How to Do Less of What You Want to Avoid and More of What You Want to Do

You know, there is a very close friend of mine in college. He usually wakes at 10 in the morning, missing the initial few classes while sleeping in bed, even though his classes start at 8. He doesn’t even hear the sound of the alarm on his phone, which is so loud and annoying that my neighboring roommates don’t dare sleep after it rings, because starting the day on a frustrating note would be unavoidable.

He slowly wakes up, scanning his environment with one eye closed and the other semi-open. You might wonder what he’s looking for? Guess what? His phone, of course. Then, he checks the time, realizes he has already missed 2-3 classes, and jumps out of bed in haste. He grabs the pants he’s been wearing for the past week and runs to class. By the time he arrives, he’s panting, trying to catch his breath. He can feel the heat from his feet crawling up his legs, boiling his blood, and finally, he utters the words: "May I come in, sir?"

But guess what he does next? Already tired from running and sleeping, boredom enters the chat. Yet, it’s only been 15-20 minutes since he woke up. What do you think he does next? He slowly reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone, and opens Instagram, watching reels for two hours straight. He comes back to his room feeling shitty and disgusted. But do you know what the worst part is? He doesn’t even know why he feels this way. What do you think he does to overcome the shitty feeling? Does he go to the gym, break his personal record, come back, and start working on his future dream project? Of course not. He plays video games until 3 AM and goes to sleep with overwhelming feelings of shittiness.

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Understanding the Problem:

Your problems may not be exactly like my friend's, but if you’re not working on what you truly want to do, and instead keep doing what you want to avoid—escaping boredom and pain through the illusion of pleasure—your life requires immediate "surgery."

We, as humans, are not perfect, and that’s a fact. If anything is true about us, it’s that we are perfectly imperfect—every single person, including you and me. However, an undeniable fact is that we are also highly rational and logical. And this is what we are going to use now to quit doing the things that don’t serve us and start doing the things that will benefit us.

The main problems that might be impacting you significantly are the social media apps you use, the junk food you eat, your own laziness, procrastination, and other bad habits. The issue with these bad habits is that they make you feel shitty and perpetuate a cycle where you continue engaging in these behaviors to escape that shitty feeling. You know which behaviors are not good for you, and you know the behaviors that can do wonders for you—but you just don’t do them.

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The Power of Cues

What if I told you there’s a simple solution? Too simple, in fact, that you might not even consider implementing it because it seems trivial and petty. But I urge you to use it. It's called 'cues.'

If you’re using your mobile phone a lot, and that’s your main source of distraction from the work you want to do, it’s because the phone is within your reach. You can see it, feel it, and sense it with all your senses—it’s present within your immediate environment. When you sense it, that’s the cue to pick it up and use it to distract yourself with pleasure.

But what if your phone was given in for service due to a fault? What if you didn’t get your phone back for an entire week until the repair was complete? Without the phone in your immediate environment, there wouldn’t be any cues to sense it and pick it up to use. Or let’s say you’re in the middle of important work and your phone rings, but it’s in the next room, so you couldn’t hear it. Since the cue wasn’t available, you didn’t have the urge to pick it up. It’s as simple as that.

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Reducing Bad Cues and Increasing Good Ones

Reduce the immediate cues for your bad behaviors and increase the cues for your good behaviors.

Let’s say every time you open YouTube on your laptop, you end up watching videos for hours. You start watching things you didn’t even plan to. Why does this happen? It’s because YouTube pushes videos you might like to watch. When you see the thumbnail and read the title of your favorite video, that’s the visual cue, and you end up watching it. But if that particular video wasn’t there, and you had an extension that blocked YouTube recommendations and hid all the thumbnails, do you think you would have watched it? Nope. You would’ve just watched what you originally intended to and closed the site, because the cue wasn’t available.

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Why You Drop Your Goals

There might be days when you work on your goals, projects, or work, only to drop them after a few days. Why do you think you started working in the first place? And why do you think you stopped? You initially began the work because of some psychological pain, which acted as the cue. Let’s say you started working out at the gym because you hated being unfit—this hatred was the cue. But eventually, as that psychological pain lessens, the cue fades away.

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Using Cues to Achieve Your Goals

Here’s how you can use cues to do the work you should be doing:

• Stick your goals on your desk or on walls where you’ll see them most of the day.

• Write down clear intentions and emotional and rational reasons for working on these goals. Post them on your desk or walls, or even every corner of your room if possible.

• Make these cues visible everywhere, like having them as your computer or phone wallpaper. The more cues for an action, the higher the chances of you doing it frequently.

• If you want to reduce weight, take a photo of yourself in a shape you’re unhappy with and put it on your wall or set it as your wallpaper. This becomes a psychological cue for you to take action.

• If you want to drink more water, make water more available by placing filled bottles around your room. They’ll serve as cues reminding you to drink more.

This approach can be applied to every single aspect of life.

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Breaking Bad Behaviors

So, how do you break your bad behaviors? Reduce their cues in your immediate environment.

• Delete the apps you don’t want to use.

• Remove the video games you don’t want to play.

• Leave your phone in the next room while working.

• Turn off phone notifications.

Reduce the number of cues for the behaviors you want to avoid, and you will slowly but surely reduce your engagement in them, eventually stopping altogether.

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Be the Pillar Your Family Needs

Peace!