Become Unrecognizable in 6 Months! (36 minutes that will change your life)

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1:24Imagine what your life could look like six months from now if you actually stuck to your New Year's resolutions. Picture yourself with the weight lost or the diabetes reversed or your thyroid healed because you stayed consistent with your plan. Or imagine having more patience and joy because you started reading your Bible every day, praying with your spouse, or walking after dinner instead of scrolling on your phone. Take a second and really visualize that version of you. How does your body feel? What does your day look like? What kind of peace do you carry with you? Now, here's the reality check.

2:05Every year, around 80 % of people give up on their New Year's resolutions by February. Today, I'm going to be showing you how to avoid being that 80 % and become the 20 % who follow through and experience transformation. The problem isn't that you're lazy. It's not a lack of motivation. It's that most of us don't understand how our brains are wired for change. So in this episode, we're going to be unpacking the psychology and neuroscience behind habits, addictions, and resolutions. And we're going to walk through together why dopamine drives both discipline and destruction, how to rewire your brain for consistency, why goals must be specific and measurable and how to set those, and the proven steps to finally make new habits stick.

2:56Welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show.

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3:53Smart move. Another smart move? Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling, just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Hey, if you've ever felt like you've lost your rhythm in life, your structure, your confidence, your clarity, then this story about Michael Phelps, I think, is really going to resonate with you.

4:24I had an amazing opportunity many years ago, this was in 2012, to meet Michael Phelps and work on many of the Olympic swimmers and give them some nutrition advice as well. And so I was able to watch Michael from afar and just really admire his work ethic and his discipline. But what most people don't know about Michael Phelps as the most decorated Olympian of all time is that he really struggled after he retired from swimming. After retirement, he went through a very public struggle with depression and alcohol. He reached a point of deep emptiness and literally almost lost everything. And here's what's most powerful about his amazing story though.

5:05Michael Phelps rebuilt his life by mastering daily discipline. He didn't just decide to be better one time, he actually built healthy habits. He committed to therapy. He built consistent morning and evening routines. He practiced meditation. And he leaned on faith in the support around him. He proved something powerful. Change isn't about intensity. It's about consistency. And now you can see Michael with his wife and his kids. And he's happy. And he's productive even after his amazing swimming career. And this is something, by the way, a lot of athletes and people struggle with. They had something they loved in life that they were thriving in.

5:43and maybe they aged out of it or they reached a new point in their life. And now things aren't the same and they're in an area of struggle. And I know to a degree, that's something that I've been through in my life. Maybe that's something you've been through as you've gone through different phases in life. But the reality is this, is each new season can be better than the season before. You know, I love what the Bible says, As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. This is Proverbs 23, 7. This verse really tells us our mindset, our thoughts, what we think about. That's who we become. That impacts our behavior.

6:20And that's the blueprint of transformation. Our identity impacts our thoughts. Our thoughts impact our actions. Our actions create our habits and that creates our destiny and our future. Your habits are the fruit. Your beliefs and thought patterns are the root. Every habit follows a three-step loop. Okay, here's what happens. You get a cue to do something. That creates a routine, which then creates a reward. I'll give you an example of this. Every morning I see my wife, I get to see a woman that is incredibly holy and in love with God and a great mom. And that is a cue for me to become a better father, a better husband, a better person, and just being around her.

7:05and then that causes me to even lean into my Bible more and growing more in that way. And maybe there's other things like this. I saw my friend, one of my closest friends, Dan, I saw him in the gym this morning and I see him working out hard. It cued me to work hard and then I had a reward because I worked really hard. And so we actually have to have these cues and routines in our life in order to create healthy habits. Your brain is always trying to conserve energy. And once something is repeated often enough, it moves from the conscious effort part of your brain, which is your prefrontal cortex, to your automatic behavior part of your brain, which is your basal ganglia.

7:46And that's why bad habits feel hardwired and hard to break because they literally are hardwired and hard to break. And studies show that about 43 % of daily actions are habitual, not conscious decisions. And it takes an average of 66 days for you to form a new habit. You know, I love this quote by Aristotle. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. If you want to be excellent, if you want to be great, if you want to thrive in anything in your life, if you want to thrive in your spiritual life, you have to have spiritual habits. If you want to be a great spouse, you have to have habits that make you a better spouse.

8:26If you want to grow in business, be successful, or of course, if you want to have a health breakthrough, you have to develop certain types of habits, everything from exercise to your healthy breakfast, to taking your supplements, to going on daily walks in order to be healthy. You know, the famed psychologist Jordan Peterson echoes what Aristotle said by saying this, you are not the sum of your intentions. You are the some of your repeated actions, your habits define your future. Habits are the architecture of your identity. Now, I want to talk about the role that dopamine plays. Dopamine isn't the pleasure molecule like most people think of it.

9:06It's actually the motivation molecule. Dopamine spikes when you anticipate a reward, not when you actually get the reward. That's why scrolling, social media, shopping, or gambling feels addictive because you're chasing the next hit. But what happens over time is your receptors desensitize. Real life starts to feel dull. You need bigger stimulation in order to feel like your needs are met. Your cravings increase and your motivation drops. But here's the good news. Your brain can be rewired and it's actually called neuroplasticity in the scientific textbooks. Now, neuroplasticity is amazing for everything from creating great habits to actually healing.

9:51When I had my life-threatening spinal infection and wasn't able to walk, I really focused on activating neuroplasticity so my brain could start creating new neural pathways in order to heal so I could walk again. And so you really want to leverage dopamine and neuroplasticity in your favor. And according to Dr. Ann Lemke, she writes this in her book, Dopamine Nation. Pleasure and pain are co-located in the brain. Every pleasure experienced must be paid for with an equal pain. This is something Tony Robbins talks about. I remember reading his book many years ago. The book was called Awaken the Giant Within.

10:32He said, listen, if you want to take action, if you want to create healthy habits, if you want to motivate anybody, people are motivated by two things, pain and pleasure. People are either trying to do everything they can to avoid pain, whether it's conscious or not. By the way, this is one reason why oftentimes people do not dig back into their past trauma because it's painful. It's something they should do. It's going to be very good for them, but there's so much pain that subconsciously they do everything they can to avoid that painful experience again. And on the other hand, there's pleasure.

11:03We do things because we want to experience pleasure and both pain and pleasure are great motivators. And you want both of those things working for you to create the sort of habits and results that you love, to create the sort of habits and results that you want to experience. One of the single greatest ways to rebalance dopamine levels, by the way, and support your dopamine levels working for you is via delayed gratification. Delayed gratification restores dopamine balance faster than any pill can. So an example of this is if you're addicted to sugar, if you can say, you know what, I'm going to have sugar.

11:42Maybe I'm going to have a different form, a healthier form like dark chocolate, but I'm going to wait an hour to eat it. Building that sort of patience and delaying the gratification is one of the greatest ways to break dopamine addiction. I love the way that the Bible puts this in Romans 12 too. It says, be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Well, how do you transform yourself? How do you heal your thyroid? How do you change your blood sugar? How do you have better relationships? How do you transform and become a better person physically, mentally, spiritually? The Bible tells us renew your mind.

12:20How do you renew your mind? One of the greatest ways is via education and constantly educating yourselves, getting around different types, getting around other people that are living out the sort of life you want to live. That's how I found that I renewed my mind. I'll give you an example. If I'm getting negative and starting to be too negative, I'll say to myself, how do I renew my mind? I need to change the sort of music I'm listening to. I'm going to exclusively praise and worship music. How else can I renew my mind and have a more positive mindset. I'm going to start doing a gratitude practice.

12:52Every morning when I wake up, I'm going to say five things I'm grateful for. And then before bed, I'm going to write down five things I'm grateful for in a gratitude journal. The Bible tells us if you want to be transformed, you need to renew your mind. Here's the reality. Your brain can change, which confirms what the Bible teaches us today. Here's why it matters. Intrinsic motivation is driven by purpose and values. And these create lasting change while extrinsic motivation is driven by rewards or fear, and it fades once the incentive disappears. You know, if I were trying to have a relationship with God simply because when I was a kid, my dad would discipline me, which he didn't.

13:35But if my dad was going to discipline me or be hard on me or shame or guilt me because I wasn't going to church. That's extrinsic motivation is I only go to church because I know I will be punished if I don't go. Versus intrinsic motivation is me knowing when I am connecting with God, and I look at my life through a lens, when I am spending the most time with God, it's when I'm the most fulfilled. My life is the most meaningful. I have the most joy in my life. And so I am constantly going to church, reading my Bible, praying with my spouse, doing these things because I truly love God and I know my life is so much better when I'm deeply connected with him.

14:19Right? So most people focus on these extrinsic motivations. They're driven by guilt and shame from the past or some sort of punishment or saying, well, this happens with diet a lot, by the way, too. If somebody is trying to reverse diabetes or lose weight, start to think, well, I'm going to get healthy because I don't like the way I look. When I was a kid, somebody told me I was fat. I know I have too much body fat. And so I'm going to try and eat better because I feel such guilt and shame of the way I look and feel. Versus saying, you know what? My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I want to honor God honor God with my body.

15:00He's got a great plan and purpose for my life. I know that everything I eat is either fueling me and being a better father, being a better husband, being a better child of God. So when I'm eating, I realize that this is something to help get me where I want to go versus, okay, I'm going to try and eat this and sludge through eating this superfood smoothie because I have so much shame and guilt in my life. Extrinsic motivation of pain only lasts a short time versus that intrinsic motivating factors like purpose, growth, alignment with your core values. This sustains discipline long-term. Those extrinsic motivations, money, appearance, approval from others, those things burn out fast.

15:52Have you ever felt like you're doing everything right? Eating clean, working out, taking all the right supplements, but your body just won't cooperate. Maybe you're tired, you're foggy, you're gaining weight, you can't sleep, and your doctor says your labs are normal. Here's the truth. Normal blood work does not mean your body is operating normally. It just means the levels in your blood work look okay. Not that your cells are actually using them the way they should. It's like using the wrong map and wondering why you're lost or putting gas in the tank, but the engine still won't turn over. Because if your cells are inflamed, stressed, or in survival mode, nothing you do will work the way it should.

16:30Your body's been whispering for years. Now maybe it's screaming and you deserve someone who's actually listening. Go to mybloodwork.com and see what your blood work missed. What's really going on beneath the surface. Because you're not crazy, you're not lazy, that you're just stuck in a system that was never built to find the problem. It was built to diagnose disease, not restore your health. At mybloodwork.com, we'll show you how to finally get your body and your life back. You know, Elon Musk actually put this perfectly. Here's what he said about this sort of intrinsic purpose-driven goals versus extrinsic punishment goals.

17:12A goal without a deep reason behind it has no power. You need a reason that makes you get out of bed when everyone else is sleeping. You know, have you had that in your life where, I mean, you know, I wake up in the morning excited to get out of bed because I know that the work I'm doing is meaningful. And I know that being a dad is meaningful and a husband's meaningful. I have these things that are incredibly meaningful in my life. So I wake up out of bed with energy and enthusiasm. But I think there's a lot of people getting out of bed in the morning and they don't want to get out of bed because they don't have enough purpose and meaning in their life.

17:49And you have to build purpose or meaning to live the most powerful life possible. Listen, you're not going to stick to working out just to look good. But if you tie your working out to knowing you're going to be able to play with your kids longer or honor God with your body, that's a good reason. I was thinking about this recently. We are going to Park City. We went last year a couple of times, went snow skiing. My daughter Arwen learned that she took snowboarding and snow skiing lessons because I ski and then Chelsea snowboards. And we had an amazing time as a family. And one of the things I was thinking about was, man, I want to be snow skiing with my family.

18:25I want to be water skiing with my family as well. I want to be active with my family when I'm in my seventies and eighties and beyond. I want to be doing things not only with my kids now, but with their grandkids. And I'm excited to do that. That's why I'm working out. That's why I'm doing things so I can stay active and athletic. And one of the most important things that I learned while I was dealing with a life-threatening health issue is that our belief and our language create biological feedback loops. The things that come out of your mouth create your future reality. I mean, the Bible says this, Life and death are in the power of the tongue.

19:06Affirmations, prayer, and gratitude literally strengthen your neural pathways for resilience. There's a research study from UC Davis and they showed that gratitude reduces cortisol levels by 23 % and increases dopamine sensitivity. Simply being grateful, going for a walk in the morning and saying, God, I'm so grateful. List off five things. By the way, a 23 % drop in cortisol, that's huge. By the way, that's also big. If you have hypothyroidism, cortisol is a main driving factor. If you have high insulin and diabetes, cortisol is a main driving factor. So if you can drop your cortisol by 23 % simply by adding in one gratitude practice a day, that's one of the most powerful forms of natural medicine you could ever utilize in your favor.

19:54You know, myself and one of my best friends, Jordan Rubin, discussed this in the Biblio Diet. Change doesn't happen out of willpower. It happens out of identity. You know, shifting from things like, I'm trying to, I'm the kind of person who, or God wired me to be this way. You know, God calls you in the Bible. He says, you're more than an overcomer in Christ Jesus. So knowing that your identity in Christ, you're a here, a child of God. and what that means for you, your supernatural authority that you have here, when you come into that realization, it shifts everything. There's a book I love on identity that really dives into this, and it's called, And David Perceived He Was King by Dale Mast.

20:40And this is a book I've read multiple times as part of different growth groups and leadership groups I've been a part of. And I really like the book because it really helps set in a strong identity. It goes through the life of King David and how he built a strong identity and it impacted his entire life. And so that's one book you may consider. Again, it's called And David Perceived He Was King by Dale Mast. Now, I want to walk you through six steps to overcome bad habits and how to create new and better ones. You know, most people try and break habits by relying on willpower alone, but science shows that willpower is just this finite source.

21:20Real transformation happens when you rewire the brain's reward loops and reshape your identity from the inside out. Number one, here's what you need. You need an identity cue. Two-thirds of daily behaviors are done out of habit. Every habit begins with a trigger, something that tells your brain it's time to do the thing. Cues can be emotional. It could be boredom or stress. This is why you jump on your phone and start scrolling or you grab the bag of chips or candy and eat it. They can be environmental, maybe a certain place or time. They can be social, being around certain types of people. But you want to set up these cues in your favor.

22:04You know, a simple cue that I have is I have a sort of a daily, I call it my weekly war plan and my calendar, where I just know at certain times I'm going to do certain things. So I look at my calendar, said, that's what I do at this time. I go and do it. I mean, you might not think of that as a cue, but that is a cue. Having your calendar and your week planned out of what you're going to do and then going and doing it, that is a great cue. Also, keeping a habit awareness journal helps you uncover hidden cues. When, where, and why a certain habit occurs. For example, do you snack late at night because you're hungry or because it's the only time you're alone in decompressing?

22:42You know, there's a research study out of Harvard and they found that mindfulness reduced automatic eating behaviors and emotional reactivity by 30%. So mindfulness, again, part of this is just scheduling time to sit. Who am I? What am I doing? Why do I act a certain way? What are things that I did today that I shouldn't have done? And then thinking out in your mind, how am I going to react tomorrow? Here's an example. You think through yourself earlier in the day. Okay, when I was bored, I spent three hours today scrolling on my phone, wasting time. What am I going to do tomorrow instead? Okay, I am going to put my phone in my bag and I'm going to bring my Bible with me or this book and I'm going to read that when I'm in the subway or I'm going to listen to an audio book.

23:33I'm going to do, you know, when I'm driving and I'm going to find a good replacement for this. By the way, one of the greatest ways to get rid of old bad habits is to replace them with new good habits. Hey, I'm always snacking because I actually am hungry. Well, I'm going to find a healthier snack option. I'm going to do a, here, I'll share something with you. Here's something I had my dad do. My dad loved vanilla Schwann's ice cream. Every night after his dinner, he would eat the Schwann's ice cream. And I told him how bad it was for him, but he had this level of addiction. Finally, over time, I started creating this vanilla shake for him that had this protein powder that came from primarily bone broth.

24:12It was like a vanilla bone broth protein. And I had him start adding a little bit of sea salt to him, a little bit of coconut milk. And I said, dad, here's what I want you to do. You can do your ice cream on the weekends, but do this the other nights. He agreed to do it and he was able to do it. He found this good replacement that was healthy, that still satisfied that sort of rich vanilla flavor that he enjoyed. Oftentimes we just need to swap out the bad with the good. And there's actually a framework for this sort of habit swapping. And oftentimes they're called smart habits, okay? You can't remove a habit.

24:48You must replace the routine. Here's a simple example of keeping the same cure and reward, but swapping the routine that happens in between. Here's the cue. You feel stressed after work. Your old routine, you open a bottle of wine. The reward, you feel relaxed and calm. However, now the next day, you don't sleep as well. You're tired. Your blood sugar's off. You have liver inflammation. Not good. Okay, here's the new routine. After work, when you're stressed, you immediately go for a 15-minute walk or you take a cold shower. A 15-minute walk while you sing music or something like that, that's the new cue.

25:28Same reward, you still get that sense of calm, but without the negative consequences. Number three, do this. Rewire the reward loop. Your brain learns the rewards. It releases dopamine then every time you complete a behavior that feels satisfying. To build a new habit, you have to teach your brain that the new routine is rewarding. This is why you want to celebrate small wins and progress. Every micro success, even checking off your to-do list, triggers a dopamine release, reinforcing motivation. So create a little reward for yourself. Hey, you went and exercised all three days this week you had scheduled.

26:09Okay, now you get to go and watch your favorite movie or get that new pair of running shoes or rewarding yourself in some way, ideally rewarding yourself with something that is also healthy. Number four, create friction for the bad habits. This is something James Clear talks about in his book, Atomic Habits. He says, listen, reduce friction. If in the mornings you feel, and by the way, I felt this sometimes, there's all these things you have to do before you get to the gym. You know what I do? I get it all ready the night before. I have a protein shake in the fridge already made that I grab out of the fridge.