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Hello and welcome to The Overflow Podcast. My name
is Craig Booker. The title of this episode is The
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Loop a lot of the material for this week’s episode
was inspired by Craig Groeschel’s book The Power to
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Change – Mastering the Habits That Matter Most. Note:
I will talk a lot about mental health but please
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note this is not a substitute for therapy or
mental health care I am not a counselor or a
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physician if you need help with mental health
challenges please find a qualified mental
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health professional so last week we talked about
flossing saved my life we were talking about if
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we want to make positive changes we don’t have to
do really big miraculous things to make changes in
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our life we just have to start small with small
habits we’re picking up from there this week we
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are talking about the title of this section is
the loop in this chapter or this section Craig
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Rochelle goes on talking about telling this story
and it he kind of takes a funny approach to it and
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he starts out talking about he’s talking about his
dog Sadie and he starts talking about Sadie as if
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Sadie is a human being almost or he gives you the
impression but he throws some humor in there about
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about Sadie uh you know messing in their yard and
so uh he talked he tells this great story about
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Sadie to illustrate a point and he said Sadie
follows predictable routines based on visual
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cues so he goes into a describing how you know
when he goes to the back door and he I believe
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he grabs a leash that Sadie knows what’s going to
happen next or if you know he grabs I guess the
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garbage cans and starts making his way down the
driveway Sadie knows that they’re taking out the
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trash and Sadie’s running down the driveway he’s
using these illustrations of his dog Sadie to show
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how Sadie follows these predictable routines based
on visual cues likewise as human beings we tend
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to do the same thing like Sadie we are creatures
of habit we respond to simple cues and if we’re
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going to start healthy habits and stop hurtful
ones we need to First make sure we we understand
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how habits work what is a habit a habit is like
autopilot or cruise control for your brain the
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human brain seeks out ways to save energy and one
of the ways it accomplishes this is through habits
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habits allow us to do things without engaging
the brain to think about them or the need to make
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decisions quote Craig Rochelle says a habit allows
a good or bad behavior to happen without your
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brain having to take charge you know some of the
examples I think that he discusses in this chapter
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are like if you’ve ever driven a vehicle maybe to
work or to a place that you go to frequently you
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know sometimes you get there and you don’t even
remember how you got there or you don’t remember
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driving there and that happens because your brain
has formed a habit for going to that destination
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um and so it’s pretty crazy that our brains can do
that um but we get in a routine and that’s how our
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brains can serve energy is through that habit
how are habits born and there’s Concepts that
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a lot of experts agree upon and these that are
presented first and the notes are Q like c-u-e
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response reward so another habits expert if you
haven’t heard of James Clear James Clear wrote a
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book called Atomic habits if you’re if you like
to read or listen to audiobooks it’s a it’s an
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awesome book to check out and learn more about the
process of forming habits but James Clear adds a
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fourth option that Craig Rochelle references
in this so you still have the cue craving the
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response but he adds a fourth reward just to
give a little bit of detail on each of these
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a q is a trigger that alerts your brain to go
into autopilot by engaging The Habit craving is
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the physical mental or emotional need the cue
leads you to want to satisfy and the response
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is the behavior you routinely fall into and then
there’s reward and the reward is how the behavior
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makes you feel another quote if you engage in the
same Loop Q craving response reward enough times
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the process will become automatic and that’s
Craig Rochelle we’re going to get intentional
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about our cues so these are things that if you
already have the Habit you probably don’t even
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recognize that they’re there he goes into detail
about some potential cues the different kind of
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categories and one of them is place so a specific
place a time a mood different moments and people
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so Place time mood moments and people places and
a place can be the cue that initiates initiates
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a habit Loop example when you get in bed your
body knows it’s time to sleep now that’s kind of
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given that you don’t do a lot of other things
when you go to bed like you don’t stay up and
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watch TV a lot you know a lot of other activities
like reading in bed experts recommend that you
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only sleep in bed right so your body has that cue
to you know get you into the proper mood or state
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of mind to sleep Place could be your bed if you
work at a desk and you only use that desk for work
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your body or your brain would know that when you
go to that desk it’s time to work there’s times
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certain times can trigger behaviors example if
you typically exercise early in the morning you
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might feel inspired to go for a run or ride a
bicycle at night when everyone is asleep you
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may tend to worry as you lie in bed the book says
time and place matter a lot when we create a plan
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for establishing new habits and ending old ones
time and place will will be essential so these
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are really important things to take note of when
we’re trying to establish new habits or possibly
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when we’re trying to stop old ones here’s our
strategy we’ll create time and place triggers to
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start a good habit we will remove time and place
triggers to stop a bad one next category is moods
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moods can cue cravings and lead us into behaviors
there’s an acronym that was provided in the book
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and it’s something I’ve heard elsewhere it’s
the the acronym Halt h-a-l-t and that stands for
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Hungry angry lonely and tired it goes into detail
talking about how these specific moods can be cues
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for different habits you know like if you’re alone
at night you may be prompted to do something that
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you normally wouldn’t do if you’re you’re angry
and tired so you have a a couple of these things
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of these moods going going on that could cue
your body to do something that you’ll regret
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a lot of times when I’m angry and tired that’s
just not a good combination for anything or I’m
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not going to have a lot of productive behaviors
when I’m in that mood we also have moments so
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certain types of moments launch specific habit
Loops we also have people and it says the wrong
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people can be cues that lead us in the wrong
direction the good news is that right people
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can trigger right Behavior studies prove that the
closer you get to someone the more likely it is
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that you’ll have the same habits I don’t know you
know what your personal experience with this is
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but I know that in my past when I hung out with
certain people it led to not the best behaviors
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and so you know at the time maybe I didn’t
realize it but after a little while I realized
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that hanging out with those people usually was
not positive that’s why hanging out and finding
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the right group of friends is really important if
we want to make positive changes to our life for
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example uh you know this group we have a group
of individuals here that in some way understand
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the challenges we’re all facing likewise this
group can encourage us because they know what
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we’re struggling with and what we all kind of
want to accomplish we’re all looking to make
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positive changes in our life or help other people
make positive changes so this group can come
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together and encourage one another to establish
these habits and so that’s one great example of
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people we have an exercise in this exercise we’re
working through five major Trigger or cues okay
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so you can use like trigger as a replacement for Q
work through the five major trigger cues and lists
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positive and negatives for each in your life right
now so we’re going to go through this don’t feel
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like you have to do this right now but I would
encourage you this week if you have time to go
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through this on your own you know if you run into
the speed bumps or get stuck on something feel
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free to reach out to me or other people in the
group remember these are to discover consistent
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Tendencies not one-off incidents so what we’re
trying to do is uncover patterns in our Behavior
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we give different categories in this exercise of
each of those things we discuss so places times
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moods moments and people and other places we have
places that cue a positive response we have places
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that trigger a negative response there there are
just certain places that you go that can either
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have a positive or negative response and that
trigger us to do something positive or negative I
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think one of the examples he gives is if you’re in
church most likely you’re not going to be tempted
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to want to like smoke marijuana or something
in church likewise if you’re in church you’re
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probably going to be more attuned or more likely
to want to pray and connect with God because your
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brain is formed a habit of knowing when you go
to church that is for worship and that is for
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connecting with God in prayer and learning through
the word so likewise you could have places that
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trigger a negative response you know depending
on your background I want to be sensitive to
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that say you if you go to a bar or a place that
serves alcohol that may be a cue or a trigger
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that you know invokes a negative response and
that you do things that you later regret and
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then we have times and we’re going to do this
is very similar to one before we’re going to
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have times that q a positive response and times
that trigger a negative response a lot of people
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in the evening it’s dark and it’s late a lot of
times that time of day cues a negative response
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for a negative behavior so that could be like a
time of day that you have to be you know pretty
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careful about your behaviors likewise that time of
day could cue a positive response maybe you have
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a routine that you get up in the morning and you
have a quiet time where you’re spending time with
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God you’re in your Bible you’re praying maybe
you’re seeing some worship songs and that is a
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time of day that cues a positive response
so we have moods and we’re likewise we’re
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gonna we’re gonna look at moods that cue
a positive response or a negative response
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yeah we talked about those four that halt acronym
hungry angry lonely and tired if we have if we
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make observe that we’re experiencing one of
those moods we can probably see a pattern in
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behavior when we’re feeling either lonely angry
tired or hungry that something comes after that
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likewise we may have certain moods that that cue
a positive response we have moments there are
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certain moments that cue a positive and negative
response then we have people we talked about that
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already but this is a exercise that you can go
through and just do some reflection to try to
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identify some patterns in your life the passage
of scripture here is Proverbs 13 20 and this is
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the New Living Translation it says walk with the
wise and become wise associate with fools and get
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in trouble that’s all for this episode thank
you for watching if you like the video give
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us a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe
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