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Hello and welcome to The Overflow Podcast. My name
is Craig Booker. The title of this
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episode is How to Stop Before You Flop. A lot
of the material for this week’s episode was
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inspired by Craig Groeschel’s book The Power to
Change, Mastering the Habits That Matter Most.
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Note: I will talk a lot about mental health but
please note this is not a substitute for therapy
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or mental health care I am not a counselor or
a physician if you need help with mental health
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challenges, please find a qualified mental health
professional. This episode’s title is How to Stop
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Before You Flop. In this section of the book Craig
Groeschel talks about life summary sentences. These
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are like one sentence that sums up an entire
person’s life you’ve probably heard people use
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these life summary sentences about other people
some examples are yeah she fell into sin or he
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cheated on his wife another example from judges 16
verses 1 was one day Samson went to the Philistine
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town of Gaza and spent the night with a prostitute
Samson didn’t live a short life right but this
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one sentence seems to sum up his entire life I a
quote from Craig Rochelle it says disasters are
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rarely the result of an isolated decision they
are almost always the end of a slippery slope
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Samson live in the town of Zora some say was 25
miles from Gaza you know Samson didn’t just take
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a quick walk across the street to get to Zora it
was 25 miles from his hometown of Gaza do you know
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how many steps it takes to go 25 miles he did the
math and it’s approximately 56 250 steps it wasn’t
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that he got in his car and drove real quickly to
this destination he had a lot of time to think
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about this we don’t wreck Our Lives all at once
but a little at a time he said like erosion we
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are all tempted to slide down that 56 250 step
slope every day that’s why it’s important to
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get a hold of our habits based on who you want
to be come what one habit do you need to stop
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Colossians 3 1-3 and verse 10. you have been
raised to life with Christ Now set your heart
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on what is in heaven where Christ rules at God’s
right side think about what is up there not about
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what is here on Earth you died which means that
your life is hidden with Christ who sits beside
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God each of you is now a person now a new person
you are becoming more and more like your Creator
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and you will understand him better so here Paul
is encouraging us to forget about who you were
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know who you are in Christ and who you want to
become in him so in our study we’ve been talking
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a lot about you know the reason behind why we do
things we’ve been talking about the who we feel
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called to become in Colossians 3 5 verses or
three five and then eight through nine it says
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don’t be controlled by your body body kill every
desire of the wrong kind of sex don’t be immoral
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or indecent or have evil thoughts don’t be greedy
which is the same as worshiping Idols but now you
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must stop doing such things you must quit being
angry hateful and evil you must no longer say
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insulting or cruel things about others and stop
lying to each other you have given up your old
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way your old way of life with its habits so here
we’re we’re hearing this call I believe this is
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from Paul as well to leave our old ways behind
our old habits our old desires we are to kill
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off those desires and grow new habits into the
person that were to become if you want to become
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who you want to become there are some habits
you need to give up so based on who you want
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to become what one habit do you need to break now
if this is overwhelming because there’s not just
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one habit but a lot I know that you’re on alone
all of us can probably sit and think about all
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these habits we need to break in our lives
and that process can really be overwhelming
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Craig Rochelle says you cannot defeat what
you cannot Define so if we’re not willing to
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specify what we’re trying to quit it’s going
to be really hard to defeat that bad habit
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so the question is why is this so difficult for
us and uh so we we have good habits are difficult
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to start because the pain comes now and the payoff
is in the future so no matter what that is whether
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you’re trying to start a new habit to get in
better physical shape that’s hard because when you
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start it’s painful you know your your muscles are
sore immediately after if not during your workout
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and the payoff for that is far down the line
likewise if you know you’re trying to uh like I’ve
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been trying to eat healthier so I can lose some
weight at first when I I started tracking all the
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food that I’m eating each meal so that I’m only
eating so many calories each day it was incredibly
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difficult I could no longer just go and and grab
whatever look good for me to eat I had to consider
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you know what was in my food because it’s really
easy uh to go over the amount of calories I was
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supposed to eat in a day to be healthy and to lose
weight um and this pain was really really a tough
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process and now I’m over a month into this and
it’s still not completely easy but the process
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is much more manageable than when I started
that’s why these good habits are so hard to
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start is because the payoff that we’re seeking
is far out into the future and likewise if we
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contrast this with bad habits it says bad habits
are difficult to stop because the payoff comes
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now the fun is now and that’s that’s why they’re
so hard is the benefit is right now and the pain
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is in the future like maybe the pain is regret
for that bad habit and that regret doesn’t come
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immediately it’s a little bit after the Habit
Craig Rochelle says why resist a Temptation
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tomorrow if you have the power to eliminate it
today we need to understand cues and identify
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the ones that trigger our habits we talked about
I believe is in the past couple of weeks or the
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past couple of episodes we’ve talked about cues
or triggers that lead us into our habits and so
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this is saying that we need to understand those
cues and triggers so that we can better understand
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how to stop those habits those bad habits we are
going to remove the triggers that tempt us to take
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actions that lead in the wrong direction so if you
are trying to stop overeating you know there may
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be certain cues or triggers that cause you to go
grab food when you’re not hungry or grab too much
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food and so it’s recognizing what those triggers
or cues are so that we can interrupt the process
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if we can’t remove the cues all together we
will put up some roadblocks to prevent us from
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setting foot on the path of the wicked I have
a quote here from the book it says how do you
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win the battle and break the Habit remove the
triggers God is the one who gave us this idea
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of eliminating instead of battling Temptation it
says flee from sexual immorality First Corinthians
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6 18 or run from anything that stimulates youthful
lusts second Timothy 2 22 New Living Translation
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so I have an example here if you’re trying
to eliminate pornography triggers uh you
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will figure out what stimulates your youthful
less so for a person that’s struggling with
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pornography addiction the idea is to figure
out what stirs up or stimulates those desires
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and the examples in the book were you know if
social media apps are your trigger delete the app
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or the apps if it is watching a certain TV show
stop watching that show maybe it is being alone
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when you travel on business uh maybe you could
make travel Arrangements that take this option
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away where you’re not alone the habits you have
today are shaping who you will become tomorrow
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one step at a time your habits are taking
you somewhere if you don’t like where they’re
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taking you change your habits if you change
your habits you will change your life again
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these are principles we’ve built on from past
episodes or past weeks and so we’re piling all
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a lot of this together in this lesson all right
so we have an exercise and this exercise is more
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intensive for good reason and if a habit you’re
struggling with especially in secret could lead
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to a Samson type ending for you digging in
and being fully transparent in your response
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to these questions could bring you Clarity and
understanding let your answers lead to change
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and let the change lead to Freedom all
right so I’ve got a list of questions here
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um as always I encourage you to do this at some
time in your week and go through this exercise but
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we’re just going to briefly go over each of these
questions it’s what is one habit you know you
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must or you most need to stop next was what is the
best thing that could happen if you’re successful
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and quit so what is the worst thing that could
happen if you continue or get worse when you think
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about stopping what is your rationalization for
continuing and then last is what cues regularly
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create triggers for your habit so these are
all a list of questions really to help us
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reflect on what is going on in the situation
so we can better understand it and possibly
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interrupt or put up a roadblock to keep us from
going from that cue to acting on your desire
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so before we talked about how that we have that q
and then there’s a craving immediately after that
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cue so this is trying to interrupt from going
you know you have a cue you have a craving and
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then typically you respond in some way so this is
trying to interrupt that and help you understand
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how to kind of break that cycle of that bad habit
the principle for this section is good habits are
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difficult to start because the pain comes now
and the payoff is in the future bad habits are
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difficult to stop because the payoff comes now
and the pain is in the future Galatians 6 9 of the
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New Living Translation says let’s not get tired
of doing what is good at just the right time we
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will reap a harvest a blessing if we don’t give
up but yeah this this whole section is difficult
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I don’t know if it is for you guys it’s it’s
really difficult like you said because you
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know the bad habits that we’re trying to get rid
of really reward us immediately and that makes
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quitting those really difficult but I I hope
this kind of breaks down the process in a more
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practical way to help each of us stop bad habits
that we want to stop you know if we understand
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who we’re we’re trying to become the person
we’re trying to become there are habits that
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are getting in the way of that so if you’re like
what I think most people go through when they’re
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doing this exercise you know when we were talking
about who before do like who we are supposed to
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become we probably went through and listed a bunch
of habits that we need to break or we need to stop
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and the list might need might be overwhelming
for a lot of you but you know that to become who
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you’re supposed to become or who you’re supposed
to be you need to break some of those habits but
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you just don’t know where to start so you know
maybe it’s before you get started it’s time to
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reflect on it pray ask God for some clarity on
what habits you need to stop and you know another
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approach to this is to look at your list of habits
and see what would make the biggest impact right
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now if you stopped it I think one of the questions
was leading to that is you know thinking about
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what is the best thing that could happen if you’re
successful at quitting this habit what could it
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lead to like how does it how does it better enable
you to become the person you’re supposed to be
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if we look at that we look at the why behind it
it helps to really keep us motivated when we’re
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really struggling to break this habit that’s all
for this episode thank you for watching if you
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like the video give us a thumbs up and be sure to
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