Latest / Alignment With Jenn / (#33) The Dopamine Trap: Why Your Brain Is Addicted to the Wrong Habits (And How to Fix It)

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(#33) The Dopamine Trap: Why Your Brain Is Addicted to the Wrong Habits (And How to Fix It) · Alignment With Jenn

• 0:00
  Welcome to this episode of the Alignment with Jen podcast.
• 0:03
  I am your host, Jen Ditzesi, and today we're going to be talking
• 0:06
  about the dopamine trap. So this is all about why your
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  brain becomes addicted to the wrong habits and how to make it
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  addicted to the habits that make you hotter, richer, more
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  beautiful, more fun, more smart, all of the kinds of habits that
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  you want to be addicted to. This episode is going to be your
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  guide book for that. So I'm really excited about
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  this. I've been diving so much into
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  the science of habits and dopamine and the dopamine mean
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  system in our brains, and I've done some of these sessions with
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  my own group and it's been super transformational.
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  So I'm excited to just lay this out for you, give you this
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  playbook of really, how do I shift my habits on a biological
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  level so I can actually become the version of myself that I
• 0:45
  want to be easily or I don't have to effort against myself.
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  So I want you to just kind of play with me for a second.
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  Imagine that you hire an employee and this employee
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  starts off great, right? Where she's doing everything you
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  ask, She's doing all of the things that you want her to do.
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  And then all of a sudden she kind of slips a little bit,
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  right? Maybe you ask her to edit 10
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  reels and she edits 8 of them, right?
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  Maybe you ask her to show up to a meeting on time.
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  She shows up 10 minutes late. There's all these little subtle
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  things that she's not quite doing exactly right.
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  Would you promote this employee when she comes to you and she's
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  like, I'm ready for more responsibility.
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  I want to be promoted. Would you promote her?
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  Probably not, right? A lot of my clients, what they
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  said when I asked them this question is they're like, well,
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  I put her on like a performance improvement plan.
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  Very sweet, right? They'll work with her.
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  But no, you wouldn't promote her.
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  You're not going to give her more responsibility.
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  This is exactly how your subconscious mind views you when
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  you do not show up for yourself, when you do not show up for the
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  habits, for the type of person that you say that you want to be
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  and the life that you say that you want to have.
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  Your subconscious mind is like, I don't know, she hasn't really
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  been handling all these things she said she was going to do
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  very well. So it doesn't really feel safe
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  to go to this next level to give her more responsibility.
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  So your subconscious mind will resist it.
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  In a way. The universe operates in the
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  same way. There's a book called The
• 2:07
  Millionaire Mind, and in the book he talks about a little
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  kid, and if you were to give a little kid an ice cream scoop
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  and this little kid got that ice cream scoop all over the walls,
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  are you going to turn around and then give that little kid 2 ice
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  cream scoops? Obviously not, right?
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  That sounds like a mess. The universe operates in the
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  same way when you do not show that you can handle and are
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  responsible with the resources that you've been given, time,
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  money, energy, experience, the universe is not going to give
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  you more of those things until you build that vessel to hold
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  it. So this episode is really about
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  how do we hack our biology of our brain to become addicted to
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  those habits that are in alignment with that version of
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  myself. I love this stuff.
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  I think it's so cool. I want you to understand that it
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  is not a lack of willpower. It is not a lack of desire.
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  It is not a lack of discipline for many people that they
• 2:59
  struggle with their habits oftentimes is.
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  It's that they literally wired their brains to go after the
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  wrong things very unassumingly. The dopamine system within our
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  brain often times get associated with being a reward system,
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  right? You get it when you are
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  rewarded. A dog gets dopamine when the dog
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  gets food. So the dog wants to get more
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  food, right? That's partially how it works,
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  but what it also it works on is it's a chemical for motivation,
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  for anticipation, for drive, for follow through and following
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  through on things that you want to do.
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  And it also reinforces our identity.
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  Dopamine goes off and it feels good in the brain in order to
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  reinforce certain behaviors. So if we are constantly firing
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  our dopamine system to go off on things that are not beneficial
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  for us, like scrolling on our phones, like texting our
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  ex-boyfriend, like going on dating apps and messaging random
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  people, I don't know, I don't know what you're doing.
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  If we're doing that, then we're wasting our dopamine because
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  what happens is our brain becomes resistant to dopamine
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  when we're constantly using it on these cheap sources of
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  dopamine. So what I'm going to highlight
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  for you is first cheap dopamine and then I'll give you the
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  alternative in a little bit. When we are scrolling on our
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  phones, the way social media is designed to be addictive is on
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  our dopamine system. And in order to make us want to
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  come back and come back. But what we're actually doing is
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  we're creating resistance so that we have less dopamine when
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  we want to do the things that actually benefit us.
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  Sugar, constant notifications, shopping, right when you go on
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  TikTok and there's all these opportunities to buy things.
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  It feels really good, but it's actually toying with our
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  dopamine system and it's developing the dopamine system
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  in a way that isn't actually great, right?
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  Texting Netflix where you have all these options and you can
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  just keep kind of choosing different options.
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  It's these quick hits of dopamine that we get, right?
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  One of my clients told me she was like, you know, I think that
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  I actually get a lot of dopamine from going into ChatGPT and just
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  asking questions. It feels good, but it's not
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  necessarily I'm not doing anything.
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  I'm not making any progress. I'm just kind of asking
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  questions, right? So I want to pose this question
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  to you of where are you getting cheap dopamine from and really
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  think about your own life, right?
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  What are things that you do to kind of feel good, but they
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  don't actually help you in a in any way?
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  For me, I love ordering from Uber eats and I I love it, but I
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  don't always order the best things, right?
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  That I get some cheap dopamine from that order.
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  So notice for yourself what it might be the issue with the
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  cheap dopamine is that we get it very quickly.
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  So it becomes addictive, the higher self dopamine, which is
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  what we want to move. And that's just a name I came up
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  with. I think it's super cute and it
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  helps us kind of learn. This concept is given on
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  completion or on progress of an activity.
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  So cheap dopamine, quick, quick hits.
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  So it's easy to get addicted to something.
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  This is literally how illicit drugs work is they get you
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  addicted by giving you these boosts of positive chemicals
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  very quickly. But higher self dopamine, the
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  kind of dopamine that develops us into our higher self, into
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  the version of our self that we want to be, it requires a little
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  bit more effort. It requires more integration.
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  It requires us to become this version.
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  So typically, what will happen when we are used to all these
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  cheap sources of dopamine, The brain learns.
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  Well, I can just get dopamine from going on my phone and
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  scrolling or I can just get dopamine from eating something
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  that's not necessarily super good for me or, you know,
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  looking at all my notifications when those are not habits that
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  are building the identity that we want to create.
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  So what we want to do is we want to start leveraging our dopamine
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  system to create the identity that we want to create because
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  identity is the strongest driving force in our lives.
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  I, you will do so much to prove your identity to be true.
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  And so we want to use your biology to support that
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  identity. Your identity is who I believe
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  that I am, and our habits are a huge force that builds our
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  identity. It builds our sense of
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  worthiness. If we're not showing up for our
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  business that we want to create, are we really unconsciously
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  going to believe that we're worthy of a successful business?
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  No. It is through our actions that
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  we build that belief of worthiness.
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  That's a big, big, big part of it is am I showing up for myself
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  how I want to show up? And let's talk about higher self
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  dopamine. So higher self dopamine is
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  dopamine that comes as you develop the habits that actually
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  build you into the type of person that you want to be.
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  So this could be habits that build self trust.
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  This could be nervous system regulating habits.
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  This could be habits that align with the life that you want to
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  live. So we want to upgrade the source
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  of dopamine that we are experiencing.
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  So how do we do that? Well, dopamine, yes, can happen
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  instantly from these cheap dopamine habits and it can
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  actually deplete our dopamine. So the first thing we want to do
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  is reduce the amount of activities that we do that
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  generate cheap dopamine. So we're not just burning
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  through our dopamine. If you wake up in the morning
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  and you're just scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scrolling,
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  you're burning through a lot of your dopamine.
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  So it's going to be harder to be motivated later in the day
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  because motivation is supported by this dopamine system.
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  It's just supported in a different way.
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  So what happens is when you begin to an engage in activity,
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  let's say that you want to write content for your business, for
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  social media, initially you might feel some resistance,
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  right? So some people will go and
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  scroll to get that cheap dopamine, which just makes the
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  situation worse. But if you sit down and you get
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  started on that task, what is going to happen is after about,
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  they say about 10 minutes, when you feel some sense of progress,
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  you're actually going to get a hit of dopamine.
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  So if you can just start that activity, then it's going to
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  give you dopamine along the way and you're going to get even
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  more dopamine at the end when you complete that task.
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  So these behaviors though, are harder to reinforce because
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  you're not getting that instant quick HIT.
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  You're needing to start and make progress on the activity and
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  then complete it in order to receive all of that dopamine.
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  What we want to do is first reduce those cheap dopamine
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  activities. Then we want to allow ourselves
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  the chance to make progress on activities that align with the
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  identity that we want. So it could be creating content,
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  it could be going for a walk if that's something that you want,
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  or going to the gym, right? We always feel good when we
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  leave the gym, not only because of the endorphins, but also
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  because we've completed a task. Completing tasks really helps
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  with this as well. So I want to share with you some
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  of the habits that you can use in order to create more of these
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  habits and leverage this dopamine system and create more
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  of these higher self dopamine habits.
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  So what I recommend is listen to this episode and then come back
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  and listen to it again after you've made a list of cheap
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  dopamine habits and higher self dopamine habits.
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  And then you can think through how you're going to apply these
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  tools that I'm going to give you.
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  The first thing that we can do to help ourselves build these
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  habits is shrink the promise that we are making to ourselves.
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  So oftentimes, if we say I'm going to write 10 pieces of
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  content today, that can feel really, really overwhelming.
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  Or if we say I'm going to start my Business Today, or I'm going
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  to apply to 15 jobs today, or I'm going to apply to jobs for
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  two hours, those promises can feel really, really big to our
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  minds. So what we want to do is we want
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  to shrink the promise. That way we can get that initial
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  10 minutes in. Because if we can get that
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  initial 10 minutes in, we're going to get some dopamine.
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  It's going to be easier to continue with that promise.
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  I did this when I started my first business, my first
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  supplement business. I didn't know how to start a
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  business. I had never started a business.
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  I knew nothing about supplements.
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  I knew nothing. I was going in blind.
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  So I told myself, OK, I'm going to work on this for 15 minutes
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  every single day. I didn't know this principle,
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  but it worked incredibly well. I created a full business from
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  it. It went really well.
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  And it started because I shrunk the promise to myself.
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  I made success showing up for 15 minutes a day.
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  And then when I had momentum, I wanted to show up right.
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  It was easier. I had that pull.
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  I had that identity of someone who runs a successful business
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  built in because I shrunk that promise.
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  So you can do that to yourself. What I recommend is if you say,
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  let's say you want to start working out is set a smaller
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  goal. Don't say I'm going to work out
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  every day this year or five, five days a week for an entire
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  year. Say I'm going to do a 30 day
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  challenge and I'm going to work out three days a week or five
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  days a week for 30 minutes for the 30 days, right?
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  And if that feels overwhelming, shrink it even more because all
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  we want is momentum. All we want is just to get that
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  ball rolling down the hill, and then you're going to get that
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  dopamine and that system's going to take over and help you.
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  And eventually, you're going to have so much dopamine moving
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  toward the person that you want to be that it's going to be so
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  easy for you to align with those habits.
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  The next thing that I want you to think about is do not reward
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  yourself for the outcome. Reward yourself for the
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  progress. So oftentimes we don't celebrate
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  ourselves enough. We don't reward ourselves
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  enough. And what we're doing is we're
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  actually not leveraging the power of our dopamine system.
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  When we reward ourselves for the 15 minutes a day, when we reward
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  ourselves for going to the gym today versus getting the six
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  pack, which is the outcome, then we leverage that system because
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  it's like, oh, I got rewarded, I got celebrated, right?
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  So then we want to do it again. Our brain is like a salivating
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  dog and wants to do it again and again and again.
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  The way that you can do this is really, really simple.
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  And what I recommend is I recommend keeping a list of the
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  habits that you want to cultivate.
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  And literally, this is so simple.
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  Just check it off. Check it off from the list.
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  When you exercise, go and check it off.
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  I know you know that feeling of satisfaction when you check
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  something off the list and you're not imagining it.
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  It is your dopamine system is like, oh, yes, we completed a
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  task that feels good. I want to do that again.
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  And the more that you check those things off, the better.
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  But you can even give yourself a bigger reward.
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  Maybe once you go to the gym afterward, you get to do
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  something that you've been really wanting to do, right?
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  You can build these rewards in for yourself, and that's going
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  to allow you to create more of that dopamine.
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  But I don't recommend using cheap dopamine activities as the
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  reward. Like don't use scrolling as the
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  reward because you're going to deplete that system more if you
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  do. Then just use it for a very
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  small amount as a reward. Another really great way to
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  build in these habits is to stack them with habits that you
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  already have. This is so, so, so, so, so
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  simple. So what you can do is, let's say
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  that you want to be somebody that goes on a 30 minute walk
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  every single morning. OK?
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  What do you do already? Every single morning?
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  You probably brush your teeth, maybe you feed your dog.
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  So what you're going to do is you're going to tack that habit
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  on to something you already do, OK?
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  Whenever I go feed my dog, I go on a walk afterward or I go on a
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  walk after. I brush my teeth every single
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  morning. I started doing this where every
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  day, I always planned my day the night before and I wanted to be
• 14:11
  better about seeing my finances. So I told myself, OK, I already
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  have the habit of planning my day.
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  So what I'm going to do is I'm going to add 5 minutes onto that
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  and I'm going to just look at my finances and just get them
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  organized every single day. And so I built that habit really
• 14:25
  easily because I just tacked it on to something I already did.
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  So you already have some positive habits, I guarantee it.
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  So what can you do to tack these habits on to what you are
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  already doing so successfully? So simple, right?
• 14:40
  All of these little hacks can make such a big, big, big
• 14:44
  difference. I wanted to also share with you
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  some of the habits that I personally have found to have
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  the highest impact because these are ones that create a cascade
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  effect. So what I mean by a cascade
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  effect is nothing we do is in isolation, right?
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  You brushing your teeth is not just to brush your teeth in the
• 15:03
  moment. It's that way you have fresh
• 15:05
  breath all day, right? You don't feel self-conscious in
• 15:07
  a conversation because you have stinky breath.
• 15:09
  You prevent having cavities 6 years from now by brushing your
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  teeth today, right? There's this whole cascade that
• 15:15
  happens and there's a lot of cascades that we can leverage in
• 15:19
  our day that create way bigger benefits and allow us to be more
• 15:24
  consistent with the habits that we want to create and the type
• 15:27
  of person that we want to be. Because really our identity is
• 15:30
  largely formed by our habits. It's a big, big component of it.
• 15:34
  One of the things that really is huge to get right is sleep
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  because sleep is essentially the most foundational habit that we
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  have. So there's lots of podcasts out
• 15:43
  there on sleep. I'm not going to really go into
• 15:45
  habits to create around sleep, but what I recommend is a really
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  simple one that I've heard over and over and over again to
• 15:52
  improve your sleep, and this has helped me a lot, is just going
• 15:55
  to bed and waking up at the same time every day.
• 15:58
  Because you start to build in this rhythm into your life and
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  it's easier for you to be successful with those habits.
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  Another habit that you could stack onto that is not scrolling
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  on your phone for the 1st 30 minutes, hour, 2 hours or so of
• 16:13
  your day. Because then you're not
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  leveraging that dopamine system improperly and draining your
• 16:19
  dopamine because it's gonna make it harder to be more motivated
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  and have more energy throughout the day if you start it by
• 16:24
  scrolling. So those are a couple of the
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  habits. Another one is a lot of these
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  habits are in the morning time because our morning habits
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  really set us up for the rest of the day.
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  So another one is just drinking water.
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  You can put sea salt in it or electrolytes first thing when
• 16:39
  you wake up. That sets your whole rhythm all
• 16:42
  day, your hormonal system, your energy system to be so much more
• 16:46
  powerful and work so much better.
• 16:48
  These are all kind of habits that make all your other habits
• 16:52
  easier. And they're so simple.
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  They really don't take that how much time.
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  Another one that I find really, really beneficial is when I wake
• 17:00
  up when my eyes are first opening.
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  That's when our subconscious mind is still open when we're
• 17:06
  first waking up and when we're first going to sleep.
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  So if you can have a couple of sentences that you say to
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  yourself when you're first waking up, today is going to be
• 17:14
  a great day. I'm so excited to see what
• 17:15
  miracles come to me today. I can't wait to.
• 17:19
  And then something you're going to do that day, eat breakfast
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  today, something really simple. But what you're doing is you're
• 17:24
  literally priming your mind to think more positively all day.
• 17:28
  It seems so simple, but I promise you it works
• 17:31
  exceptionally well. So just try it.
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  Try it when you wake up in the morning.
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  These are some really, really, really simple habits that you
• 17:39
  can start with. Another one that I recommend is
• 17:41
  also designing your day the night before, looking at your
• 17:46
  day. Even if you work in an office
• 17:47
  and you do similar things all day, really looking at your day.
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  Because rather than being reactive to the day, you want to
• 17:53
  be proactive. And you want to say, you know,
• 17:55
  who do I want to show up as tomorrow?
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  I'm actually going to make my time reflect that.
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  I think for me, this is single handedly one of the most
• 18:04
  beneficial habits I've ever created because I'm actually
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  creating who I want to be by deciding how I want to spend my
• 18:10
  time versus being reactive to emails in my inbox, right?
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  Clients reaching out. I'm deciding how I want to
• 18:17
  handle those things. I'm deciding beforehand who I
• 18:21
  want to be. So that's a really beneficial
• 18:23
  habit as well. The last piece that I want to
• 18:26
  just share with you of how to get started with this is I don't
• 18:29
  recommend starting with 10 different habits that you're
• 18:32
  going to launch right away. I recommend maybe picking 2 and
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  being consistent with those for a while and then becoming
• 18:39
  consistent with new ones once those are already built in.
• 18:42
  Because what you're doing is you're building that momentum.
• 18:45
  Building positive habits that align with the identity that you
• 18:48
  want to be is all about building and maintaining that positive
• 18:52
  momentum. So when you can be successful
• 18:55
  even with two really simple habits, maybe it's going to bed
• 18:59
  and waking up at the same time and drinking some water.
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  When you wake up, what you are doing is you're telling your
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  subconscious mind, I am someone who follows through.
• 19:07
  I follow through so I can handle more responsibility.
• 19:11
  I can handle more opportunities. So your subconscious mind will
• 19:14
  start to see that because there's this whole relationship
• 19:17
  going on inside of you, of you trusting you.
• 19:20
  And when we don't show up for ourselves consistently, we are
• 19:25
  building a fractured relationship with ourselves.
• 19:29
  So something to think about. What are a couple of habits that
• 19:33
  you can apply and using some of these tools in order to apply
• 19:36
  them. So I hope you have loved this
• 19:39
  episode. I love this kind of stuff.
• 19:41
  Leave me a comment. I would love to hear your
• 19:43
  responses and if you are interested in going deeper into
• 19:47
  any of these topics with me, the subconscious mind, the nervous
• 19:50
  system, send me a message on Instagram and I will send you a
• 19:53
  short 5 minute video on my coaching program where we go
• 19:57
  deep into really allowing you to become the best version of
• 20:01
  yourself. All right, bye.