Think about all the undesirable situations currently in your life. Do you suffer from money problems? Health issues like obesity or smoker’s cough? Hygienic problems? Give yourself an honest assessment and identify areas of your life that are causing you problems. Once you’ve identified the undesired situations in your life, take a step back and analyze your behavior and your actions to determine what you’re doing that is causing/creating those situations. Are your money problems caused by compulsive shopping? Perhaps weight problems are caused by poor diet or lack of exercise? A smoker’s cough is undeniably caused by smoking, which may lead to money problems as well. Most undesirable habits fall into one of three categories: habits of the mind (such as thinking negative thoughts about yourself), habits of consumption (like overeating or smoking cigarettes), and habits of behavior (such as anxious nail biting, or biting lips and cheeks). Recognizing where your habit falls on this spectrum can help you identify other factors, like when and why you engage in that behavior.
Some of the most common reasons for bad habits are attention, pleasure/gratification, excitement, comfort/validation, avoidance, and lack of consequences. Are your bad behaviors reinforced by others, or just by your own needs? Think about why your motivators (like attention, validation, etc. ) are important to you. What do you get out of feeling that way?[3] X Research source
Train your mind to become more aware of your mood and your thoughts/feelings immediately before you engage in the bad habit.
You may be able to get support from friends/relatives, but you’ll need to believe in yourself first and foremost. Making the commitment to transform your own behavior will help motivate you to work hard and break your undesirable habits.
Specific - your goals should be clearly defined and should identify the what, why, and how of your transformation. For example, a specific goal here might be “I want to stop biting my nails whenever I’m nervous, and I will do this by replacing my nail-biting habit with a gum-chewing habit. " Measurable - you should define goals that are quantified with tangible evidence. The best way to create measurable goals is by building several short-term or “minor” goals into your plan as a path of progress towards your ultimate goal. For example, when trying to stop biting your nails, decide that each week you’ll stop biting your nails in increasingly-stressful situations. Start at home, then when you’re traveling to work, then while you’re at work, and after that you will kick the habit entirely. Achievable - your goals should challenge you somewhat, but they should ultimately be goals that you have the knowledge and skills to achieve. Results-focused - your goals should be measured by outcomes, not activities. In other words, you’ll know you’ve met your goal when you’ve accomplished something (such as breaking your bad habit, or going a prolonged period of time without engaging in it). Time-bound - your goal should be built around a set frame of time in which you will work towards and ultimately achieve the end result. For example, decide that by the end of the first month, you’ll have stopped biting your nails at home, by the second month you’ll have stopped doing it while commuting, and so forth.
If you are trying to break a behavioral habit, you might try making it unpleasant or otherwise difficult to engage in that habit. This could mean avoiding the thing you want to stop doing, or it could mean modifying some aspect of the behavior to make it undesirable. Say, for example, you’re trying to stop chewing your pen cap. You could make all of your pen caps less appealing by applying a safe, unpleasant-tasting flavor extract on all of your pens. That way if you do find yourself mindlessly putting the pen in your mouth, the taste will correct that habit almost immediately.
Healthy, productive distractions should be constructive, not destructive. A healthy distraction should require your full attention. [9] X Research source Instead of giving in to the craving for your habit, try talking to a friend or journaling about why you engage in that habit. It will keep you engaged and prevent you from dwelling on how great it might temporarily feel to revert back to your habit.
Push yourself in small increments. Expose yourself a little at a time, perhaps having a trusted friend with you at first until you become comfortable. Then, little by little, expose yourself to your source of stress in increasingly-longer sessions until you can experience whatever it is you feared alone and for prolonged periods.
Changing yourself for the better is a two-part process. Getting rid of a bad habit comes first, but staying away from that habit in the future requires you to find a new habit to replace it.
Keystone habits give you a sense of satisfaction from a series of small, minor victories. It should be something that gives you immediate results, and it should be manageable no matter what level of change you’re at. Good keystone habits rely on a cue and a subsequent reward in order to be successful long term. For example, if you are trying to check your email less often, your cue might be to start working for an uninterrupted length of time beginning at the top of the hour, and if you succeed you can allow yourself to check your email (reward).
Accepting support doesn’t just mean learning to receive the support of others. It also means learning to support yourself. It may be very difficult for you to believe in yourself, but working to do so everyday will help you on the road to making permanent changes. Learn to celebrate small victories. If you reach a milestone on the way to accomplishing your larger goals, take the time to feel good about your progress. Reward yourself with some kind of healthy treat, but don’t use your success as an excuse to indulge in whatever bad habit you’re in the process of breaking. [14] X Research source
If you’re trying to continue eating healthy, don’t keep fatty junk food in your house. If you’re trying to stay away from cigarettes, don’t keep a pack lying around your apartment. Purge yourself of anything that could cause you to pick up your old habit again, and stay away from situations that might tempt you.
