Alexis Fernandez-Preiksa

It's like, no, I'm doing this for myself.

A punishment would be withholding something from yourself or doing something mean to yourself that has no added benefit at all.

But for you saying, if I do this, then I have to be doing this good behavior immediately after, that's not a punishment.

That's saying I'm teaching myself to break out of this behavior while at the same time doing something that actually is for my greater good anyway.

So reading that one page of the book is great.

Another thing would be if I scroll, I then have to

write three sentences down about my day, about whatever, things that I'm grateful for or things that I've learned today.

It doesn't matter, but it's like a journaling practice or something, okay?

If I pick up my phone to scroll, I'm not allowed to put it down unless I do one module of this language app that I'm doing.

So I have to make it educational while I'm already there.

things like that and obviously you have to have follow-through you have to be committed to wanting to do that but again this is the difference between the bad habit and this addiction that we're talking about it's you do have a level of control over what you're doing you just don't want to versus an addiction where it's this compulsion against all odds

So if you are going to eat a sugary thing before bed, you have to then follow it by having a peppermint tea or your vitamins or whatever it is.

What is the behavior that is positive for me that ideally I'd like to be the replacement of?

But even if I do do this behavior, I have to pair it with something that is actually good for me as well.

So you remove the punishment and you start pairing it with this good behavior.

And this is why it's good twofold.

Number one, because even if you do that bad habit that you want to break, you still get something good out of it.

You've read the book, you've done the journal.

So it's not all a waste.

And then you don't feel like you shit about yourself and you're not punishing yourself.