You're Addicted to You: Why It's So Hard to Change- and What You Can Do About It

In "You're Addicted to You," Executive Coach Noah Blumenthal argues that there is no magical pill for changing your ingrained behaviors. People often try to treat their behavioral addictions the way they would treat a common cold. Take a couple aspirin, and it will disappear.Not the case for self-addictions.There is an endless wealth of information on improving one's self, on how to become thinner, or smarter, or kinder, or happier, or more charismatic, or better in general. However, very few of these books actually work.Most of these books provide new behaviors and supply wonderful ideas, but they don't help us address our current addictions and ingrained behaviors. We have had our behaviors shaped, molded and reinforced thousands of times over the course of our lifetime. We have been conditioned to act in a certain way when faced with certain types of situations. We can't simply come up with something better and turn off the old behavior.As such, much of the difficulty we have with change is not for lack of information on what to change; rather, it is because we don't know how to change. We know what we want to do, but we don't know how to adjust when we get into situations that bring out our bad habits. Without an effective plan for getting past our engrained roadblocks, efforts to move toward improvements will continuously fall flat. This book is dedicated to helping us lay out that plan and break our self-addictions Using Blumenthal's solution-based "Circles of Strength" model, You're Addicted to You offers a three-pronged strategy with specific actions to help readers make real change. In Step 1, Raising Awareness, we build strength in our knowledge of the change we are making. In Step 2, Building Support, we create strength in the network of people who will help us in our change efforts. Finally, in Step 3, Taking Action, we develop strength in the routines that we can use to make the change. Following these steps will give us the strength we need to overcome our self-addictions.