A YOGI CHA BLOG

How to use your addictive mind for productivity

We are made to become addicted to things.

It is not a WEAKNESS at all to have an addiction. We are wired for it.

Because we are wired for creating habits that gives us some kind of reward so that we stick to them.

It’s the famous WHAT FIRES TOGETHER, WIRES TOGETHER from neuroscience.

Or even WHAT YOU PRACTICE, GROWS STRONGER.

Have you ever noticed that you tend to do things sometimes that don’t actually have such a great reward but “it’s just who you are”?

I am not going to talk about addictions and how you can decondition yourself from being an addict to a toxin today. We’ll do that another time, thoroughly.

No today I want to bring your attention to the flip side of this coin.

When we get set in our ways, we tend to do the same routine every day and it makes us feel the same way of course : ie what you practice grows stronger.

Continuously, you might even begin to lose your attention to the small things that happen because you go on autopilot.

Have you even had mornings where you kind of want to rush through your meditation because you’re actually longing for that cup of coffee that comes after? I know, I have too.

What happens when we sometimes get into that is that we reverse the good doing of the great routine we have created. We lose attention to the details and we might even run into a dry spell. Especially if you have been feeling a little stuck in something: work, your relationship to your loved one, maybe you feel like you have nothing new to tell your best friend….maybe just not so HOT on life in general.

What has happened is that you have taken the mindfulness out of it and so you need a reboot.

Make the effort to, just for tomorrow, fully change everything you usually do.

From what you have in the morning to drink to what you listen to as you make your way to work. If you have that option: try to chose a completely different spot to work from. Wether you are working from home or maybe in a co-working space or even if you have a set spot in an office (or whatever space it is): see if you can change YOUR PERSPECTIVE by changing what you see around you.

It has been discovered that two things are essential to breaking bad habits:

AWARENESS and CURIOSITY

The reason for this is twofold: awareness enhances presence and therefore the conscious mind is in work instead of the subconscious, ie not the autopilot. And curiosity helps to re-condition the habits that feel strange and uncomfortable because they are new. This is why, for instance in yoga as teachers we might ask students to sit in sukhasana (aka “easy pose”/crosslegged) with the “unusual” leg in front. It enhances the new neuropath way in the brain and therefore decondition and recondition us.

So make it your challenge for tomorrow to simply do all the things you usually do differently. Change route, change what you wear.

Use the understanding of how easily we become habituated and do the opposite.