“Good habits are hard to develop but easy to live with” and “Bad habits are easy to develop but hard to live with”, according to Brian Tracey, a well-known motivational teacher. You may recognize that to successfully manage habit changes, breaking bad habits may be required in order to develop new ones.
Breaking bad habits takes at least 21 days. Of course, in difficult cases, it can take as long as a year. Here’s an example of the process of how to change an unhealthy habit to a healthy habit. Suppose you’ve decided that coffee is not good for you and right now, you drink coffee with sugar daily. The new habit you would like to institute is to drink herbal tea without sugar.
At first, it may be challenging to break the bad habit of drinking coffee. You will have to use self-discipline for the first few weeks but gradually it will get easier. Once you are able to change the old habit to a new healthier one, it will serve you very well. Habits are remarkable because they don’t require thinking. You just “do it” for years until you find yourself changing the habit again.
Here are 5 easy steps for changing habits:
1. Awareness: You must become aware of your habits. What is this habit exactly? How is this bad habit or group of bad habits affecting you? How is this habit affecting others? For example, smoking often has negative effects on others as well as on you.
2. Wanting to Change: As someone with a health problem, you must decide that breaking bad habits through a conscious effort is a worthy goal. You must convince yourself that the change in the habit is worth the effort involved.
3. Commitment: You must be determined to do whatever it takes for breaking bad habits so that you can better control your life. You make a decision that “no matter what” you will change the habit. You do the work required to stop. Here are some examples of habits you might want to change: Smoking, eating too much, eating processed foods, not exercising, drinking coffee or other beverages with caffeine in them, eating too much sugar or fat, drinking alcohol, procrastinating, etc.
4. Consistent Action: It is important to focus on changing just one habit at a time. Then, take consistent daily actions for breaking the bad habit that has been causing problems and take the actions to develop a new one. We suggest doing this process one step at a time rather than trying to do it all at once. Sometimes changing a habit can be done “cold turkey” like smoking and sometimes it works better to make a gradual change.
Be sure to give yourself positive rewards often for taking small actions toward changing a bad habit. Continual day-by-day actions are what are critical. This is NOT about an occasional action or step. It is about being consistent every day.
5. Perseverance: There will be times when you question whether it is all worth it. You’ll say to yourself that breaking these bad habits is too difficult; that you are too “weak” to change. Your old self, often so comfortable living with the bad habits, is trying to hold on. Breaking your old patterns may require meditation and prayer.
Visualize regularly the rewards for following through and the costs of not following through on breaking the bad habits and especially the value to your future of building new better habits.
Get support from others, especially other people who want to make changes in their lives and read about people who have been successful in breaking bad habits. Affirm that, no matter what, you will not backslide into your old bad habit patterns.
Now, you are armed with a 5-step process for breaking any bad habit or other condition that requires changing. If you have an addiction to something such as alcohol, these steps alone may not be enough. You may require additional professional help or a support group, but for most cases this 5-step process will do the trick!
T. McDonald is a lifelong student of inner growth and a writer. She edits Diabetes Guide where you will find information on the glycemic index diet, weight loss, diets, managing diabetes, alternative sweeteners, breast cancer bracelets, how to prevent breast cancer and much more.
Copyright 2005 T. McDonald
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Article Source Breaking Bad Habits – 5 Simple Steps for Changing a Habit
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I think of the 5 suggestions you made number 5 is the most important. I’ve found that you have to keep trying and trying again. Breaking a habit is very hard, but once you do – very worth the effort. Thanks for providing these great tips on what it takes.
Dr Irene, very well written article – nice one!
Changing bad habits or old mindsets can be one of the most difficult things you’ll ever do and that’s why I agree with Kim. The thing to remember though is that processes of self improvement are always fair.
If you put yourself through something seemingly painful for your ‘greater good’ then the benefits afterwards will far outweigh the sacrifice made! The challenge in breaking a habit seems to be there as a chance for you to prove that you are worthy of the new lease of life that will be brought about by your removing of that habit.
I hope that makes sense!
Much Love
Sam Davis
You are so right that bad habits are easy to start good ones are the hard ones to get started. Great article. Need to break a habit http://www.fineandwell.com.
Changing habits can be very tough. Some changes can happen more naturally, whilst others require us to apply self-discipline and persistence as you mentioned in point 5.
A good strategy to test whether or not a habit would provide the benefits perceived is to conduct a 21 day trial as Brian Tracy recommends.
If we like and notice a shift in benefits then we can keep it. If not we chuck it away.
Good post!
Marvin
This 5 step plan is good. I am about to change one bad habit at a time. I want to stop having negative thoughts, no matter what it is about. I want to consciously get myself think of something good when a negative thought comes up until I just and only think positive. I can imagine that this is possible. Though I believe that this is one habit that will take me longer to change as 21 days.