When something creates negative effects, externalities, costs, expenses, or problems in your life, it’s definitely become problematic.

That’s when it’s veered into the area of being defined as a problem. Now, these problems could be financial based, they could be work related when you’re suffering at your job due to excessive alcohol use, let’s say, or stay up too late, playing video games and not being rested in the morning. This could be relationship based. These could be negative effects that your use of something of substance is creating in your relationships.

This could be with your significant other, kids, or friends. You’re not showing up. You’re not following through. You’re not reliable anymore or as reliable anymore. Um, that’s a big one. That’s one that I really tend to focus on is, is it creating problems in the relationships with those you love and care about the most. If the answers are yes or even a maybe, it’s probably time to look at that a little bit closer to think about this orbit, deeper, to get more reflective and understand, you know, why am I compelled to do the things I do? Am I using something, a substance or endeavoring in a behavior that’s problematic to cover up a certain feeling? Is there a trigger out there in the world that causes or leads me to act this way? Are there patterns in my use of behavior that I can identify?

That’s what we want to dive a little bit deeper into it. Another area is a financial expense. Is this thing, this behavior, this addiction costing me money. That’s hurting my financial goals, my financial stability, my position in life. That’s a big one. Are there legal problems? Sometimes whether it be, you know, getting arrested for drug possession or, driving under the influence or anything else that can come from a bad habit or an addiction.

So how I really define when these things reach, what we call a problematic state is does it create problems in your life or is that you simply recreational, non-harmful and not really creating problems? We really got to get honest here because it’s easy for us and the mind to trick itself, to rationalize, to justify, to minimize the extent or the magnitude of problems that these things might create in our lives.

But when we get really honest, when we prompt ourselves and force ourselves, confront these things to do so in a meaningful, honest, and transparent way, that’s when we can really get to a place of understanding and clarity around whether or not my usage is creating problems. If the answer is yes or even a maybe let me back that up if the answers anything but a resounding and quick, no. Then we should really take a deeper dive and a deeper look into that behavior, into that habit, that routine, that indulgence, that addiction, if it is in addiction and see what’s causing it, you know, what’s leading us to do that, to act that way, to use that way. What is the pattern been, how many years has this been happening or months has this been happening and what are we going to do about it, right? That’s the next step is what are we going to do about this that’s creating problems in our life.

Do we want to continue living this way, or we want to take action and try something differently?

We want to try to get some help to try to get some support, some new ideas, a system or something that might help us break that habit, you know, break that routine, you know, get help for that addiction. So that’s my message today.

How do we define a habit, behavior or addiction? And it’s really when it creates problems in our lives that are quantifiable, that we can really understand that we can identify and articulate. When that happens that’s when we need to go to the next step, which is why do I behave this way? Why do I act, why do I use it? Understand the root. And then being willing to seek help, be willing to reach out, be willing to explore other options of thinking, acting and behaving differently so that we can live free and clear from whatever it is that’s creating problems in our life, right? Whatever that is, video games porn, you know, sex, drugs, alcohol doesn’t matter what the substance or the behavior is.

It matters what starts and triggers it and what we do in response to it. How do we substitute and replace that negative habit, routine or behavior addiction with something positive, something supportive, something constructive to our health, our goals in our life.

So that’s my message this week, hopefully you’ve got benefit and value from it. If you did and you’re like me and you like to share things of value with other people, they can benefit from the message. Please do that. Leave a comment, leave a like, and let me know what you thought of your success, your freedom and your happiness until next time we’ll talk to you then.