Hey everybody, it's Eric from the one you feed and I'm back to do another mini episode. But before we get started, I want to remind you that the window to enroll in the coaching program is quickly closing. On Wednesday at eleven pm. Well you get it, We're gonna shut the whole thing down. And so if you want to learn more about the coaching program to decide if you're interested in enrolling, go to one. You feed dot net slash Coaching program or text Wolf to six six
eight six six. So again, the window is quickly coming to an end. If you're interested one, you feed dot net slash Coaching program or text wolf to six six eight six six. And if you do either those things, you'll get the five biggest mistakes people make when they're trying to change behavior. Last week we talked about mistake
number one, which was starting too large. This week we're going to talk about mistake number two, which is trying to end to behavior without putting something else in its place. There's that old saying that nature of horrors a vacuum. If we've been doing something for so long, it's such a habit, and it's become so mindless and effortless that when we stop doing it, we've got this void there
that we need to somehow fill. So an example I'll use from my own recovery is, you know, that's one of the main ways that twelve step programs work is that the time that you spent drinking, you can now spend going to meetings. Uh, the socializing that you had at the bar, you can make up for by meeting people at the meetings. So it's a it's intended to
kind of plug again that gap. Another example for my drinking days is after I stopped drinking this last time, I would drive every day by the bar that I would always stop at and have a drink, And so during that time I made it a ritual to start calling a friend and just talking to a person for a few minutes. Some of it was to keep me from going in, but it was really more about filling that space with something else, so I didn't feel it's
absence and I didn't feel the temptation. The other principle that underlies this is that most times, if we're doing a negative behavior we want to get rid of, we're doing it for some reason. It's meeting some need of ours. So what can we put in its place that meets
that need. So if every day after work, you're after work reward is to have a big snack right when you get home, and then you eat again a little bit later, and you're trying to cut that snack out, trying to watch the calories, you could put something in its place instead of doing that. You could take a walk around the block, or you could sit down own and read something from a book that is positive or encouraging, or you could play a video game if you like
doing that thing. The point is to be very clear on what you're going to put in its place so that you're not drawn is easily back into that behavior. In behavior change, we talk a lot about a trigger. So a trigger happens and that that triggers a habit to to occur. Those triggers remain the same. So one of the great ways to change, you know, change a bad habit into a good habit, is you keep the
trigger the same. The trigger is coming home from work, but what happens after that trigger changes from having the snack to taking a walk. But then you've got the trigger built in and it's a trigger that you're used to and it's a really good idea to figure these things out in advance so you know what they are, because you want this to become as habitual as the previous bad habit was, So you want to know that when X occurs, then I do why and have that
very clear. Another variation on this principle is, if you want to eat well, you need to make sure that you have good food in the house because you're gonna get hungry. The trigger is going to be hunger, and if you don't have something good to eat around, then you're gonna eat something bad. This is probably the primary
cause of when I have trouble with eating well. The reason why it's because I haven't put anything there that's particularly good, and so the time comes, I'm hungry and the nearest and most convenient thing is a vending machine. So that's it for this week. Remember if you're going to try and stop a bad behavior, find something positive to put in its place. And remember the one you Feed coaching program is enrollment is open until May PM. Go to one you Feed dot net slash coaching program
or text wolf to six six eight six six. I look forward to hearing from many of you. Thanks for listening as always, and we'll see on Tuesday with another episode. Take care, bye,