Philosophy and Life Design: How to Good Life Journal to Get Rid of Bad Habits and Replace Them with Better Ones that Stick…Even If Nothing has Worked in the Past Before
Have you ever realized there’s a habit in your life that you need to change, and then tried to change it…but ultimately failed? Maybe this has happened to you more than once. If so, then I hear you. It can be incredibly frustrating to try and fail to change bad habits.
But don’t beat yourself up! Rest assured. This doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It doesn’t mean that you’re weak or lack willpower. All it means is that you haven’t found the right replacement habit for you. Today, I’m going to teach you how to use the philosophical life design tools I shared with you in previous posts to effectively change your bad habits in a way that sticks.
In previous posts, I shared with you how you can calibrate your Good Life Compass to find your direction in life when you’re stuck, even if you don’t know exactly what you want out of life. I also showed you how you can build on this Good Life Compass to keep a Good Life Journal to gather data and information on which ways of spending your life truly contribute to your living out your own vision of the good life.
This is all well and good. But in this post, we go deeper! In this post, the rubber really hits the road! Today we get real concrete. We’re going to put these life design tools to use to help you get rid of bad/debilitating habits and replace them with good/empowering ones.
So, get excited!
Bad habits are, ultimately, habits that you use to cope with the stress of life but don’t really work for you. We often unconsciously fall into these habits because, as Tony Robbins points out, they meet some need or needs that we have. Bad habits meet them well enough that you can cope, survive. But in such a way that leads to your being stuck on some level, stuck with ways of spending your time that don’t really work.
The key to replacing bad habits in a way that sticks is to identify what needs are met by those bad habits. Once you do so, you can consciously cultivate empowering replacement habits. These will be empowering habits that meet those same needs while helping you not only survive but thrive!
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Limiting/Oppressive Belief: I can’t change my bad habits because I’m weak and lack willpower
Philosophical Reframing: I can change my bad habits by understanding the needs they meet and finding the right replacement.
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We can make this more concrete by bringing in the Variables tracked by the Good Life Journal: Engagement, Excitement, and Ethical Harmonization.
Bad/Debilitating Habits often score high on engagement/energy but low on Harmonization. They meet some need(s) for you to be engaged and/or energized in some way but in a way that does not help you live up to (and sometimes leads you away from) your own vision of the good life.
With this in mind, you can use your Good Life Journal to gather information about how engaging in different bad habits helps you meet certain need(s).
For example, procrastinating by watching Youtube videos before you work on a task you dread can help you meet the need to be engaged in a fun activity and to recharge your energies before you tackle a boring/draining task. But it does not help you move toward your own vision of the good life if you’re not doing anything productive during that time.
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After identifying the engagement/energy needs that your bad debilitating habits are helping you meet, you can come up with potential good empowering habits to replace them.
The right Good/Empowering Habits will meet the same needs, scoring high in the same dimensions: engaging and/or energizing you in similar ways but in a way that moves you forward to your own vision of the good life.
A good potential replacement habit for procrastinating by watching youtube videos could be to engage in productive procrastination where you tackle a task that engages/energizes you more than the one you dread you such as watching videos that help you learn something new. In this way, you can meet the same need to have fun/be energized before tackling the boring/draining task.
Another good potential replacement habit is to put on an empowering playlist of music that you enjoy and that energizes you when tackling boring/draining tasks so as to get that fun and energy while you get the task done. In this way, you can meet the same need to have fun/be energized but as you tackle the task you need to.
Once you come up with one or more potential empowering replacement habits, you need to actually test them out and see if they work. This takes a bit of discipline. It requires making a conscious effort to engage in the new habit instead of the old one for at least a couple of days, or ideally a week or two. The important thing is to test out the replacement habit in a way that helps you gather enough data and information on whether it actually works in your Good Life Journal.
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If you find yourself slipping into the old habit before a week has passed, that’s okay! Don’t beat yourself up. It means that you can be confident that your replacement habit is not sufficiently meeting the needs of your debilitating habit. But it’s important that you give it a genuine shot. If you slip back into your old habit, you can use the Reflection Space of Your Good Life Journal to zoom-in on what is missing in the replacement habit, what aspect of your need(s) that are met by the old habit is not being met by the new one. Use this information to come up with new replacement empowering habits that are designed to meet these needs to the right extent.
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If productive procrastinating does not work as a replacement habit, is it because the tasks you productively procrastinate with are not fun enough and so do not engage you enough? If so, try productively procrastinating with more fun tasks, like writing to friends. Is it because they don’t energize you enough and so you still feel drained when you tackle the procrastinated task? If so, try productively procrastinating with something more energizing beforehand, like working out. Is it because you find yourself distracted and drained by thoughts of the task you dread as you do it? If so, try productively procrastinating by meditating and clearing your head.
If your empowering playlist does not help you tackle the task without actually, is it because the music does not make you feel good enough? If so, try putting on more of your favorite music, or music from your favorite show or movie. Is it because the music does not give you enough energy? If so, try putting on music with a higher tempo to get your spirit and body moving a bit more. It is because the music does not engage or energize enough, try using music from a video game soundtrack. Video game music can be particularly helpful for this purpose because it’s designed to promote extended focus without distraction (and so to engage + energize). The way forward is to keep intelligently coming up with and testing out replacement empowering habits until you find some that work. Some that meet the same needs similarly enough and well enough that they stick with you.
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The way forward is to keep intelligently coming up with and testing out replacement empowering habits until you find some that work. Some that meet the same needs similarly enough and well enough that they stick with you. That’s the way to change your habits in a way that really sticks!
By testing out these different possible habits and gathering data and information using your Good Life Journal carry out what philosopher John Stuart Mill calls, “experiments in living” in a focused and concrete way. Mill thought that it is largely through these experiments that we gain ethical and moral knowledge. By experimenting with these different habits while Good Life Journaling, you can gather data on which experimental changes to your life actually work to bring you closer to your own vision of the good life and on why they work for you.
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As you do this, be sure to keep in mind the Good Life Designer Mindsets that I’ve shared with you in the past:
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Approach The Problem of Replacing Bad Habits with Curiosity and Expansive Thinking
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Collaborate in Creative Communities to Find Better Replacement Habits
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Experiment and Evaluate a Variety of Replacement Habits
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Reconceptualize and Reframe When You Get Stuck To Find a Better Way Forward
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Cultivate Awareness of the Dynamical Nature of the Good Life Design Process
Whenever a better replacement habit does not stick, remember, this is not a failure! This is just you figuring out better and better ways of meeting your needs on a habitual basis and of becoming your best self! You’re always designing how to better express your unique awesomeness in the world, so you can’t really fail.
As you move forward toward your own vision of a good life in this way, you can continue to apply this method not only to replace bad habits that disempower you but also to tune-up your empowering habits. In a way that helps them work even better for you, i.e., habits that score even higher on at least one of the Good Life Gauges. By continuing to gathered data and reflect using your Good Life Journal, you can continue to gain and more knowledge about which ways of spending your time truly work best for you. You can figure out which activities lead to your living out your vision of the good life in the way that fits you best.
One way of particularly powerful way of developing even more empowering habits is by stacking them together. This is an approach I find helpful when dealing with an especially long and boring/draining task. I first productively procrastinate by working out. Then I meditate. Finally, after being productively engaged and energized, I tackle the task with an empowering playlist with videogame battle and boss music.
You can try stacking empowering habits in different orders and gather data and information using your Good Life Journal on which orders/ ways of stacking work best for you. By doing this, I figured out that my mind is even more engaged and relaxed by meditating after an energizing working out because it helps me focus my awareness on my body and not on my thoughts.
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As you continue to tune-up and refine your habits, try to come up with replacement habits that you get excited about trying out. Get creative. Have fun with it. Use your Good Life Journal to figure out what really works for you. Then move forward with it.
Conclusion
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In this article, I shared with you how to use your Good Life Journal to effectively replace bad debilitating habits with good empowering ones. The key lies in understanding how your bad habits help you meet certain needs while still holding you back. Once you do this, you can creatively and effectively come up with better replacement habits that help you meet those same needs while propelling you forward toward your own vision of the good life. By gathering data and reflecting in your Good Life Journal, you can home in on what exactly it is about your current and potential replacement habits that works for you and what doesn’t.
What I’ve gone into in this post is really just the tip of the iceberg. There are all kinds of fun and creative empowering habits that you can try out in your own life. To help you do this, I’m including a Cheatsheet For Replacing Bad Habits that identifies some debilitating habits you may want to get rid of and some potential replacement empowering habits for you to try out.
SIMPLY CLICK AND SIGN UP TO ACCESS IT!
Sign up, and you’ll also receive a Guide to Good Life Journaling that comes with ready-made Good Life Journal Worksheets that you can print out and fill out as you gather data on your bad habits and test out ways of replacing them. And because I don't want you to lose motivation if you fail to make replacement habits stick, when you click below and sign up, I will include a Guide to Cultivating Failure Immunity that can help you keep your eye on the prize as you get better habits.
Go Now. Use These Philosophical Tools to Help your Life for the Better. Simply Gathering Knowledge Will Never Make Your Life Better. Only Taking Action Will.