Michael D. Pollock

Addiction

The Habit Loop – Use This Simple Framework to Help Break Your Bad Habits

in Inspiring Videos, Addiction, Behavior Change - 0 Comments

If you’re anything like me, you have at least 1 or 2 bad habits that you’d like to change. In this short video, bestselling author Charles Duhigg shares what he calls “the habit loop.”

According to Duhigg, every habitual behavior involves three elements:

  • Cue – some sort of trigger that makes the behavior unfold automatically.
  • Routine – the behavior itself.
  • Reward – the benefit derived from engaging in the behavior.

As he describes so well in this video, if you want to break a bad habit, the trick is to learn to recognize the Cue, and replace the undesired behavior (Routine) with a more desirable behavior that delivers a similar Reward.

This is a simple – but powerful – framework for understanding habitual behavior and how to change it. For more, see The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg.

21 Motivational Quotes to Help You Overcome Your TV Addiction

in Addiction, Inspiration, TV Addiction - 16 Comments

Also see: How I Overcame TV Addiction and Reclaimed My Life.

“The more television you watch, the more you see people who seem richer than you. Research shows that you will then overestimate the income of real people, and underestimate the value of your own. So the more television you watch, the more dissatisfied with yourself you become. You’ll also spend more money: By one estimate, you’ll spend an extra four dollars per week for every hour of television you watch. Of course, television is about drama, which means violence, infidelity, and amoral behavior, and you end up overestimating the frequency of these things in real life. You may conclude that the world is less safe than it actually is, and decide that you’d better stay home and watch more television.”

— From Rewire by Richard O’Connor

“The mood state Americans are in, on average, when watching television is mildly depressed.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“People have romantic notions about television. In the highest realms they think it’s some sort of art medium, and it’s not. Others think it’s an entertainment medium, it’s not that either. It’s an advertising medium. It’s a method to deliver advertising like a cigarette is a method to deliver nicotine.”

— Bill Maher

How I Overcame TV Addiction, Reclaimed My Life and Gained Two Months Per Year

in Addiction, TV Addiction - 244 Comments

Also see: 21 Motivational Quotes to Help You Overcome Your TV Addiction.

Nobody on their deathbed ever wished they’d spent more time watching television. Life is short, and there are too many things that are more important and fulfilling than sitting in front of a television for hours on end. That’s not to suggest you should stop watching TV altogether, but I’ve come to see it as something best placed at the edge of life, rather than the center.

30 Motivational Quotes to Help Strengthen Your Willpower and Self-Discipline

in Addiction, Inspiration, Self-Mastery - 9 Comments

Willpower is what separates us from the animals. It’s the capacity to restrain our impulses, resist temptation – do what’s right and good for us in the long run, not what we want to do right now. It’s central, in fact, to civilization.

— Dr. Roy Baumeister, Ph.D.

My will shall shape my future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man’s doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny.

— Elaine Maxwell

This quality of self-denial in pursuit of a longer-term goal and, indeed, the willpower to maintain the denial, is excellent training for the boardroom.

— John Viney