Feeling like it’s too hard to stop a bad habit? It may seem hard. Nevertheless, with understanding, preparation, and focus you can leave behind old habits. And focus on new effective ones.
What is a habit?
An automatic set of behaviors forms habits. Habits are important. They shape the routines in our lives. Good habits are healthy, productive, and beneficial behaviors. These include exercising, eating right, and getting the right amount of sleep.
Bad habits are unhealthy behaviors that sabotage our well-being. The good news is that you can train yourself to turn negative behaviors into positive ones.
How a habit is formed
To break a habit, it’s important to understand how it is built. Bad habits are a cycle of triggers, behaviors, and rewards.
Triggers: Your external or internal environment causes triggers. A trigger could be a persistent thought, something you see, or an emotion. Triggers are stimuli that can cause strong emotional responses. They spark a strong emotional reaction.
Behaviors: Next comes behaviors. You create behaviors to cope with triggers. When a negative emotion, thought or feeling triggers you, your brain looks for a way to make you feel better.
Rewards: When you engage in a behavior that will relieve your emotions, you have a feeling of reward. Rewards are usually short, and quick fixes. They feel good to relieve stress in the moment to relieve stress.
Therefore, bad habits form when hurt, stressed, or disturbed.
Let’s look at an example:
Let’s say you’re stressed at work one day and decide to go outside on your break. You decide to get a sugary drink to deal with the stress. Then, a couple of days later you’re stressed again and you do the same thing.
Trigger: Stress at work is the trigger.
Behavior: Going outside.
Reward: Sugary drink.
Habits form in this way.
Emotional experiences create a bad habit. Intentional actions create a good habit.
Bad habits are often short-lived rewards for the brain and body. This includes getting a sugary drink after a long day, taking a smoke break, or eating fast food. The reward for bad habits is short-lived and accessible. Therefore, your brain and body will find the easiest activity to get you to feel better even if it’s only temporary. These actions take little to no thought to engage in because they need little to no effort.
5 ways to successfully overcome a bad habit
Find the reason you started
The first step is to find out why you started which is the root cause of the behavior. In other words, you want to figure out why you started in the first place. Through self-reflection and awareness, you can start to unpack the root of the problem. As a result,, you will understand why you started this habit in the first place. When you know what the cause is you can then create an action plan to overcome it. Trauma and past experiences can affect our behaviors, thoughts and emotions. You can learn more about healing trauma and past experiences here.
Here are a few things to ask yourself to find the reason you started:
When did this start?
How long have I been doing it?
Why do I need it?
What is this habit doing for me?
Is this habit rooted in fear or a limiting belief about myself?
Take action and prepare to be uncomfortable
After you’ve done some digging and found the reason you started, take action toward change. Bad habits can be easy to start but uncomfortable when working to break them. You can’t wait for the “willpower” to kick in one day. Discipline yourself to be patient and persistent in the process.
Talk to someone about it
Talking to someone is valuable. Confessing that you need help with this problem is therapeutic. It also shows you’re serious about overcoming the issue. Moreover, bad habits can begin for an array of reasons. Hardship, suffering and pain can cause bad habits. Deep issues can cause us to create negative behavior. Sometimes the cause of our behavior can go back to decades in our youth or early adulthood. Hire a professional or talk to a friend about it. Additionally, you can also join support groups or local communities. You can book a clarity call with me here.
Focus on new habits
Start creating one new habit in place of the old one. Choose something new and exciting to engage in. Start a new hobby or activity like meditation, stretching, exercise, painting, or photography. Challenge yourself to engage in this new activity on a regular basis. Doing this helps keep your mind off of the old habit and focus on the new one.
Practice being present
The present moment is where we engage our senses. Life is happening right now all around us. The process from your goal of breaking a habit to the destination can be slow and painful. Learn to enjoy find joy in every step towards your goals. Henceforth, when we’re stuck in a habit, we give little to no attention to when we’re doing it. It becomes automatic. Discipline disrupts automatic behavior. When you are aware, you can learn to better control your emotions as a result. Being present is learning to be aware of ourselves and choosing the right thoughts. It’s learning to practice disciplining our body, mind, and emotions. In conclusion, habits come down to discipline.
