You've most likely heard the saying, "we all have a choice," before.
It's true, every single one of us has a choice. In fact, we make hundreds of choices every single day.
From the moment you wake up you make a decision to check your phone or not check your phone as the first thing you do.
Small choices each day add up to habits over time.
To be successful in recovery means to begin making different choices, consistently, over the long haul.
Achieving 7.5 years clean meant Jak had to make different choices early on.
To recover from betrayal trauma meant I also had to be making different choices.
Where we are today is because of the choices we made back then, and the choices we continue to make today.
Currently, when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is check my email.
Now I know the studies on checking your phone the first thing in the morning, and I know that I'm not grabbing my phone to scroll social media but rather to check important emails that may have come in from clients, I still want to change that habit.
So, today, I'm going to do something that I usually do only with clients or in our paid email Savvy Answers, and I'm going to walk you through, step by step, how to break a habit and build a new one based on the habit I'm trying to break.
Goal: Don't Check Phone Right After Waking
Step 1: Change Environment
To stop this habit that I've developed I first have to assess my environment. To make lasting changes, the environment needs to be supportive of that.
That means in the morning, I should not have my phone on my bedside table.
Step 2: Leave Phone Outside Bedroom
This step may be obvious but how we go about changing the habit will be what is important.
So, if every night I physically grab my phone and carry it to the bedroom, I need to do something different to stop the habit of grabbing the phone.
That could look like setting a reminder on my phone before bedtime to not bring the phone into bed, or it could look like putting my phone in a drawer, or putting my phone on my desk and having a spot for it next to my computer.
There are many possibilities on how I can break the habit of bringing the phone to the bed, but to really make sure this new choice works, I need to link this new decision to a decision I make each day around the same time and "link" this new choice to an already established habit.
Step 3: Identify Which Habit To Link To
In the evenings, I like to make sure my desk is organized and ready for the next day. So, if I were to choose to make a spot specifically for my phone on my desk, I could make sure that when I organize my desk, I put my phone in that spot and that would have me build the new habit of leaving my phone outside of my bedroom.
Step 4: Contingencies & Backups
Realistically, in the beginning I'm likely to make a mistake, so I need to ask myself how can I ensure that if I were to carry my phone into the bedroom, I can remind myself that I don't want to do this?
One step I could make is to put a bunch of books on my bedside table and clutter it on purpose to not have space for my phone.
Another, less visually disturbing step, would be to put a sticky note on my bedside table saying "no phone."
Step 5: Put Into Action, Iterate, & Repeat
Now that I understand the steps I need to make to change this one habit, I need to start putting it into practice. Once I do, I can see if I need to make any more iterations to lead to success, and once I've mastered the process, I repeat it until it becomes engrained and it's an automatic habit.
There you have it! The neuroscience behind making and breaking habits... which is exactly how I help clients.
You can always try this on your own to see if you can begin to make shifts in your recovery, and you can even begin this today!
However, if you feel you need more support and accountability, then you can always explore coaching.
Either way, I believe in you and your recovery!
Your guide in recovery,
Savvy Esposito
P.S. if you're not already a client and ready to make lasting changes in your life, marriage, and recover, hit reply and we can discuss whether it would be a good option to work together.
Savannah is passionate about helping engaged and married couples struggling with trust, communication, sexual intimacy, intimacy anorexia, sexual addiction, and betrayal trauma achieve the healthy, connected, and loving marriage they’ve always dreamed of.
I 100% believe that recovery is possible for anyone who truly wants to recover. I also know from experience that when someone who wants recovery won't do "the thing" they need to do to recover, recovery halts. "The Thing" can look different depending on your history, addiction trajectory, and current situation. The Most Common Blocks (with Recovery Opportunities because I'm feeling extra generous!) Denial When one or both partners are in denial about something that will block progress....
With over 7 years clean and continuing our Recovery Lifestyle, we're in a very different place then we were back then. In our early 20's you can bet we spent more on Black Friday... and we didn't make the best financial decisions. Fast forward to 2023? I bought a budget book for cash stuffing since Jak let me know he feels he is better with money when it's physical ($8) and Jak bought a shelving unit for the basement to organize his stuff ($66). That was it. We spent a whopping $74 this year...
Hey Reader, As I read this article I thought about you and everyone else in the recovery community. I just knew I had to share this so that you could have a chance to read it and get take aways too! This article is by Jose Briones someone I discovered about 2 years ago now. He has his Youtube Channel where he goes into all the dumbphones on the market. He also wrote a book recently on Digital Minimalism (amazing, btw!) and I'm subscribed to his newsletter and when I read this one, I just knew...