چگونه به سادگی عادت های یادگیری انگلیسی مان را دائمی کنیم

036 - How to Easily Create Permanent English Habits - The Power of Habit

Hello there! Kevin here with another wonderful episode of the Feel Good English podcast, the podcast that inspires you to not only become a better English learner but to become a better version of yourself.

Today is a very important lesson and I think this is one of the keys to a better life and it is about habits. Our day is made up of habits, research shows that even up to 40% of what we do in a day is based on unconscious habits meaning, you do things without even thinking about it. Through the book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, we can learn how to change bad habits and how to build good habits.

Habits are powerful, our brain wants to be as efficient as possible, that’s why, like I said, up to 40% of our day, based on our habits, our brain doesn’t have the power, doesn’t have the capacity to perform conscious tasks all day long, thinking about what they’re gonna do next.

When you start driving, it’s hard. You have to think a lot about it, right? But over the years, it becomes natural. All those steps you take while driving become habits, your brain figures it out and doesn’t require as much brain power to make it work, brain efficiency is behind habits.

The book, The Power of Habit, through tons of research shows you how to do this and that’s what I’m going to talk about today.

If you want transcripts to this episode, go to feelgoodenglish.com/member, and don’t forget at the end of the lesson here, I’m going to talk about the English vocabulary that I used during the episode to help you become an excellent English speaker, now let’s get into The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

So the first lesson is about cravings.

When you crave something, it means you desire that thing, you really want something.

How habits work is they actually create cravings in our brain, think of a dog, when you create a habit in a dog or you’re training a dog to do something, you usually use a treat like a little cookie or a little dog treat, and the dog starts craving that treat.

You will teach him to perform an action, let’s say sit, you say “hey dog, sit” and why would the dog care? Why would does the dog care if you tell it to sit? Because he’s craving the treat afterwards, he sits, you give him a treat, you may give him some love, you pet his head, he feels good; and he craves that feeling, and that’s exactly how habits work.

I’ll give you another example, so I love drinking coffee. I drink coffee everyday, Brazil has great coffee so I really got hooked on coffee in Brazil. When I wake up in the morning, I’m tired like most people.

First 20 minutes, I’m really tired so I crave coffee which will give me energy, does it actually scientifically give me energy right away?

Probably not but the act of doing it makes me feel more awake and maybe 30 minutes later, I actually get some caffeine benefits.

I wake up in the morning and I crave energy, I crave feeling more awake so I drink coffee, I’ve been doing this for awhile, coffee begins to taste good and you crave the flavor of coffee.

If you notice kids or teenagers, a lot of times they don’t think coffee is very tasty cause they don’t crave the energy effects, they don’t really think about the energy effects they just think about the flavor, it’s not really important how it tastes but for me who likes to feel awake and alive in the morning, coffee brings that to me physically so the coffee flavor becomes great as well.

So habits create cravings in us, a big part of this book is something called the “Habit Loop”, there are three aspects to a habit: the first aspect is a cue, a cue is a trigger or a sign that creates the first action, so a cue signals something in the brain, it can signal an emotion or a thought and that cue tells you to do something after that.

So in the coffee situation, what’s the cue? The cue is I wake up and I’m tired, so I think “uh oh,” well, what do I need to do to not feel tired? That is the cue.

The second is the action, I make coffee, sometimes I make an espresso, I have a cool little espresso machine or I make a filtered coffee (and) I use something called an aeropress, which is a little plastic device that you use to make espresso, but any way, the cue is I’m tired and the action is I make coffee.

What’s the reward? That’s the third part of the loop, the reward is to feel more awake and the flavor is good, so the cue is the first part, the action is the second part, and the reward is the third part.

What this means is that you can change habits if you can mess with this loop, if you experiment and change certain aspects of this habit loop, the good news is, you can change habits based on this. The bad news is, bad habits are also based on this as well but changing the cues and changing the rewards can change our actions.

Let’s say I wanted to stop drinking coffee, for some reason, I wanted to quit, the doctor says:

“Hey, Kevin. Stop drinking so much coffee!” What would I need to do?

Well, the cues not gonna change, when I wake up in the morning, I’m going to be tired, so my brain will think “ Oh! I’m tired! I need something to wake up.”

Normally, I would go make coffee and the reward would be I feel better but let’s change the action, what else can I do in the morning to wake up, to feel better?

Maybe splash some cold water on my face or take that even farther and take a cold shower, that would be intense but it would wake me up, and the reward would be, I would feel more awake.

Changing the action and the (inaudible) would still get the same reward, however it would be different, it would be not drinking coffee.

So tweaking the action is how we change habits.

Now the second lesson here is something called keystone habits.

Keystone habits are the foundational habits that are going to set up bigger life changes.

An example is when somebody is obese, when they’re very overweight, it’s very hard for them to change their whole lifestyle… Eat better, exercise more.

What researches have found, if a large person can change their keystone habits, these basic small habits, it can lead to bigger change.

One thing an overweight person can do is start recording, keeping a journal of their diet, writing down all of the foods that they eat daily… So for breakfast, they had this, and for lunch they had this and this, and for them to start thinking about what they’re eating everyday over a few weeks or sometime, they’ll start considering their health more.

They’ll start thinking about what they’re eating and they can build off this, maybe they’ll start eating better, start exercising more but focusing on the foundational habits first. Keystone habits create small wins and this is very important.

Feeling good about what you’re doing everyday is what can bring motivation and help you change your habits. Another example in my life and this has happened a few times, so let’s say I wanted to start an exercise routine, say “Oh, I’m gonna go to the gym 5 days a week for an hour and half each time.” Pretty hard to start doing that, you might know that as well.

What I’ve done in the past is that I’ve started exercising, doing this exercise routine that you could find online, called the 7-minute Workout, and this is proven to be effective, it’s only 7 minutes but it’s a full body workout that you can do at home, in your living room, in front of the TV… So instead of having to go all the way to the gym, stay there for an hour and half, drive home- do all of that. You start with a keystone habit, working out 7 minutes a day. You get up, you go work out for 7 minutes and you feel good. Small wins build on each other and we can create greater change if we start small

So, connecting this keystone habit back into this habit loop cause remember, we need to work to the cue, which is the trigger or what starts the thought of doing something and that will create an action which will give us the reward.

So what’s the cue? Let’s say, I set an alarm on my phone at whatever time, “Kevin, get off your butt, let’s do some 7 minute workout.” I get up, do 7 minutes, and then after that quick 7 minutes, I’m done, I feel good because I got it over with, and that is the reward.

In the beginning, it’s gonna be tough, do it for a week, it’ll be easier; I promise.

By two weeks, it’ll be easier. By third week, you’ll probably be like “7 minutes is nothing, let’s start going to the gym.” and you will increase this habit which will lead to greater change.

So keystone habits, foundational habits are the key to creating positive change, so if you’re listening to this, you are probably an English learner.

So what do you want to happen, you want to speak English better, how you gonna get there?

Let’s start with some keystone habits, first thing, create a daily listening routine.

Listening is easy, you can do it from anywhere, you don’t need to spend money, you can be on the bus, going for a walk, exercising… Whatever that may be.

Listening for may be 5 minutes a day, start small, 5 minutes a day, if you can’t listen to English for 5 minutes a day, you really have to reevaluate your priorities, may be English isn’t a big priority for you right now but 5 minutes a day should be easy.

Do this for a week and you’re gonna feel good about what you’re doing, you’re gonna say “wow, I’m studying everyday, even though it’s only 5 minutes, I’m doing it everyday.”, and just grow off that.

Grow these habits, start small- 5 minutes a day, to listening to a couple of weeks and then naturally; this is important: naturally, you’ll feel like doing more.

You ever heard of the law of least effort?

The Law of Least Effort means things can happen more naturally, you don’t have to force things to happen, and through habit building, using less effort to make positive changes can lead to big results but start small. Don’t get it over your head, don’t try to do four hours a day listening or studying a big textbook. Start small, keystone habits.

Now let’s talk about the habit loop, what’s the cue you’re going to use for listening?

Put on headphones in your pocket or put headphones in your backpack or put headphones in your purse, put little headphones there so when you see those, you say “Oh, it’s time to listen”.

Get on your phone or your iPod or whatever you may have, and start listening, start listening to a podcast, audio lesson… Whatever that may be. But the cue is seeing your headphones, the action is going to be, you’re going to listen to something, and the reward after 5 minutes, could simply be you feel better about it, may be you need a better reward, may be you do this before going onto Facebook and looking at your friend’s posts or may be you need to drink a Coca-Cola after the 5 minutes of listening, that makes you feel good because the reward is what we will crave, remember?

About craving? We will crave this reward. Sometimes we can crave feeling better, we go to the gym and after the gym you feel great.

You crave that feeling, it doesn’t have to be chocolate or coffee but you crave a feeling.

So summarizing this, lesson 1… Cravings are what creates habits, and cravings are based on the rewards we get after performing actions, habits are based on the habit loop.

We have a cue that starts a thought, this thought leads to an action, and this action gives us a reward, could be a bad habit… You smoke, you feel relaxed, after that it’s still a reward. Your brain doesn’t know if it’s good or bad, your brain is just a machine or could be exercising.

You see the gym, you go to the gym, you feel better. Pay attention to these cues, what triggers that thoughts in your head and also pay attention to your cravings.

Lesson two, keystone habits.

Make sure you focus on small habits, daily habits that will build the foundation for a better life;for better habits. If you want to improve your English, your keystone habit is daily listening, input listening to real English everyday is the key to fluency, start there.

If you want to be fit, more physically fit, start with a quick 7-minute workout and build your habits from there.

Now, it’s time for the vocab lesson, big part of this episode, I used the word crave, to crave.

To crave something is to have a strong desire for that thing, my wife, she craves chocolate.

C-R-A-V-E. Often we use this in the present progressive form, I’m craving. Right now, I’m craving a lovely glass of Pinot Noir.

Next verb to pet, P-E-T. To pet is used for animals most of the time is to take your hand and rub or to pass it over an animal, you pet a dog, you pet a cat is to give affection with your hand, to pet.

Next phrase is here I say, I get hooked on coffee or I got hooked on coffee. To get hooked on something, hooked… H-O-O-K-E-D. To get hooked on something means to become addicted to that. I get hooked on coffee, I become addicted to coffee or he’s hooked on video games, he’s hooked on video games. Hooked on or get hooked on, phrasal verb, hooked on- BAM!

The word tasty comes from the word taste, if something is tasty, it means something is tasty, good, and one of the most important words in this episode, cue… C-U-E.

In this context, cue means something that triggered, or something that starts a thought, it can start an action, an emotion, but it’s a cue it’s a thing that causes a reaction, so I wake up in the morning, I’m tired and I notice that I’m tired and that’s the cue.

The cue causes me to make coffee and drink it, speaking of that, the next phrase here, filtered coffee, that’s the typical traditional way, the American way of taking coffee, putting the coffee in a paper filter and letting water pass through it, filtered coffee, that can make it home.

Next phrase here is a phrasal verb, mess with… M-E-S-S with, to mess with something in this context means to take apart something or to try to fix something to learn more about how it works, so you’re having a problem with something, let’s say you can’t get a certain device to work, I can’t get this device to work, here, mess with this for a minute. Mess with this for a minute. See if you can get this to work. So take it apart. Fix it, try to do something complicated, whatever may be to make it work better.

Next word, splash. A verb, to splash. To splash is to throw water.

Usually a small amount of water on somebody, so you’re in a swimming pool, somebody splashes water on your face.

To splash or you’re walking down the street, in the rain and a car drives by and it hits a puddle of water, meaning water that is standing in the street, which splashes all over you and causes a mess, and then you give the guy the middle finger as he drives away.

Next word, to tweak, tweaking.

To tweak is to make small adjustments. We need to tweak to make it better. Tweaking something, making small adjustments, to improve something.

And lastly, an expression to get over your head, don’t get over your heads. Think about it, if things get over your head, it means too many things going on, you’re overwhelmed, a word that I have used in other episodes, and there’s too many things going on and too many things to do, you’re over your head, your beyond your ability to handle something or maybe you don’t understand it. Say that joke was over my head, I couldn’t understand it, it’s beyond my ability to understand it, or the Math problem… Wow! That’s complicated! That is way over my head.

Habits are the key to making big life changes, consistency in doing things daily, small things lead to big changes. You want to become a fluent English speaker, what you do everyday will make the difference. So today, let’s start, think of something you want to happen in your life, let’s find something you can do today to start small, like I said if you want to become an English-speaking badass, let’s start with 5 minutes of listening everyday.

If you feel that you aren’t physically fit, go online and search for the 7 minute workout, I’ll also post a link on my website so you can find that and start with a 7-minute workout.

Easy peasy. But start small, feel good everyday, small wins lead to big habit changes, okay?

Again, if you want transcripts to this, go to

feelgoodenglish.com/member.

And leaving you with another stupid joke, by the way, if you don’t understand these jokes, go on to my website because I always explain the humor behind it.

The reason I put these jokes here are to make you laugh if you get the joke, but also jokes can be hard to understand so through learning the subtlety of learning the English culture and the American culture, you can reach that next level of English understanding, alright?

So go check those out on the website if you don’t get it.

And here’s your joke: What’s fat, hairy, and drinks a lot of coffee?

Java the Hutt. A little Star Wars humor.

See yah next time