Stop Making The Same Mistakes

It’s easy to think that a self-destructive cycle is easy to avoid if you have no special will to self-destruction. However, the cycle is sneaky.

It’s sneaky because it can be passive, and/or omissions rather than actions, procrastinations rather than obvious acts of impulse, and so forth.

So, they’re often things that specifically aren’t there to see.

How to catch them

How often do you think “I wish I had [done xyz]” or “I wish I had [done yxz] sooner”?

Now, how often have you thought that about the same thing more than once? For example, “I should have kept up my exercise”.

For things like this, habit-trackers are a great way to, well, keep track of habits. If for example you planned to do a 10-minute exercise session daily but you’ve been postponing it since you got distracted on January the 2nd, then it’ll highlight that. See also:

How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits

Speaking of habits, this goes for other forms of procrastination, too. For example, if you are always slow to get medical check-ups, or renew your prescriptions, or get ready for some regularly-occurring thing in your schedule, then set a reminder in your preferred way (phone app, calendar on the wall, whatever) and when the appointed time arrives (to book the check-up, renew the prescription, do your taxes, whatever), do it on the day you set your reminder for, as a personal rule for you that you keep to, barring extreme calamity.

By “extreme calamity” we mean less “running late today” and more “house burned down”.

Digital traps

Bad habits can be insidious in other ways too, like getting sucked into social media scrolling (it is literally designed to do that to you; you are not immune modern programming hijacking evolutionary dopamine responses).

Setting a screentime limit (you can specify “just these apps” if you like) will help with this. On most devices, this feature includes a sticky notification in the notification bar, that’ll remind you “27 out of 30 minutes remaining” or whatever you set it for. That’ll remind you to do what you went there to do, instead of getting caught in the endless scroll (and if you went there to just browse, to do so briefly).

Here’s how to set that:

Instructions for iOS devices | Instructions for Android devices

Oh, and on the topic of social media? If you find yourself getting caught up in unproductive arguments on the Internet, try the three-response rule:

1. You reply; they reply (no progress made)
2. You reply; they reply (still no progress made)
3. You reply; they reply (still yet no progress made)

You reply just one more time: “I have a personal rule that if I’m arguing on the Internet and no progress has been made after three replies, I don’t reply further—I find this is helpful to avoid a lot of time lost to pointless arguing that isn’t going anywhere. Best wishes.”

(and then stick to it, no matter how they try to provoke you; best is to just not look until at least the next day)

When “swept up in love” gets to one of those little whirlpools…

The same works in personal relationships, by the way. If for example you are arguing with a loved one and not making progress, it can be good if you both have a pre-arranged agreement that either of you can, up to once on any given day, invoke a “time-out” (e.g. 30 minutes, but you agree the time between you when you first make this standing policy) during which you will both keep out of the other’s way, and come back with a more productive head on (remembering that things go best when it’s you both vs the problem, rather than vs each other).

See also:

Seriously Useful Communication Skills: Conflict Resolution

What if the self-sabotaging cycle is active and apparent?

Well, that is less sneaky, but certainly no less serious, and sometimes moreso. An obvious example is drinking too much; this is often cyclical in nature. We wrote about this one previously:

How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol

That article’s alcohol-specific, but the same advices go for other harmful activities, including other substance abuse (which in turn includes binge-eating), as well psychological addictions (such as gambling, for example).

Finally…

If your destructive cycle is more of a rut you’ve got stuck in, a common advice is to change something, anything, to get out of the rut.

That can be very bad advice! Because sometimes the change you go for is absolutely not the change that was needed, and is rather just cracking under pressure and doing something impulsive.

Here’s one way to actively get out of a slump:

Behavioral Activation Against Depression & Anxiety

Note: you do not have to be depressed or anxious to do this. But the point is, it’s a tool you can use even if you are depressed and/or anxious, so it’s a good thing to try for getting out of most kinds of slumps.

And really finally, here’s a resource for, well, the title speaks for itself:

When You Know What You “Should” Do (But Knowing Isn’t The Problem)

Take care!

What’s The Right Balance?

We’ve written before about positivity the pitfalls and perils of toxic positivity:

How To Get Your Brain On A More Positive Track (Without Toxic Positivity)

…as well as the benefits that can be found from selectively opting out of complaining:

A Bone To Pick… Up And Then Put Back Where We Found It

So… What place, if any, does negativity usefully have in our lives?

Carrot and Stick

We tend to think of “carrot and stick” motivation being extrinsic, i.e. there is some authority figure offering is reward and/or punishment, in response to our reactions.

In those cases when it really is extrinsic, the “stick” can still work for most people, by the way! At least in the short term.

Because in the long term, people are more likely to rebel against a “stick” that they consider unjust, and/or enter a state of learned helplessness, per “I’ll never be good enough to satisfy this person” and give up trying to please them.

But what about when you have your own carrot and stick? What about when it comes to, for example, your own management of your own healthy practices?

Here it becomes a little different—and more effective. We’ll get to that, but first, bear with us for a touch more about extrinsic motivation, because here be science:

We will generally be swayed more easily by negative feelings than positive ones.

For example, a study was conducted as part of a blood donation drive, and:

• Group A was told that their donation could save a life
• Group B was told that their donation could prevent a death

The negative wording given to group B boosted donations severalfold:

Read the paper: Life or Death Decisions: Framing the Call for Help

We have, by the way, noticed a similar trend—when it comes to subject lines in our newsletters. We continually change things up to see if trends change (and also to avoid becoming boring), but as a rule, the response we get from subscribers is typically greater when a subject line is phrased negatively, e.g. “how to avoid this bad thing” rather than “how to have this good thing”.

How we can all apply this as individuals?

When we want to make a health change (or keep up a healthy practice we already have)…

• it’s good to note the benefits of that change/practice!
• it’s even better to note the negative consequences of not doing it

For example, if you want to overcome an addiction, you will do better for your self-reminders to be about the bad consequences of using, more than the good consequences of abstinence.

See also: How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol

This goes even just for things like diet and exercise! Things like diet and exercise can seem much more low-stakes than substance abuse, but at the end of the day, they can add healthy years onto our lives, or take them off.

Because of this, it’s good to take time to remember, when you don’t feel like exercising or do feel like ordering that triple cheeseburger with fries, the bad outcomes that you are planning to avoid with good diet and exercise.

Imagine yourself going in for that quadruple bypass surgery, asking yourself whether the unhealthy lifestyle was worth it. Double down on the emotions; imagine your loved ones grieving your premature death.

Oof, that was hard-hitting

It was, but it’s effective—if you choose to do it. We’re not the boss of you! Either way, we’ll continue to send the same good health advice and tips and research and whatnot every day, with the same (usually!) cheery tone.

One last thing…

While it’s good to note the negative, in order to avoid the things that lead to it, it’s not so good to dwell on the negative.

So if you get caught in negative thought spirals or the like, it’s still good to get yourself out of those.

If you need a little help with that sometimes, check out these:

• How To Manage Chronic Stress
• How To Set Anxiety Aside
• The Off-Button For Your Brain

Take care!