this blog, because I am creating this. I am applying all the things I say to you, to my own life.

Creation is something we don’t fully utilize yet, at least a lot of us. So many times as we do become aware of our own ability to create the world will throw something at us. It will make us doubt that greatness and make all those thoughts come crashing down because our minds will be like woah woah, hey buddy, that’s not reality, thats not real. It will bring us back to that comfy little box where it is safe and limited, and that creation you just had for yourself, well poof. Vanished. Why does this happen, well because the next step is empower. Creation is nothing without empowering those beliefs into reality. The next entry we are going to talk about empowering because this is when we take those canvases and begin to really paint on them. It’s the fuel to the fire, that gets the momentum of the journey really going.

Before we go to the next step sit down with yourself. Be in the quiet with you, just listen to you, the mean, the wonderful, all the inner voices let them speak, let them have their moment, and accept them then say hey I hear you but this is no longer my reality anymore. Then once you say that start to create. Shoot to the moon and believe you will land there. No hesitations, no limits, don’t say you can’t in this, only believe you will. Then when you know what you want to create, then we are going to start empowering it. Bringing the logs to the fire and get that baby roaring!! You with me? You ready to start daring to habit?? Cause I am!!!

March 18 2020

Empower

What does it mean to empower?

Empower is a a way of lifting up and enforcing motivation to a subject or meaning. It grants the energy momentum to the thought, or emotion and with that it takes the creation and allows for it to be projected forward. Empowerment is emotion based, and emotions carry with them energy and frequencies. Each emotion tied to a certain point of creation will enforce the pathway based on the energetic momentum given to it.

What does this mean?

If you worry about having enough, if you worry that you can never get ahead. That something always halts your process or comes up, than what happens? Exactly that. You will always be in the lack of because that energy you are infusing those create thoughts with are resonating with that frequency of lack. Even if you start to work on changing the story and use affirmations that use abundance, until you believe them then the create thought is still in the lack of frequency.

How do affirmations work?

Affirmations work to empower what you want. They are a way to create a path you want to see your reality become. But just like anything worth having this requires work, and patience. Practice, practice, practice. The more you do something the better you become at it. That consistency is the force that allows the cycle of a habit to enter the become stage. Affirmations are phrases you say out loud, read, and apply every time you have doubt or start your day with. These sayings can be about anything, kind of like an anchor. These phrases should be applied when fear kicks in because fear halts all progress. It’s like a bully at a park, and using these phrases will help you to take your power back. They tell your mind, hey listen I know you think you are feeling like you can’t do anything right, but here’s the truth: I am capable of doing so many things well. You rewire your brain to believe this new truth. It just takes time for those neural pathways to dig a deep enough groove for you to believe it.

Your mind is just like a muscle, it requires you to work it. You can’t just go up to a bar and expect to lift 500lbs off the bat. You must work at it, progress, get real with the goal. If it’s what you want then you will do the work. This same theory works for the mind. If you wish to be abundant, then you must practice being abundant. Affirmations, gratitude, meditation, and living life free of worry will start to retrain the brain into taking out the lack of, and replacing it with I have abundance.

So empowerment is all about knowing what your goals are and doing everything you can to believe you can.

Give yourself reasons for why you can, and not excuses for why you cant.

Everyday things will come up, there will be something that wants to derail you and bring you down, thats life. It’s ultimately up to you whether you want to take 100% responsibility for you and rise up to reach your goals or sit there and complain.

No one will hand it to you, no one is going to be like Oh hey!, Here’s everything you ever wanted on a silver platter. Not only will you not be satisfied because you didn’t do the work, but this won’t ever happen. Life is work, it is persistence and if you do it with your all then you will gain so much joy and satisfaction because you accomplished it.

I want you to think about the ugly thoughts in your life, What is their major theme? What lie are they telling yourself that is holding you back from your greatness.

For me at this particular moment with everything going on with this virus and having to shut down my business, I am worried. I am worried that I won’t be able to afford the life I built so hard to make. I think about all that I have created over the past 5 years running this business and am so blessed to have reached an amazing point with it. And now that I don’t have it I am worried.

So how can I change this? How can I get real with myself here and find the empowerment to embrace this change?

Well I have found alternatives for myself that I am starting my first day of quarantine.

I am doing this blog, I am starting to stream video games, and I will be helping people with massage for themselves, I am offering life coaching and emotion coding. Instead of stressing it, I am thinking of creative solutions. I am facing it head on instead of giving up. I am empowering myself to know I will do something amazing.

Do you see the difference between mindsets here?

One is fear based.

One is living in my creative genius.

Fear halts everything, it resonates in a way to be catastrophic to all ideas, feelings, thoughts. It is a monster that is living under your bed. The only way out of it, is through. Look under the bed, see it, face it. I bet it won’t be as scary as you think. It usually never is. Now, are you ready to dare to habit???

March 19 2020

Implement

Now that you are empowering your goals with affirmations and upwards momentum, we implement!

What does it mean to implement?

It means that we put a (decision, plan, idea etc.) into effect through consistency and effort. Consistency is a repetition of a task through perpetual action. So what would this look like?

Say your goal was to learn to play guitar. What would be the steps here? First you created the goal, learning to play a guitar. Then you empowered this goal with positive momentum, I can learn to play guitar. I will practice consistently. Then, is the implementing process. You sit down with YouTube videos, sheet music, tabs, all sorts of music literature and you start to study the process. With your guitar in hand you learn hand exercises, and chords. Applying your hands to the strings over and over, you create muscle memory. You hit wrong chords and notes, because mistakes teach you what is right and what isn’t. Then over months of this consistency you learn to play your favorite song, then more. This is the implementing process of creating a habit.

Implementing requires failure and patience. If you are afraid to fail or be bad at something then you will never get to the next step, and that is to become. Again fear can halt the process here, so I say fail anyways, make mistakes, practice. This may even be a love/hate relationship. Because of how bad you may be at it, or the learning curve you may get frustrated beyond anything, but remind yourself of the end result.

As with anything without action then there is no process. You can create and envision all day, but without taking the necessary steps to get to that finish line you don’t even begin to run the race. Life is all about action. Sitting still, being stagnant, those things create depression and anxiety. Movement is everything, and if you aren’t willing to exert the energy then you will continue into a cycle of pain. Pain creates lack of movement, it is what stops you from getting up and setting to your goals. Pain is what is created in the body when we begin to move forward, why? Because we are changing the way we go, we have taken a new route and your body reminds you of the comfort of being stagnant. Pain shows up when you are facing your demons.

Then why does it go away when I am sitting still?

Because you have allowed those demons to win, you have given your negative emotions exactly what they wanted. To halt forward momentum. By sitting with all the things that come up during this implement process, you will see true change.

I have watched people as they workout reach a moment, this moment I want to call “the fight.” This fight is the moment they start to decide if they want it. That moment you feel their energy change and the story, the demons they face come out. This fight is when you chose yourself, and your worth. By choosing yourself and finding your worth you get further ahead. You succeed! That is what success is, failing forward. Past the stories that hold you back, past those lies that hold you down. Success is the rise, and choosing to love yourself even harder. When I get to see those moments in people it brings me pure joy. It’s a pivotal moment, and I love watching people chose themselves instead of giving up on their dreams. That is the most beautiful thing I get to see. Choosing yourself is an amazing success, and to be able to watch it, well that is just unbelievably amazing.

Next time you are in this stage I want you to watch what comes up for you. I want you to feel the pain in your body. That pain is trying to tell you to stop. That pain is trying to hold you back. I’m not talking about the aches and pains you feel when it comes to bones and muscles and ligaments. I am talking about underneath this, listen to it. There is a mind body connection, and emotions play such a huge role in our lives. They are energy and get trapped in the body. For example, i always hold stress in my neck and traps. Why is that? What is going on emotionally in your life, or what reminds you of an old cycle that you feel the pain there. Think of these pains as something emotional, because in a huge way they are. Get real with yourself, we are all emotional creatures whether you believe it or not. To have emotions is what makes us human. If you didn’t you would be a robot. So start to dig underneath everything, as you implement, because that is when you pull out greatness.

To understand and accept your own demons is to gain control of yourself.

Are you ready to dare to habit?

March 22 2020

Become

To become, this is what happens when we put all the phases of a habit together. First you create what you want, then you empower it, then implement, and then it becomes. This is the final stage of this whole cycle and now what? Once you reach the end of your goal and become what you wanted, what’s next?

Enjoy this moment, really embrace all that hard work. To become means you have fought through the hardships of your inner demons and come out the other side victorious. A lot of the times we forget that the journey is really the whole point. Once we become what we set out to do we always ask, Okay I’m here, what’s next. So many times we skip over reveling in the moment of our success, of passing the finish line. We treat it like it wasn’t just a huge deal, and are already planning the next stage.

But here’s the thing, if you can’t take stock and be present in this, you will always be “the chaser.” The chaser is someone who believes that if you get to the finish line you will obtain, happiness, success, wealth, etc. The chaser is always looking to the future, and never satisfied with the actual process. The chaser is someone who becomes over and over, yet never see’s the greatness in that moment. They are chasing after an expectation, in hopes that it will be a profound revelation. But those that chase after these expectations will always be disappointed. Nothing will live up to that, so allowing yourself to be present in your becoming, just as it is, that is when you feel it.

To become means that you have changed your reality and shifted to a whole new paradigm of thinking. No matter how small the goal is, it changes you.

How does even a small goal change you?

It shows up in your character. It shows up in your actions. It shows up in your thoughts. However subtle, it takes those neural pathways and rewires them. It can look like discipline, or confidence. It can be a better frequency of self worth and self love. To become is to change, and be open to the possibilities that all those restrictions you had, that tiny box you were in, were in fact wrong. To become proves to those inner critics that you can, and you did. This is a moment where you prove to yourself your worth. That is why it is so important to be in this moment, because it's a very profound moment. It raises you up and shows you what you are capable of. That reminder should show you that you will always prevail. This is the moment you should see, no matter what you want, it can be achieved. To become is faith in yourself that you can accomplish the impossible by consistency and practice.

What have you overlooked in your life when it came to achieving a goal? Did you put expectations on what it should feel like, or look like? Was there a moment you were grateful for and just allowed yourself to be vulnerable in that success? Or did you just let it pass by and move on to the next goal? It’s great to always be wanting to learn, and grow, and readapt your goals. Just remember as you do achieve the things you set out for, to be present once you achieve them. Because that moment is your awakening. Are you ready to dare to habit?

February 2 2021

My journey

Looking back on these first few days of my blog I can see how I knew where I was going and how to even get there. The past year I went through a severe depression and even in this dark place I continued to remember these posts as a reminder that I can achieve what it is I want. That blog was the real beginning of me taking all the self work, all the lessons of life and finding just how great I was. The thing I always told myself during the process was it doesn’t have to be pretty you just have to do it. That got me through some really poorly written blogs or moments in my life.

The blog Dare to Habit has been a year long experiment for myself to prove that I can do anything I want if I chose to make it a priority, make it consistent and make a bunch of mistakes and failures along the way. The evolution of my writing has changed and I look back at this past year in awe because I kept choosing myself despite the depression, despite the demons, despite the obstacles. I found my worth and found true love for myself. A place I never thought I would get to. That is why I want to share this blog with so many people because in todays society “perfect and pretty” keep everyone from getting started or getting to know themselves. This blog is my utter rawness and it isn’t pumped up with lipstick. It is a transformational piece because that is what I wanted so badly, to change who I once was. A fearful girl who suffered in the dark alone and in quiet.

Dare to Habit changed my life because it was me finally taking responsibility for what I wanted most in my life. I became courageous and more eloquent. It taught me perseverance and patience. I am almost into a year of writing and missed out of the past year 27 days total as of this moment. To me that is the most incredible accomplishment of all because I stuck with it even in moments of doubt, even when fear was my companion. You can too, you can achieve or overcome absolutely anything. The world is your canvas and you the artist my friend. Let’s explore the impossible reaches of what color and life is truly capable of. You can do it my friend, I believe in you!

For more information about Dare to habit please check out daretohabit.com and follow us @daretohabit on instagram.