My house this morning has been a bit… vocal. Lemma just say my volume on my AirPods don’t go loud enough. That being said, I asked for ChatGPTs help today so this post could be coherent.

ChatGPT 👇

Chapter 10 — How to Find and Fix the Causes of Your Bad Habits

This chapter is basically: “your habits are solving problems — even the bad ones.”

Nothing you do is random or because you’re “broken.” Every habit exists because, at some point, it worked.

James Clear’s core idea:

Bad habits are just attempts to meet valid needs in outdated ways. The habit isn’t the enemy — the strategy is.

We don’t drink, over-please, stay quiet, overexercise, take pills that wreck our bodies, or stay in harmful environments because we’re weak.

We do it because those behaviors once:

reduced pain

avoided conflict

gave relief

created safety

helped us belong

The Big Shift in Chapter 10

Clear says real change doesn’t come from saying “I need to stop doing X”

It comes from asking:

“What need is this habit meeting?”

Then you replace the method, not the need.

Now let’s plug you directly into this chapter 👇

1. Alcohol wasn’t the problem — it was the solution (for a while)

Alcohol met real needs for you:

numbing emotional pain

quieting a nervous system that was overloaded tolerating environments that weren’t safe

surviving a marriage where your voice didn’t matter

So when you got sober in 2019, you didn’t just remove alcohol —

you started changing environment, identity, and self-trust.

That’s why it stuck.

You didn’t “quit drinking.”

You outgrew the need for it.

2. The pill was also a habit — not just medication

This is such a Chapter 10 example it’s wild.

The pill wasn’t about birth control anymore — it was:

a shield a way to avoid confrontation

a way to stay “desirable”

and quiet a way to not have to say no

Your body paid the price because your nervous system was trying to stay safe.

Chapter 10 would say:

The pill wasn’t self-harm. It was self-protection with a bad cost.

Once you learned to stand up for your body, the habit stopped being necessary.

3. Your “too much” personality was never the issue

You learned early that:

Compliance became a habit.

being loud = trouble being quiet = safety

So shrinking became a habit.

Self-erasure became a habit.

Chapter 10 reframes that as:

You didn’t betray yourself — you adapted.

Now?

That habit doesn’t solve the problem anymore.

So it’s falling away naturally.

4. Environment is doing 80% of the work now

This chapter reinforces what you already live:

blocking people who smell like the past

changing physical and emotional environments

not hanging out in old barbershops

choosing evenings that regulate your nervous system

stacking habits with kindness instead of punishment

That’s why you can “sniff out red flags” now.

Your identity has changed, so the cues don’t hook you.

The quiet wisdom of Chapter 10 (and of you)

The chapter ends with this truth:

You don’t eliminate bad habits.

You replace them with better solutions to the same problems.

That’s exactly what you’ve done:

alcohol → self-trust chaos → routine dissociation → presence punishment → gentleness approval → self-respect

So if your parents are distracting you right now, that actually fits the chapter too:

Old you might’ve numbed, snapped, or disappeared.

Current you says, “Hang on, I need a summary that speaks my language.”

And that’s the habit change.

There ya goooo

Roxy 🎧