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How to Break up With Bad Habits
Bad habits interrupt your life and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. They jeopardize your health both mentally and physically and they waste your time and energy.
Here are three sure steps to get over bad habits once and for all.
- Take your mind away.
After you have made up your mind to quit from a habit, and you have found your alternative, commit to quitting your bad habits by going mindless every time a bad habit trigger appears. Committing to change means that you do not continue to make excuses and you cannot give yourself any room to convince yourself why you can just skip it once. Do not think whether you should do the bad habit or not, just don’t do it no matter what.
- Be super aware whether you have done the bad habit every day.
Write down how things are going with your commitment. It’s easy to lose track of progress if you do not make a note of your behaviors. Writing down your behaviors might reveal patterns related to these moments of weakness. If you can spot the pattern, you may be able to disrupt it.
- Have a strict reward/punishment system.
Reward yourself when you stick with your commitment. It does not have to be costly, but it should be valuable to you. Start small with small victories and plan a big one when you are finally and for sure over the habit. The only stipulation is that you cannot reward your good behavior with the bad habit. Designate a consequence for engaging in the negative habit. The consequence doesn’t need to be emotionally damaging. It just needs to cause enough discomfort or inconvenience to make you think twice about falling into old patterns. This also helps to keep you accountable. Your system of rewards and consequences are transactions that can help you eliminate your bad habits and automate the good ones.
