[how to H.A.C.k.

Your Goals & Habits]

How To H.A.C.K. Your Habits For The Long-term AND
Short-term
Exactly What Your Brain Needs For Change To Stick
How To Speak The Language Of Smarter, NOT Harder
Change: Alter what you do or how you act. (literally
means a different situation)
Transformation: Alter your default way of thinking and
acting. Alter who you are being. (literally means change
the form of)
Another way of thinking about it: Are you
[shifting/repairing/altering] your actions? Or are you
changing who you arechanging your default? Also: Is
this addressing the effects? Or does this address the
cause?
What habits REALLY are.
How to create habits
Where short term habits LIVE in the brain
Where long term habits live in the brain
You CAN teach an old dog new tricks.
Neuroplasticity says that you can change neural pathways and
synapses by changing your behavior, environment, neural
processes (how you do something), thinking, and emotions
as well as to changes resulting from bodily injury
Not only do we have the ability to change, adapt, and learn,
but we can quickly and easily rewire our brain.
Neuroplasticity: The brain-response to changing your
behavior, environment, neural processes (how you do
something), thinking, and emotions
Change your behavior, environment, neural
processes (how you do something), thinking, and
emotions
Easier said than done right?
Lets see how we can H.A.C.K. the brain to make
upgrading your habits EASY.
Short-Term Habits: The Pre-frontal cortex
The PFC is responsible for determining, moment-by-
moment, which habitual behaviors will be expressed
Long-Term Habits: The Basal Ganglia (Striatum)
Neural pathways that encode habitual behavior are
located deep in the brain in the basal ganglia
 If your prefrontal cortex is modern, cloud-based
computing, then your striatum is punch cards fed into
an IBM mainframe.
Your striatum isnt even conscious and is perfectly
fine carrying out bad habit after bad habit with no
desire to change.

(The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the

Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time
by Alex Korb)
How EASY is it?
How FUN is it?
Or as I like to say, is it Feasy?

So why does it need to be fun and easy?

We are all drug dealers! We all want that
dopamine fix!
Your nucleus accumbens is motivated by what is
pleasurable
Your basal ganglia (striatum) chooses what to do
based on whats been done before.
The only part that cares about your well-being is your
prefrontal cortex, and it often gets out voted.
What gets fired together gets wired together
Particularly true of depression.
In a depressed brain, theres less dopamine activity
happening in the nucleus accumbens
The things that used to be enjoyable are not as
pleasurable
Biggest motivators =Biggest dopamine payoff (habits
such as junk food, drugs, alcohol, gambling, risky
behavior, etc)
The ones which release the most dopamine require less
repetition to form.
When stressed, a person turns to coping habits
Stress biases old habits over new actions.
Your oldest bad habits are probably the ones that you
developed to cope and distract yourself as a child and
are some of the deepest, most ingrained routines you
have (mine: nail-biting)
To break a destructive coping habit, you cant just stop -
- youre still left with the original stress in your brain and
body.
Must replace with positive habits (or what I call) positive
distractions.
Exercise
Meditation/mindfulness/gratitude
Sleep
Social interaction (esp. females!)
Ditching perfectionism/unrealistic expectations (from the
beginning: just know that you might backslide and that's
just your brain doing its thing)
Remove/eliminate the stressor all together!
**How I personally use movement now
**Youll get a positive distraction list later on (for now I just
want you to understand the concepts)

The neurons that fire together become wired together
(song on radio, a perfume, a location, an article of
clothing)
How to make it stick: Make it pleasurable
***I sneakily snuck in the 6 senses and how to relax last
module. Keep that in mind when thinking about forming
new habits. How can you hack your nervous system to
fire and wire new habits into your brain so they feel
pleasurable? Make it FEASY!
Psychology (Mind): Change your perspective, change
your perception, change the meaning.
Neurology (Brain): change your brain. Alter a map.
Neuroplasticity means that theres a brain change and it
become part of your wiring. (The map changes)
Physiology (Body): Change your physical nature.

Change: Alter what you do or how you act. (literally
means a different situation)
Transformation: Alter your default way of thinking and
acting. Alter who you are being. (literally means change
the form of)
Another way of thinking about it: Are you
[shifting/repairing/altering] your actions? Or are you
changing who you arechanging your default? Also: Is
this addressing the effects? Or does this address the
cause?
Control: Am I trying to force, coerce, resist, or
dominate myself? (literally means against)
Influence: Am doing all I can to impact myself or the
outcome? (Literally means into, in, on, upon)
Another way of thinking about it: Am I focusing on how
I can exercise my personal power, or focusing on
whats not in my control? Am I focusing on moving
towards a solution? Or focusing on resisting a
problem?
React: Unconscious, knee-jerk, or mindless thinking,
speaking, acting, making decisions.
Respond: Consciously or mindfully thinking, speaking,
acting, making decisions
Another way of thinking about it: Am I the driver or the
passenger? Am I making a choice, or is a choice being
made for/by me. Am I happening to my life? Or is my
life happening to me?
Using food here as an example, but fill in the blank
with anything, and the same applies
 Tell yourself 'not
allowed' to eat
something/anything

Believe self less and

less every time this Eat it anyways.
happens

Too Much Restriction (The Cycle)

Start over Monday (or

in some cases next Feel guilty
year)

"Dammit I screwed
up!"
 Tell yourself you're
"allowed" to eat
whatever

Eat without intention,

Believe self less and because it's there,
less every time this because "you can",
happens because it's comforting

Too Much Permission (The Cycle)

Start over Monday (or in

some cases next year) Feel guilty

"Dammit I screwed up!"

Habits (which ones you consciously chose, which ones you
didnt. The habits you have vs. the habits you want)
Actions (are you acting or reacting?)
Choices (are you making a choice? Or is a choice being
made for you?)
Knowledge (you know what you know about yourself, your
life, your experiences)
TRUTH IS: You know how the story will end. Simply ask
yourself: Will I actually do this? Will I actually enjoy this?
***This is THE Factor when it comes back to earning back
your own trust.
Do you believe yourself when you make promises to
yourself?
How to H.A.C.K. your self esteem?
Become a better promise-maker AND a better promise-
keeper
Make promises you want to keep AND keep the promises
you make to yourself
EXPERIMENTS
From Etymology:

action of observing or testing; an observation, test, or trial

piece of evidence or empirical proof; feat of magic or sorcery
practical knowledge, proof, example; lesson, sign, indication
to test, try, learn by practical trial or proof
feel, undergo, actual observation; an event which has affected one

Good ol Dictionary.com

a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a

hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact.
 You know what you like.
You know what you dont like.
You know what has worked.
You know what has NOT worked.

Why not use this recon to your advantage to set

yourself up for a WINNING Game Plan complete with
WINNING Experiments?
 Fun + Easy = Feasy

How To Know Youre Playing a LOSING Game:

Youre not a widget!
You know yourself:

You know what you like.

You know what you dont like.
You know what has worked.
You know what has NOT worked.

Every experiment you conduct MUST take into

account your current life happenings, stressors,
spinning plates, energy levels, etc
 How you get there= How you
FEEL while you travel.*

What you do RIGHT NOW determines how you get

there, when you get there, or if you even get
there and how treacherous the waters are.

What Needs To Happen (needs to be identified):
Where you are RIGHT NOW.but without shame, blame, guilt,
comparison
Where you want to be but with HOPE that its actually possible
Whats in between but with BELIEF in yourself that you can actually
do it (how long it would take, how hard it would be, what it would
take to get there)
If you were given a choice to receive one million dollars in one month or
a penny doubled every day for 30 days, which one would you choose?

Day 1: $.01 Day 16: $327.68

Day 2: $.02 Day 17: $655.36
Day 3: $.04 Day 18: $1,310.72
Day 4: $.08 Day 19: $2,621.44
Day 5: $.16 Day 20: $5,242.88
Day 6: $.32 Day 21: $10,485.76
Day 7: $.64 Day 22: $20,971.52
Day 8: $1.28 Day 23: $41,943.04
Day 9: $2.56 Day 24: $83,886.08
Day 10: $5.12 Day 25: $167,772.16
Day 11: $10.24 Day 26: $335,544.32
Day 12: $20.48 Day 27: $671,088.64
Day 13: $40.96 Day 28: $1,342,177.28
Day 14: $81.92 Day 29: $2,684,354.56
Day 15: $163.84 Day 30: $5,368,709.12
Strategic Sprints
Long-Term Living (Care)
 RESULTS =
Intensity In Relation To Time
Strategic Sprint: Long-Term Living

RESULTS RESULTS

INTENSITY INTENSITY

TIME TIME

This way of living thoughyoure always
getting consistent results!

Short-Term Winning Game = Strategic Sprinting (Inside Bubble)
Intensity vs. results

Long-Term Winning Game = Long-Term Living/Care ( Real Life

Outside Bubble)
Intensity vs. Results

**Its kind of like interval training**

YOUR Winning Game Plan will focus on your Long-Term Winning

Game Plan FIRSTand then intermingle Strategic Sprints .
The state of survival is called Homeostasis
Not only is your body constantly seeking homeostasis 24 hours a dayits also
constantly looking out for THREATS that would take your body out of
homeostasis.
You are a threat-detecting machine. Thats your nervous systems (your brains)
main purpose: to detect threat.
Your brain does not care what you look like. It doesnt care what size jeans you
wear, and it certainly doesnt care how fast you can finish a 5K.
All it cares about is sustaining YOUyour life, and the vessel that you use to travel
in (your body).
It wants you healthy and aliveand if somethings not doing its job, it will make
sure that another system in your body picks up the slack and gets the job done!
Oh yea, and it would prefer to do all of this with as little effort as possible. It wants
to REMAIN unconscious to youso that you can spend your conscious energy on
other things.
 Your Winning Game is relative to your flow
preference at any given time.

Flow Preference changes based on circumstances,

environment, stressors, priorities.
Remember: Control is a losing game!

Sooowhat needs to happen (identify it first) in order to start

influencing yourself and your life the way you WANT to:

What you CAN influence

What you CANT influence
What you WANT to influence

** THINK: Where am I STILL trying to CONTROL what happens?

Requires/Desires: What you need, what you want.
Structure/Freedom: What you need, what you want.
Expectations(Agreements)/Invitations: What you need,
what you want

Youll see how this plays out when we talk about

creating your own Eat, Play, Love Experiments (just
want you to keep this in mind)
Experimenting is the only way to use the recon you have from your
past to set you up for success in the future.
Instead of thinking about it like going on a diet or starting a
program, think about it like you are living your Real World Lifeand
adding in Strategic Sprints to help you get there faster and more
efficiently.
You know how to Sprint already. What you need is a way of living
the rest of your life especially something to come back to AFTER
the sprinting
Always be thinking about your results in terms of TIME vs. INTENSITY.
Before you begin anything, find out your own Flow Preference so
you can set yourself up for a Winning Game from the very beginning.
Identify + Assess: Flow Preference + Results Recon
(Repeatable Tool You Can Always Use Over and Over Again)