Motivation isn't as helpful as tiny habits
Motivation and willpower aren’t enough.
When I was about 14 years old I told myself that I wasn’t going to do this any more. I knew what I was doing was not really something that I wanted to be doing but felt like I had to just get the right motivation and put some willpower to it and it would be done.
I could quit this. I wanted to be the kind of kid who didn’t have to feel ashamed of who I was when people weren’t looking.
This was around the time I went to my first youth conference, I’m pretty sure it was in Seward Alaska, at some high school and it was a blast.
The theme song was Fly like an eagle by the steve miller band. Pretty sure that is a not so veiled reference to getting high from the same band that brought you the line, ‘some people call me a space cowboy, some call me the gangster of love’ - but as kids we just went along with it and enjoyed our time learning about the gospel with our friends, meeting new friends from around Alaska and singing along whenever the leaders played the song, “time keeps on slippin into the future.”
I came back more motivated than ever to be done with masturbation.
The thing about motivation and willpower are that they are unreliable partners.
I’ve talked about willpower being a trap and how it is the wrong tool in episode 38.
Let’s talk about motivation.
Motivation is fleeting, it comes, it goes. It usually only sticks around for a little while until some other emotion takes over our current moment.
Anyone who has dieted knows this. We are forever fighting the battle of the bulge in this country and part of the reason is, we use motivation to start strong and then, when that motivation is all used up, because emotions all fade eventually, we haven’t built the habits that we need to behave the way we think we wanted to when we were motivated toward the end result.
As I have been reading the book, tiny habits by bj fogg I have noticed that is what I was doing as a young man working to eliminate a behavior that had been keeping me from being my best self.
This problem didn’t go away as I got older because, as BJ puts it, my behavior “was a design issue, not a character flaw.”
What I needed to do, and what I eventually did, long before I read BJ’s book was create a series of habits that crowded out my pornography and masturbation habits. I undermined what they were giving me by creating habits that gave me more.
And, just like the examples that BJ uses in his book, when I lapsed back into old habits, I didn’t look at it as a failure that impugned my character and made me irredeemable and broken. I saw it as a moment to learn how my designed behaviors had worked and how they could be improved.
I’ve always felt like a tinkerer. My wife is often amazed at the things I do when it comes to building and creating and fixing the things in our home. I love to use tools and build and create, design and refine.
When I stepped back from 12 steps and councilors about 8 years ago, that was the same attitude that I brought to my pornography habit.
So, I want to give you two, tiny habits that I have identified from those years that helped me create new habits that helped me so I could see pornography as a problem I had outgrown and no longer needed to help me feel better.
If you are someone who needs help with a pornography habit and wants to work with me on it, go to my website, zachspafford.com/workwithme and set up a consult with me. I can tell you how you can get the one on one help that you want to get to being worthy and free and clear from this trial in your life.
The first habit was a really simple phrase. Whenever I would begin to feel the urge to use my phone to look at pornography or get a phrase from my thoughts that would say something like, ‘now would be a good time, you’ll be all alone’ I would stop what I was doing.
Just for a few moments, it didn’t even have to be 10 seconds as I got better at it.
I would center myself, breath deeply and say, I can totally look at pornography if that’s what I really want.
Those words, usually under my breath, but both physically and audibly to myself.
Then I would, as if I were looking the moment in the eyes and addressing it like a person that I loved and respected – I realize now that I was addressing someone that I wanted to love and respect, myself – I would just wait for the urge to subside, as if it were answering me.
Occasionally, I would use pornography in those moments.
More often, the urge would pass, I would emerge from that conversation with myself pleased and more relaxed than when I went into that moment.
It was a simple ritual that freed me from the fight that I had been waging against myself.
It kept me grounded in my agency and in my higher purpose of me being a better version of me. The one that didn’t use pornography.
At the time I didn’t know this, but that tiny ritual was the kind of habit that bj talks about in his book. It was simple, took little time and pushed me in the general direction I wanted to go without the need to dig into willpower or motivation.
Some of you might be saying, ‘well, I don’t want to give myself permission to view pornography, that would mean that I am going against my moral compass and what I believe’
To that I often say to my clients when they believe that is true, you already have permission to view pornography. It is inherent in the reality that you are able to choose between right and wrong, good and evil, coke and pepsi.
But there’s a key in that phrase that really made this work for me. “if that is what I really want”
Sometimes we want things that aren’t good for us. Like rootbeer floats.
But if we were to have them all the time, we’d probably feel really crummy about ourselves.
That phrase acknowledges that middle ground and clears the way for a conscious decision based on what you want, not just in the moment but over the long term.
The second tiny habit that I had was simple but profound.
Whenever I was tempted to give up or think that it was too difficult to keep up the streak I had built and believe that no one was perfect and that I deserved a break I would just step into my own shoes in an hour.
I would just take a minute, I would imagine where I would be, what I would be doing, why I would be there and how I had gotten there.
I would see who was around me, I would think about their relationship with me. Then, from that place I would think about me, where I was right then, imagineing myself in the future and think about what I really wanted to believe about that moment. Did I want to believe that it was too hard, was it really that I deserved a break, did I need to be perfect
Invariably, my future self would tell my current self, It’s probably not worth it, but ultimately, it’s your choice
It was a simple conversation, but it got me out of my current place and moved me to a place where I, again, wasn’t reacting to my lower brain and it’s insatiable desire for dopamine. I wasn’t fighting with me. I was acknowledging what I wanted from a real, long term and higher brain perspective.
I also wasn’t taking it to all or nothing thinking. I was being clear with who I was, who I wanted to be and who I would be based on my decisions.
These two habits are so simple that anyone can do them in a matter of moments.
And don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get it right the first 67 times. Just give it time, you’ll get the hang of it.
Transcript
Episode 61
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[:Motivation, willpower and tiny habits - 11:8:20, 9: Hey everybody, and welcome to another beautiful Mastery Monday here on the Self Mastery Podcast. I'm your host, Zach Spafford. This is episode number 61. It has been. Sixty one episodes since I started talking about pornography on the World Wide Internet. Much, much to the dismay of my wife's grandmother, I'm pretty sure.
So, I'm pretty excited about today's episode. It has nothing to do with it being episode number 61, but I just, I noticed that when I was putting this together, and I thought, oh, that's kind of cool. Episode number 61, that's pretty neat. So when I was about 14 years old, I told myself that I wasn't going to do this anymore.
I knew what I was doing was not really something that I wanted to be doing, but I felt like I had just got to get the right motivation and put some willpower to it, and then I would be done. And I would quit this, and I wanted to be the kind of kid who didn't have to feel ashamed of who I was when people weren't looking.
This was around the time that I went to my first youth conference, and I'm pretty sure that was in Seward, Alaska, at some high school. Well, my guess is that there's like one high school in Seward, so if you live in Seward, you probably know exactly where I was, but it was a blast. It was this amazing weekend event where I learned so much about who I was and about, you know, just life and cool stuff, and the theme song for that was Week for that, uh, youth conference was Fly Like an Eagle by the Steve Miller Band.
Pretty sure that is a not so veiled reference to Getting High from the same band that brought you the line, some people call me a space cowboy, some call me the gangster of love, but as kids we just went along with it and enjoyed our time learning about the gospel with our friends. Meeting new friends from around Alaska and singing along whenever the leaders played the song.
You know, the chorus, time keeps on slippin slippin slippin into the future. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that song is about getting high. Anyhow, I came back from that youth conference more motivated than ever to be done with masturbation. The thing about motivation and willpower is that they're pretty unreliable partners.
And that's what I felt when I, you know, I had that motivation to stop doing it. masturbating in my life and I wanted motivation to be a reliable partner and it just wasn't. So I've talked about willpower being a trap and how it's the wrong tool in episode number 38. Let's talk about motivation.
Motivation is fleeting. It comes, it goes. It usually only sticks around for a little while. Until some other emotion takes over our current moment. Anyone who has dieted knows this. We are forever fighting the battle of the bulge in this country. And part of the reason is, we use motivation to start strong.
And then when that motivation is all used up, Because emotions all fade eventually, we haven't built the habits that we need to behave the way we think we want to behave when we're motivated toward the end result that we're looking to achieve. As I've been reading the book, Tiny Habits, by B. J. Fogg, I've noticed that what I was doing as a young man was the same thing as I am now.
Seeking motivation when I was trying to eliminate a behavior that had been keeping me from being my very best self. I was using motivation as the catalyst to try and start this process, but I wasn't doing any of the good follow up work that you really need to do to be effective and really make this habit work.
Change happened. This problem did not go away as I got older and as BJ puts it, this behavior was a design issue and not a character flaw. What I needed to do and what I eventually did long before I read BJ's book was create a series of habits that crowded out my pornography and masturbation habits. I undermined what they were giving me by creating habits that gave me.
More, they gave me more of who I wanted to be, not necessarily more dopamine. And that in the long run led to a, a better sense of myself, and I felt better about who I was, which gave me more dopamine. Right. And just like the examples that BJ uses in his book, when I lapsed into old habits, I didn't look at it as a failure that impugned my character and made me irredeemable and broken.
I saw it as a moment to learn. How my designed behaviors had worked and how they could be improved. I've always felt like a tinkerer. My wife is often amazed at the things that I do when it comes to building and creating and fixing the things in our home. I love to use tools and build and create, design and refine.
ild, create, design, refine. [:So if you're someone who needs help with pornography habits, or any, really, any unwanted habit, and wants to work on it with me, go to my website, zachspafford. com, slash workwithme, and set up a consult with me. I can tell you how you can get the, the one on one help I hope that you want to get to being worthy and free and clear from this trial in your life.
So the first habit that I worked on, the first habit that I created, was really, it was just a simple phrase. Whenever I would feel the urge to use, you know, my phone to look at pornography or get a phrase, From my thoughts that would say something like, Hey, now would be a good time. You'll be all alone. No one will bother you.
You're going to, you know, have some space to do some pornography and masturbate. I know it sounds like really weird when you say your thoughts out loud and that's what they are, but when that would occur, I would stop what I was doing, and just for a few moments, I would stop and it didn't, you know, in the end it didn't even have to take 10 seconds as I got better at it, but I would center myself and I would breathe deeply and say, I can totally look at pornography if that's what I really want.
Those words, usually under my breath, but both physically and audibly to myself, I would say them. Right? Then, I would, as if, you know, as if I were looking at the moment in the eyes and addressing it like a person that I loved and respected, and I realized now that I was addressing someone that I wanted to love and respect, which was me, I would just sit there and I would look it in the eyes and I would wait for the urge to subside as if it were answering me.
And occasionally, I would use pornography in those moments. More often the urge would pass, I would emerge from that conversation with myself pleased and more relaxed than when I went into that moment. It was a simple ritual that freed me from the fight. You know, the fight that I had been waging against myself, that, that tenseness, that battle mentality, that keeping it at bay that we often talk about.
It kept me grounded in my agency, and in my higher purpose of being a better version of me, the one that didn't use pornography. At the time, I didn't know this, but that tiny ritual was the kind of habit that BJ talks about in his book. It was simple. It took little time and it pushed me in the general direction I wanted to go without needing to dig into that willpower or motivation that can be so fleeting and so unreliable.
Some of you might be saying, you're probably sitting there going, well, I don't want to give myself permission to look at pornography. That would mean that I'm going to go against my moral compass and what I believe, and that's not who I want to be. I don't want to do that, right? To that, you know, I often have clients who literally say those very things to me.
To that, I often say, You know, when they believe that that's true, that you already have permission to view pornography. It's actually inherent in the reality that you are able to choose between right and wrong, good and evil, coke and pepsi, which is funny because I don't actually like coke or pepsi. I don't, I don't drink either of those.
I'm a root beer man. But there is a key in that phrase that really made this work for me. If that is what you really want. Sometimes we want things that aren't good for us, like root beer floats, right? But if we were to have them all the time, right, if we really did say, well, you know, you can, you can absolutely have that if that's what you really want.
And then you always chose to have them. Then you'd probably feel really crummy. You'd feel crummy physically. You'd feel crummy about yourself. You'd feel, you know, it would bring all kinds of negativity into your life, if that's what you chose. That phrase You know, it's essentially, I can but I choose not to.
That phrase acknowledges the middle ground and it clears the way for a conscious decision based on what you want, not just in that moment, but over the long term. So the second tiny habit that I had was simple, but it was profound. Whenever I was tempted to give up or to think it was too difficult to keep up the streak I had built, and I began to believe that no one was perfect and that I deserved a break.
I would just step into my own shoes one hour from now, right? So that thought would come, hey man, nobody's perfect, you deserve a break, right? Like you've had a good run, take a break. And I would step into my shoes one hour from now and I would just take a minute and I would imagine where I would be, what I would be doing, why I would be there, and how I had gotten there.
me. Where I was right then, [:Then I started to ask myself things like, Did I want to believe that it was too hard? Was it really that I deserved a break? Did I need to be perfect? Invariably, my future self would tell my current self, It's probably not worth it, but ultimately it's your choice. It was a simple conversation, but it got me out of my current place.
It got me out of where my brain was right then and moved me to a place where I again, wasn't reacting to my lower brain and it's insatiable desire for dopamine. I wasn't fighting with me. I was acknowledging what I wanted from a real long term and higher brain perspective. I also wasn't taking it to an all or nothing thinking place.
I was being clear with who I was, who I wanted to be, and who I would be based on my decisions. Now, those two habits, they were really simple, and they're so simple I think that anybody can do them in a matter of moments. And I want you to just, you know, try them out. If this is a problem that you're working on, you want to overcome your pornography use, try these two simple things out, and don't beat yourself up if you don't get it right the first sixty seven or so times.
I know that's a lot of times, but just try it. Just give it time. You'll get the hang of it. And you know, like BJ says in his, in his book, these tiny habits are so transformative. They are the catalyst that builds a world, a reality where you're being the person that you really do want to be. And that to me is, is the key.
Being who you want to be, creating the person that you want to be without having to rely on Willpower or motivation that isn't always going to be around, but being able to create habits, create tiny habits that begin to erode away at the, at the habits that you want to leave behind. All right, you guys, listen, I love you guys.
This has been. I hope you guys have an awesome week. I'm looking forward to the coming week. I'm looking forward to the coming week having some really good news in it. Hey, and if you guys have, you know, if you would like to get together and do a man weekend in St. George, kind of like the one that I just did, in the spring, or if you would prefer to do a couples weekend in the spring, Shoot me an email.
I would love to do that with you guys. I think it'll be amazing. And we will talk to you guys next week. See ya. Thanks for listening to the self mastery podcast. Imagine you sitting next to your loved one and no longer bogged down by the greatest trial of your life. Each month I offer a free webinar that you can attend where you can get your questions answered about how you can break free from pornography use.
Take a moment now and go to the website zachspafford. com slash free call and you can sign up for free. You don't want to miss out on this amazing opportunity to ask questions, learn a new skill, and even get coached live if you like. We'll see you then.
