FULLTANK 3291: Why Your Bad Habit Keeps Coming Back

Empty space does not remain empty for long.

If you remove a bad habit, there'll be an empty space in your life.

And if you do not fill that space, guess what? The bad habit may come back.

Don't just quit a bad habit.

You've got to replace it with a very good habit.

For example, if you feel like you're wasting too much time watching telenovelas and you want to decrease it from watching three to four hours a day, you just want to say, okay, I'm going to watch only one hour.

So what will you do with the other two or three hours? What if you take on something like reading a book or learning a musical instrument or exercise or start a business? Here's a principle I've learned.

Attention, whether positive or negative, is still attention.

And attention is addition.

I met a man who kept repeating, I will not smoke anymore.

I will not smoke anymore.

Hundreds of times a day he'll say that, I will not smoke anymore.

But he said his craving remained.

Why? Because all day long, he was still thinking about smoking.

Instead of constantly focusing on what you're trying to remove, focus on what you're trying to build.

In today's Gospel, Jesus describes an unclean spirit leaving a person.

Later, it returns and finds that quote-unquote house swept and clean, but empty.

That's the problem.

It was clean, but empty.

God did not create you merely to avoid bad things.

He created you to pursue beautiful things.

Hey, let me give you a personal example.

I experience a lot of temptations in my life, a lot of them every day.

But you see, I've discovered that I have far more exciting things to give my attention to rather than focusing on the temptation, focusing on saying no to the temptation.

I want to say yes to the great and wonderful and exhilarating things that are in front of me.

Empty space does not remain empty for long.

If you remove a bad habit, there'll be an empty space in your life.

And if you do not fill that space, guess what? The bad habit may come back.

Don't just quit a bad habit.

You've got to replace it with a very good habit.

For example, if you feel like you're wasting too much time watching telenovelas and you want to decrease it from watching three to four hours a day, you just want to say, okay, I'm going to watch only one hour.

So what will you do with the other two or three hours? What if you take on something like reading a book or learning a musical instrument or exercise or start a business? Here's a principle I've learned.

Attention, whether positive or negative, is still attention.

And attention is addition.

I met a man who kept repeating, I will not smoke anymore.

I will not smoke anymore.

Hundreds of times a day he'll say that, I will not smoke anymore.

But he said his craving remained.

Why? Because all day long, he was still thinking about smoking.

Instead of constantly focusing on what you're trying to remove, focus on what you're trying to build.

In today's Gospel, Jesus describes an unclean spirit leaving a person.

Later, it returns and finds that quote-unquote house swept and clean, but empty.

That's the problem.

It was clean, but empty.

God did not create you merely to avoid bad things.

He created you to pursue beautiful things.

Hey, let me give you a personal example.

I experience a lot of temptations in my life, a lot of them every day.

But you see, I've discovered that I have far more exciting things to give my attention to rather than focusing on the temptation, focusing on saying no to the temptation.

I want to say yes to the great and wonderful and exhilarating things that are in front of me.