“The moment you can see the whole loop, you're not inside it anymore. You're watching it. And that's where every change starts.”
Reflection:
While putting this episode together I kept coming back to how quickly I blame myself for things I repeatedly do. I’ll reach for my phone without thinking, put something off that I know matters, skip something I told myself I was going to do and then wonder why I keep repeating the same behavior. It’s easy to call that a discipline problem and move on. I think a lot of us do that without ever stopping to ask what might actually be happening underneath the behavior.
The idea of the habit loop made me look at those moments differently. Maybe the issue isn't always that I lack discipline. Maybe there’s a pattern happening that I’ve simply stopped noticing. There’s usually something that comes before the behavior and something I’m getting from it afterward. Once I started thinking about habits through the lens of cue, craving, response and reward, some of my own behaviors started making a little more sense. We spend so much time trying to fight the behavior itself that we rarely stop to understand why we keep returning to it. Sometimes I'm not actually craving the phone, the food or the distraction. I'm craving what I think it will give me. Maybe it's relief, comfort, connection or an escape from whatever I'm feeling in that moment. The behavior is just the quickest path my brain knows to get there.
And once you start seeing that, the conversation with yourself changes. Instead of simply asking “How do I stop doing this?” you can start asking, “What is happening right before I do this and what am I actually looking for? That question feels much more useful to me because it moves the conversation away from shame and toward awareness. It also makes me think differently about discipline. I still believe discipline matters I would be crazy to say it doesn't but maybe we put too much pressure on willpower and not enough on the environment we create around ourselves. If the behavior we don't want is always the easiest option we're going to have to fight the same battle over and over again. Sometimes the smarter move is to make the behavior we want easier and the behavior we don't want a little harder.
For me that creates more responsibility not less because if I can see the pattern I then have an opportunity to change it. I don't have to wait until I'm already in the middle of the craving and hope my willpower suddenly appears. I can prepare for the moments when I know I'm most likely to fall back into the old behavior. I can change what is around me, I can create some friction and I can make a different response easier.
The moment you recognize the loop you create a little space between the cue and the response and inside that space is a choice. Maybe it's only a few seconds but those few seconds can be enough to interrupt something that used to feel automatic. I don't have to keep running a pattern just because I've been running it for a long time. I can notice it, I can question it and I can understand what I'm actually looking for. Eventually, I can choose something different because you can't change a pattern you never stop to see and maybe that's where real change starts, not with becoming a completely different person overnight but with becoming aware enough to stop repeating what no longer serves the person you're trying to become.
⚔️ This Week’s Challenge
Pick one habit you keep repeating and this week, don't try to fix it but just notice it and when it happens ask yourself these questions:
What was the cue? What was I craving? What did I do? What was the reward?
Catch yourself in the loop three times this week and write down what you notice. Don't change the loop yet just learn to see it.
⚔️ Step into the Forge. Listen, reflect and grow.
This week we're exploring something we all experience: the habits and patterns we fall into without even realizing it.
You might think you're struggling with discipline but what if you're actually caught in a loop? In this episode, we break down the four parts behind our habits (cue, craving, response and reward) and how understanding the pattern can help you interrupt it. The goal isn't to fix everything overnight it's to become aware enough to recognize the moment when you have a choice.
Hit play on the YouTube video below to watch the full episode or listen on the go using the Spotify link below.
Ready? Step into the forge. ⚔️
MindForge Podcast Episode 15 Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1AsbkyXjlyaNaYftvtUDHQ
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