Why bad habits block good ones

I've seen a lot of guys who work on making changes to their lives with good intentions.

They say they're going to eat healthier, meditate, exercise, get more focused in their work, and a dozen other objectively good habits that would make their lives better.

And often, in a moment of inspiration, they actually start doing those things too.

But it's just a short matter of time before they fall off the bandwagon.

Right back into old patterns.

New habits quickly abandoned and replaced with the same old, same old.

I spent years stuck in that kind of cycle.

But why?

Why was I objectively interested in improving myself, but then struggling to actually follow through on the changes I'd decided on with consistency?

It took me a long time to realize that...

Bad habits undermine your good ones.

The thing is, bad habits like watching porn, doomscrolling for hours, or even just gaming and binging YouTube videos all fry your dopamine reward center with unnaturally high levels of stimulation. Without getting too science-jargony about it, that means your brain becomes overstimulated and your dopamine reward center is essentially, though thankfully temporarily, damaged. And that part of your brain has a direct impact on motivation and decision-making, and therefore your ability to stay consistent in... just about anything.

Net result?

If you have those kinds of bad habits in your lifestyle, it'll make it infinitely more difficult and often even impossible to sustain the kind of changes your better self knows he wants to make. Because a damaged reward center literally cripples decision-making and motivation, and when your brain is accustomed to highly stimulating habits, doing the "less stimulating but highly rewarding and beneficial long-term" sorts of behaviors that will actually make your life a lot better just feels... boring and uninteresting, in comparison.

This essentially creates massive resistance to changing your life.

You're trying to swim up-stream.

And what happens when you quit porn and dial down some of your other highly stimulating dopamine reward loops?

Your brain heals, thanks to neuroplasticity.

You flip the script.

Instead of swimming up-stream against massive resistance, you start naturally feeling more pull to improve the different areas that matter to you, and instead of losing steam and returning back to old ways, sustaining your motivation over time becomes a lot more natural too.

Which is the exact dynamic that makes quitting porn such an earth-shatteringly massive positive change in men's lives.

Because it goes far beyond the porn. Far beyond the time they spent in front of the screen. And ends up leading to them taking much better control over everything else they care about due to their brain simply returning to the normal, natural, healthy state that it's meant to be in... but hasn't been for years because of a few bad habits undermining everything.

Quitting is worth taking very seriously.