This video explores the concept of personal change by breaking down the process into small, manageable steps. It uses the metaphor of a jungle to explain how habits and routines form in the brain, making change challenging but achievable with understanding and effort.

If you are like most people, there is a gap between the person you are and the person you wish to be. There are little things you think you should do and big things you ought to achieve, from working out regularly, eating healthily, learning a language, working on your novel, reading more, or simply actually doing your hobby instead of browsing Reddit. But it sometimes feels that to achieve your goals, you have to become a different person—someone who is consistent, puts in more effort, and has discipline and willpower. Maybe you've tried your hardest to be like that, and it worked—for a while—until you find yourself slipping back into your old ways. In the end, you always seem to fail, and with every failed attempt, you become more and more frustrated and annoyed with yourself. If you believe the success and hustle internet, it's all your own fault. If you don't succeed, you just didn't want it enough, and the failure is all you. But change is actually hard, and as with most things in life, understanding why makes things easier. **The Jungle** Imagine your brain as a lush and dense jungle. Moving through it, say to make a decision to do something, is like moving through an actual jungle. It's hard, and it costs energy. Your brain hates expending energy, so it came up with a trick. All your actions and behaviors leave paths in the jungle of your brain. As you start doing something, you trample down some plants and make rough, improvised trails through the undergrowth. The more often you do the thing, the more pronounced the trail becomes. Over time, it turns into a path that is easier to tread, so you take it more often, and it turns into a street. As you repeat doing the thing over and over for years, the street turns into a highway. Traversing it becomes effortless, familiar, and comfortable. The more pronounced your brain highways, the more you get used to their comfort. So we continue to use them, which means we tend to do what we've always done. This is why change is hard, especially as an adult, when your jungle is crisscrossed by lots of established streets and highways. To understand how those highways are built, we need to distinguish between two things: routines and habits. **Routines and Habits** A routine is a sequence of actions that you carry out the same way every time because they've worked out well for you. For example, you get the same ingredients for your favorite dish and cook them in a certain order because you like the taste of the result. Or before going to bed, you set an alarm at 6:30 because this is when you want to get up. Imagine routines as being executed by a wise planner. It's slow and analytical, responsible for strategizing and mental calculations. The planner is aware of the future and carefully considers what kind of result you want. Based on that, it chooses actions to achieve specific outcomes, even if they are uncomfortable, like taking a shower after getting up.