The SIlent Killers Behind Your Success And How to Bypass Them

Now, we all think of stress as a negative emotion that puts us into a state of worry or mental tension due to what we label as a ‘difficult situation’, and if you think that, you’d be far from wrong.

But stress is something that we can gain a tolerance for as well as use to actually benefit us if we can identify what is causing us to feel that emotion.

The main difference between you either reaching your goals or just falling at the first hurdle is the ability to control your mind, and stress is one of the hardest distractions to get a hold of.

When you’re stressed, you’ll have your current coping mechanisms. Ever find yourself writing an essay or a document and then find yourself on your phone or social media without even thinking to pick it up? This is more than likely your brain’s subconscious coping mechanism for either stress or boredom.

After days and months of training your mind that your phone feels good to be on due to the use of TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, etc., you’ve brainwashed yourself into now using your phone as a coping mechanism for both stress and boredom. When you’re on TikTok or simply doing anything on your phone, it gives you enough dopamine (the happy chemical) to allow you to somewhat forget about what you’re doing and why you were even stressed in the first place.

Doing this often is what therefore goes and builds the habit that teaches your subconscious brain that going on TikTok, your phone, and other social media platforms is good, as it releases a lot of the happy chemical ‘Dopamine’. Dopamine is meant to be released when you’ve accomplished things after putting a lot of work into them, such as finishing a book or simply being around something you enjoy. We used to get 100 times more dopamine from listening to a woman play the piano than we do from scrolling our phones, as our dopamine baseline is so high due to our constant exposure to it nowadays.

But as I was saying, doing this and going on our phones constantly teaches our subconscious brain that using our phone is good and therefore uses it as an automatic coping mechanism whenever we’re either bored or stressed, as it allows us to feel better and avoid the problem rather than facing it head-on.

Sadly, our brains can’t differentiate between good and bad when it comes to how they receive dopamine. We just release the hormone dopamine when we do something of pleasure, to which our brain classes it as something it likes, and it then chases it again and again. That’s also a simple description of how any addiction starts.

It’s all good and well to understand the problem of why the way we cope with stress and boredom is ruining our chances at success, but what good is it to know the problem without a solution?

Here are five quick solutions that you can apply to your life to slowly ease yourself out of the habit of distracting yourself as soon as an unwanted emotion appears whenever you’re working or doing something either stressful or boring.

1) Plan for Failure

We all slip up every now and then.

As Steve Kamb says, “When you screw up, skip a workout, eat bad foods, or sleep in, it doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you human.”

So rather than beating yourself up over a mistake, plan for it.

We all get off track; what separates top performers from everyone else is that they get back on track very quickly.

2) Cut out as many triggers as possible

If you eat cookies when they are in the house, then throw them all away.

If you turn to your phone as soon as you get stressed or bored while working, don’t work with your phone next to you, and put it in another room when you’re working.

If the first thing you do when you sit on the sofa or a couch—whatever you want to call it—is pick up the TV remote, then hide the remote in a closet.

Make it easier on yourself to break bad habits by avoiding the things that cause them.

Right now, your environment makes your bad habits easier and your good habits—and the habits you want to build—harder. Change your environment, and you can change the outcome.

3) Join forces with somebody

How often have you tried to change something in your life, whether that be breaking an old habit or starting a new one? Maybe you “quit drinking” … but you kept it to yourself? (That way, no one will see you fail, right?)

Instead, pair up with someone and quit together. That way, the two of you can hold each other accountable and celebrate your victories together. Knowing that someone else expects you to be better is a very, very powerful motivator.

4) Visualise yourself succeeding

See yourself throwing away bad food, buying healthy food, or waking up early.

Whatever the bad habit is that you are looking to break, visualise yourself crushing it, smiling, and enjoying your success.

Imagine yourself building a new identity before it comes to fruition.

And finally, the most important tip of them all

5) You don’t eliminate a bad habit; you replace it with a new one

At the end of the day, a habit is in your life as, in some way, the behaviour provides a benefit to you, even if they are bad for you in other ways.

For example, opening your email inbox as soon as you turn on your computer might make you feel connected.

But, at the same time, looking at all of those emails destroys your productivity, divides your attention, and overwhelms you with stress. But, it prevents you from feeling like you’re “missing out” … and so you do it again.

And due to the fact that these habits offer some sort of benefit to your life, even if they may be bad for you, the advice of ‘just stop doing it’ rarely works.

So, instead, you need to replace that bad habit with a similar thing that offers the same benefit.

For example, if you check social media when you feel either stressed or bored, you need to find an alternative, such as taking a short walk around your workspace.

If you want to learn even more about how to break a habit, I highly recommend reading the book ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear.

I’ll put a link to the book here: https://amzn.to/3S0kb2k

Realise what the habits are that are holding you back, put your full attention into breaking them, and watch your life change.

The phrase “Work Hard, Play Hard” may sound cliche, but it couldn’t be closer to the truth

Once you can put your full attention into one task at a time, there is nothing you can’t achieve

Teach yourself to focus on one thing at a time and you’ll find yourself getting more and more lucky

I also uploaded a new YouTube video highlighting all of this, making it easier for you to digest, but also explaining why the way that most of us currently deal with stress and boredom is such a major drawback to our chances of success.

If you’re not busy, you can check that out here:

Appreciate you,

Oli