The NDINI Podcast Sandra Chuma

In this episode, I will share the three key points you will need to remember to be able to build sustainable habits. These key points are way more effective long-term more than the temporary nature of relying on motivation and willpower alone.
This episode wraps up our Habits series, as well as the year for the NDINI Podcast. I have a very special message at the end of this episode, so be sure to watch and listen until the end!
I am eternally grateful to you for the support that you continue to give me, and that you continue to give this platform. I wish you the very best over this holiday season. I wish you a blessed,  safe, and peaceful holiday season, and I will see you in the new year! 
Much love,
Sandra

One of the things that I have learned in learning about behavior design is the power of habits, and that habits really are the foundation of success. 
I didn't expect my learning about habits to literally be life changing. And so once I started down this path and started learning from BJ Fogg, I learned that he has one non-negotiable, -- the Maui habit. 
And what the Maui habit is, is that every morning, as soon as you wake up, you say to yourself, "This is going to be a great day." 
Regardless of my hesitation or what I had thought at that time, I started doing it. And I can tell you that it has fundamentally shifted how I go through the day. When the very first thought in your mind is 'this is going to be a great day,' your mind articulates itself to looking to make it a great day. 
But to be completely honest, not every day is a great day. And there are days where I wake up, and I know it's going to be challenging, I know I've got a very busy schedule ahead, I know there are hard things that I'm going to face, or I am going through hard things or I'm fighting with my husband or whatever it is. And sometimes those words to say it's going to be a great day just feels really hollow. 
To answer this issue and struggle, I talk about the story of BJ Fogg’s sister in this episode -- a story he shared in his book. This story tells of how she was able to overcome her situation despite all the unfortunate tragedies in her life that came one after the other. Here you will learn the words she said to herself that was able to change her mindset and completely change her life for the better.
In Dr. Wendy Wood’s book, 'Good Habits, Bad Habits' she talks about how we underestimate the power of habits when it comes to resilience, when it comes to being able to carry us through hard things. This year has been such a great example of hardship. Regardless of who you are and what you do, you have been impacted in some way by the events of this year. And now more than ever, is when our habits are what will carry us through.

If I tell you, “Whatever you do today, don't think about a pink elephant.” What's the first thing that happens in your mind? Don't think about a pink elephant -- now you're thinking about the pink elephant. And that's exactly the same thing that happens with habits. Your mind is the key.
In this episode I talk about the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment that was done in 1972 and its significance on how to deal with issues of self-control, especially when it comes to changing habits.
What is the strategy? 
Trying to focus on changing a bad habit gung ho just keeps that bad habit in your mind, making it a continuous struggle. If you're trying to change a behavior, trying to change a habit, the best way to actually do that is not to focus on the bad habit, and instead focus on creating a new habit. 
If you want to hear more examples of this strategy, including my own personal experience on this, listen in and maybe you can try something that works for you. 

How do you start to ‘break’ a bad habit? First of all that terminology -- 'break' a bad habit -- we need to change that. Think about how long it took for you to ingrain that as a habit. It didn't just happen overnight. You've been doing it over and over for a time, you don’t just stop doing it overnight. It's something that, in the words that I've been taught in my coaching -- you start to untangle a bad habit.
If you've ever tried to take apart something that is tangled, what's the easiest way to start to undo it?  You untangle it bit by bit. If you try and yank, it gets even tighter and knots even tighter.
Think about that as the same with your habits. You have to unravel them bit by bit, piece by piece. Otherwise, it just tightens even more. And so if you want to start to untangle a habit that you don't like, you go back to the Fogg Behavior Model.
In this episode, I break down the steps on how to untangle your bad habits by understanding how they are formed in the first place. This reverse engineering process is based on the Fogg Behavior Model that I have shared in our previous episodes, so please make sure to check it out first if you haven’t yet. 

One of my coaches said to me, "Everything you have, or you don't have in your life is because of your habits." I've never thought about it like that. I knew your habits were important. I knew that there are good habits and bad habits, but I've never thought about the fact that my life was being created by my habits. And once I understood that, then I went on this quest to try and find how and why habits are created, why do some habits work and some habits don't. 
In this episode, I want to share with you how a habit is created and the science behind it. 
To understand this better, I refer to the Fogg Behavior Model, which I talked about in last week’s episode. Please check that out first if you haven’t yet.
“The brain doesn't distinguish between a good habit and a bad habit. To your brain, it just remembers that there was some release of dopamine, something that made it remember that it should do this thing. And so if we're talking about trying to create good habits, or the habits that we want to do, how do you do that? Well, at its simplest, it really is about feeling good.”

Before we start this week’s podcast episode, I highly encourage all of you listeners to check out the video of this episode on our website, NDINI.COM or on our YouTube channel, NDINI Media. The reason I mention this is because this episode contains valuable visuals of the Fogg Behavior Model, and it would greatly help you understand it if you could actually see the illustration and diagram that I talk about.
I wanted to talk today about something that for me, has literally changed my life. If you are somebody who's ever tried to create a new habit, you wanted to work out more, you wanted to eat healthier, you wanted to work on building a business, you wanted to study harder at school, but you just found yourself sabotaging or not sticking to it, this is for you. 
For the longest time I’ve talked about habits and how habits really are the foundation of everything -- how everything you have or don't have in life is based on your habits. But like everybody else, I am human. I try to implement good habits, but then I get stuck and only keep up with it for a month, or a week. That was until I read this book called Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg. 
Here's the thing, if you don't know what you're working with, how can you change it? So if you're looking to change your behavior, but you don't actually understand how behavior works, it's gonna be very hard to do that. BJ Fogg has a model where he defines what behavior is that will help us understand it for us to be able to change it and systematically form habits. 
In this episode, I talk about the The Fogg Behavior Model and its eye-opening mind-blowing revelations about behavior and how we can form habits.