#99 - The Value of a New Habit
“When you are reinventing yourself, it's going to feel strange because it's new.
That newness is actually really good.”
-Andrew Love
Each one of us has habits that we’ve picked up on through the years and we’ve nurtured. An action that we do every day and becomes a part of our routine over time. The things we do or how we spend our time shape who we are and what kind of life we have is influenced and defined by our habits. We always have the choice of whether we keep our bad habits or cultivate good ones.
You have the ability to reinvent yourself once you recognize and assess whether your habits are advantageous or harmful to your life. Reinventing yourself isn’t an easy process. It can be uncomfortable or painful, but we should perceive this discomfort as a result of letting go of an old habit and stepping outside of our comfort zone which eventually leads us to a better life.
In Episode 99, Andrew Love talks about the value of forming a beneficial habit by reinventing oneself, why we may experience an “uncomfortable stage” and how we should respond to it. He also discusses the sense of newness as well as the differences between the newness of a good habit versus a bad one.
We might sense the newness of a good habit in the process of forming it, and this can be misinterpreted as discomfort. The feeling of newness associated with a good habit should not be misconstrued; rather, we should embrace and cherish that painful experience to be able to grow as an individual.
We all want to be the best version of ourselves, and our habits should mirror that desire. Learn more about the importance of developing new habits and how they can help us reinvent ourselves in Episode 99!
The uncomfortable stage of self-reinvention
Crucial period of time in the growth process
The sense of newness
The critical time of losing a good habit
What is accountability?
The differences between newness of the good habit and bad habit
Episode Transcript:
Andrew Love
Welcome back to Love, Life and Legacy, the podcast dedicated to helping you navigate these hypersexualized times of ours. And if it sounds like I'm smiling, it's because I am. Because I just recorded an episode by myself, and I feel so fancy. Today's episode is a gift from me to you. I didn't consult with anybody to make this episode, it was just a rogue episode that I felt needed to happen on this planet. It's really talking about that window of time to value the newness of a new habit. Because if you value and cherish a new good habit, that's difficult, then you will see the full value in it. But if you don't cherish the newness of a bad habit that you're adapting to, then you will not be able to really see how detrimental it is to your life. So either way, if you're adapting new good healthy habits that are taking you closer to your goals, or bad habits that are taking you further away from your goals. Either way, to notice that window of time when a habit is new and to use that time to your advantage to get further along in your journey towards sexual integrity, wholeness, fulfillment, a life of radiance, that's how you win at life. So good luck. This is an amazing episode. I'm so glad you're here. Let's hop on in. Let's go.
Andrew Love
Welcome back, everybody, it's me, Andrew Love. And it's only me, Andrew Love. I'm not here with Benjy at all. I'm just going to do a solo cast today. And don't worry, okay, I promise you, it's going to be a shorter one. I know how unbearable it can be if I rant too much. But this is a really important topic, and if you can understand it, and if you can really get the essence of what I'm talking about, you'll be able to see how it applies to your life, and it will help you tremendously. What I'm talking about is, it comes from, I was in the boot camp that I have been providing for the past few months. And basically, our boot camp is like imagining how much you could grow if you went all-in on your North Star Goal and you had a tremendous amount of accountability that allowed you that focus and the support to actually become the person that you intend on becoming. That's the thesis of the boot camp, and it's really working. But the process is really interesting, I've been observing. And here's why. Let me tell you.
Andrew Love
When you are becoming something new, it's really an uncomfortable experience, because you're letting go of a lot of the old way that you used to do things, the old way that you used to think, the old way that you used to feel, the habits that you used to have. And every time you let that go, that's like your little blankie. Like little kids have a little blankie sometimes, they'll have a stuffed animal that gives them this false sense of comfort. And we, as complex adults, need something a little bit more than fabric. We need something that still is an invisible shield, but somehow it passes our rational mind. So things like pornography, masturbation, things like smoking, overeating, things like judging other people, things like lethargy, or just unclarity, can manifest in a multitude of different ways. But the point is, if that's a habit that you've been reassuring yourself of is normal for a long period of time, and you start to let go of that as being acceptable and you start to adapt a new version of yourself that no longer does things like you used to do, then it feels weird. Okay, so that's the first thing. Let's stop there and let that sink in.
Andrew Love
When you are reinventing yourself, it's going to feel strange because it's new. That newness is actually really good. That strange feeling is an indication that you're on the right path. But what I really want to talk about is that you have this crucial period of time in your growth process, and we're all growing. If you're listening to this, you're growing. We're all growing. We're either growing more of what we do want consciously and intentionally, or we're growing a bunch of stuff that we don't want. You either have a healthy garden that's growing a lot of beautiful plants and trees that are bearing fruit, or you're growing a bunch of weeds and death and destruction. That's us. And so if you're on the right path, then what that looks like is when you adapt a new habit, it's going to feel uncomfortable, and sometimes it won't even feel right.
Andrew Love
For instance, when you go to the gym, you go to the gym and you work out for the first time, you're going to feel really awkward. You're going to look around and you're going to see all these people who seem like they know what they're doing. They look really healthy and in much better shape than you. You're going to feel like I don't belong here because it's your first time. They've been here a bunch more times. But in your mind it's like, oh, I don't know if I belong here. And then you work out a lot of times, am I doing the right thing? And then if you work out really hard, the next your body feels like it's dead like you just killed yourself. I definitely know that. And that's because your muscle tissue is not used to being torn and being tested in such a way. But you know what happens? If you eat right, that muscle tissue grows back stronger.
Andrew Love
The same thing goes for anything. It could be spiritually speaking, he's like, oh, I'm a shy person. But you don't want to be, you want to overcome that. I want to be an outgoing person. I want to be the type of person that can speak publicly. That's going to feel awkward the first time, the second time, and probably the first 20 times, or maybe the first 100 times because your nervous system hasn't caught up to the person that you want to be. You're training your nervous system to fall in line with your mind. So in the context of trying to build a new habit, what you are experiencing at first is this sense of newness. And that's going to feel weird. And here's my recommendation to you. Cherish that. Cherish that newness.
Andrew Love
In terms of building new constructive intentional habits, if it feels weird and it feels painful, cherish it. That's what growth feels like. That's what becoming the person you want to be feels like. That's what a life of intentionality and power feels like. Okay, so cherish it. Don't try to avoid that uncomfortable moment or that pain that comes with the work involved. Cherish it, because that is your gift for being alive on this planet. That is your growth strategy. And I think everybody who's listening to this would understand that. But what I also really wanted to emphasize is there's a critical time when you start to lose good habits.
Andrew Love
And let's say, you've been in the habit of eating really healthily. Let's say you have a very good regimen. You go to the grocery store, and you get really healthy things. And you avoid that one aisle that you all know that aisle in the grocery store that there's nothing that can be identified as actual food. It's a bunch of chemicals. It's like the science lab of the grocery store. It's where the Pepsi's and the Cokes and the Lays and the Doritos, and all that is all together. It's just the concoction for death. It's the one aisle that you could viably go down and look at the back of everything and look at the content and be like, that's not food. That's not food. That's not food. That's not food. Okay, so if you make a habit of just passing by that aisle with a strange curiosity, and never go down, never participate in that, let's say that's your habit. You have really good eating habits. But then you're curious like, oh, there's that new flavor of Mountain Dew. This is all hypothetical. I don't know if this is true.
Andrew Love
Let's just say there's a new Turquoise Mountain Dew. That's the flavor of a tortoise, or whatever. It's tortoise-flavored Mountain Dew. And it looks really weird and intriguing so you test it out. That first day that you bring that Mountain Dew home and put it in your fridge and start consuming it, it's going to feel weird in your body. If you're not in the habit of drinking that stuff, your mouth will feel weird, you'll feel all the sugar in your teeth, you'll get this crazy energy spike, and then probably a crash. It's going to have a direct impact. And why I'm making this episode is that it's like an alarm bell going off being like, hey, this is probably not something you want to do because it's still uncomfortable to do that thing that you don't want to be doing. It could be sleeping in. We'll use another example.
Andrew Love
If you're always used to waking up at a certain time, and then you just start sleeping in and losing your way, it feels weird at first. And that's like your warning sign of like, hey, that still feels weird, because eventually, it's going to start feeling normal to do the thing that you don't want to do. Start eating a doughnut for breakfast. This is like my first year of high school. I started eating donuts for breakfast. Luckily, I timed it perfectly that I started eating junk food exactly during my growth spurt so I had never really felt the repercussions because I got out of that habit as soon as I stopped growing, which by the way, wasn't long because I'm pretty short. My growth spurt was very short because I'm very short. Do you see how that works? But the point is, if you start having a doughnut for breakfast, it's going to feel weird like, what am I doing? But after you do it for a week, it's not that weird. It's not that great. It's still not normal. But after a month is actually pretty normal. Two months? Pretty normal. And then that becomes your life. Being out of shape becomes normal. Being selfish can become normal. Being anxious all the time and doubting yourself and doubting your capabilities can become normal. Do you see how this works?
Andrew Love
What I'm proposing here is that you become incredibly mindful of both directions of that sense of newness, and if it's towards the direction of your intention, if you are setting new goals and you're trying new things and it feels weird, cherish it. Cherish that beautiful new energy because there's so much vitality that comes with that newness. That nervous energy of trying something new, you can channel that and do great things with it. Conversely, if you're newness is towards a life of your undoing of losing your physical health, your mental health, your spiritual health, your emotional health, use that warning sign of it being comfortable at first as a slap in the face to say, wake up, you're going in the wrong direction. You're losing your way. You're drifting. Get back on track. That's why we really recommend always having accountability for all the areas of your life that you view to be important. Because it becomes much clearer if you're going off track and you're losing your way, you're sleeping and you're eating the wrong foods. You stop praying, you stop meditating, you stop volunteering, you stop giving of yourself, you stop doing things that you care about, and instead, you just sit in front of a computer all day, you just start watching TV all day. You stop spending time with your wife, if you're married. You stop spending quality time with your kids, if you have kids. Or if you're single, you stop working on yourself in preparation for the future. And you just start going in, in word and you just start playing video games, or you just start watching Korean dramas, or whatever you do. To have accountability is allowing somebody else to slap you in the face. And it doesn't have to be a harsh slap in the face, it could just be grabbing your face, grabbing you by the cheeks, and be like, hey, are you sure you want to go down that path?
Andrew Love
Let's just say I'm going to walk from here in my kitchen to my living room. But at some point, I turn around and walk out the front door. If I have accountability, then the person will say, what happened? How did you end up going the wrong way? You said you're going to go this way, but you went the completely opposite way. What happened? Then you can recalibrate and look at it when you have accountability. The problem with having no accountability is it could be months and months of doing a bad habit before you realize that you're even doing it. Because maybe, it was unconscious. You could talk about something as simple as flossing your teeth. You can floss your teeth every night your whole life, and then one day you're like, I would floss once a week. Then it becomes once a month, and then you just stop flossing your teeth. And you didn't even know that it happened. And maybe it was completely unconscious. But this is a small example. But then bring it much more personal.
Andrew Love
Let's say you're married, and let's say you stop complimenting your spouse. Let's say you stop buying them flowers. Let's say even on a much more personal level, you stop thinking nice things about them. You compound that over a month, over a year, what happens? They become your enemy. All you see is the separation between you and that person. You start to resent them. You start to look for every single mistake that they make, and you focus on that as, oh, see, they're like this, because you're not even looking for the good. So all of this really, really makes a difference. If you have the habit of thinking really healthy thoughts about yourself, catch every single negative thought and let that feel uncomfortable. Don't let those negative thoughts become normalized.
Andrew Love
I hope this point makes sense. It's really, I'm going to summarize here right now, I said it's going to be short so I'm going to leave it here. There will always be a newness. If it's new for the good because it's intentional, cherish it, channel that energy, use it. If it's new because it's a bad habit and your body or your mind or your heart or your soul is uncomfortable with it, use that as a warning sign to not go down that path. If you can be guided by that temporary time, that temporary opportunity you have while that thing is still new, then it becomes very valuable. If you stop noticing how beautiful that newness is, if it's a good habit, then you're missing the value of the journey. And if you miss the value of the newness of the bad habit that you're acquiring, then you're missing the Mayday, the SOS that your body and your heart and your mind and your soul are trying to give you to not go down that path so you can avoid a ton of suffering.
Andrew Love
If that makes sense, let me know about it. Report back to me. Let me know. Send us comments, send us an email, send us on social media, give us some feedback. If it doesn't make any sense at all, please ask me some clarifying questions. I think this is a really important topic, and it's this mechanism that we have within us that was designed to help us stay on track only if we observe the signs and the symptoms that were being shown. Alright, so that's what I'm going to give to you today. I hope that was helpful. I'm going to end here, otherwise, I'm never going to end, and I'm gonna speak endlessly. And I'm just going to rant until my brain pops. And I don't want that. So have a great day. Let yourself be amazing. Let me end with this. Okay, this is how I ended in our last boot camp session. What would your life look like if you were completely the person you want to be? How would you talk to your family? How would you talk to your friends? How would you show up at work? What if you were cranked to a level 10 of amazingness on a scale of zero to 10, 10 being the most amazing version of yourself in terms of your mind, the most brilliant version of yourself? Your heart, the most radiant version of yourself. Your spirit, the most transcendent version of yourself. Your body, the healthiest version of yourself. If you were at a 10 across the board, what would your life look like? And then ask yourself, why am I settling for less. Porn is settling for a minus 10. Insulting people, judging people that settling for minus 10. That's living a really flatline existence. If you want a full 10 out of 10, then please set yourself a strong North Star goal. Find accountability and watch what happens. There's some magic that happens. I'm watching it happening all around. Please let us support you on your journey, contact us. We're so happy that you're on this journey with us. And we just wish you the best. God bless you, and I will talk to you in the next episode.
Andrew Love
Hello everybody, Andrew Love here, and I just wanted to add one more point. High Noon is a non-profit organization, and we are run by donations. Although we've been doing okay, thanks to the massive generosity of our founders, the Wolfenbergers, we want to expand higher, higher, higher, higher. We want to make a global impact. We want to reach every family, we want to change the culture. And for that to happen, we're going to need a lot of volunteers and a lot of staff. That's just the reality, it takes money to travel, it takes money to do a lot of the things we do. And we want to let you be a part of this growth. And so what we've created is a donor's club, which is a $10 a month club. And when you join, you get a T-shirt mailed to your door, you can get some exclusive content, we also have some really good goodies for our tribe of people who are part of the donor's club that we're going to talk about in the coming months. So I just wanted to invite you to be one of these people. Everybody can afford $10 a month. It's just a matter of whether it's a priority. So if you feel that High Noon has impacted you positively or your family or somebody you know, please consider donating. I don't want you to give any money unless you really, really want to. But if you do want to, I encourage you to really really donate. So $10 a month is I don't know, a cat a month? I don't know how to measure it. It's a giant hamburger and french fries a month that you can sacrifice in order to help this world become a more habitable, more enjoyable, more connected, more loving place. So please consider joining our donor's club, it's just $10 a month. We look forward to seeing you on the inside of our secret society for donors. Have a good day, everybody.