How I tricked my mind into quitting tea

Have you heard of the “fresh start effect?”

You must have experienced it, but might not know the term for it. I myself didn’t know it. Actually, I googled it to know what that means.

It’s the reason New Year, Mondays, birthdays, or even a new month suddenly feel like the right time for you to change things.

We feel like these days give us a clean slate. Like, whatever we messed up before doesn’t matter anymore.

That’s why we plan new habits around them. We decide to wake up early, eat better, focus more, or finally fix what isn’t working.

But most of the time, it doesn’t work.

Starting from a “special day” feels safe and hopeful. But waiting for it often means putting things off and teaching the mind to wait instead of act.

To really change, you must have a system of your own. Below is one I created for myself, and it worked.

I used to drink way too much tea, which wasn’t a very good habit. I heard people saying that they can’t give up tea, and I also thought it’s indeed a difficult task. For a long time, I had difficulty reducing tea; I always failed.

Then I realised it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing situation, especially when I was trying to quit something which, in my mind, was an impossible task.

The first barrier I noticed was in my head.

Quitting tea wasn’t impossible; I had just accepted it as impossible. So before trying to change myself, I had to shake that belief.

You can’t go from 100 to 1 in a day. But you can go from 100 to 99 on day one.

And that first step is always in your hands.

So, I started reading about how too much tea can harm the body. The more I read, the stronger this new belief became. This is where you collect proof that change is possible.

After collecting proof that reducing tea is the right thing to do, I found it became easy to adapt to my new habit.

I also found that telling a friend or family member what you’re trying to do really helps. It keeps you on track and gives a little push, but you still have to do the work yourself.

The next thing I did was to notice how far I’ve come.

I’ve cut my tea down to just one cup a day, and now I don’t feel like I need it all the time. I drink it only when I actually feel like it.

Can it be applied to any other habit? Yes!

It works for almost anything, like exercising or waking up earlier.

Just see if there’s any limiting belief holding you back, shake it a bit at a time, collect proof of its possibility, ask for validation if you need, and record how far you’ve come.

That’s one way I found to change my habit. There can be many other systems you can try. So let me know in the comments if you have any others.