5 Steps to Breaking a Bad Habit & Creating a New One
Our habits make up our day-to-day lives. They give our life structure and consistency — often, we don’t even have to think about them! But what happens when we realize that a habit is keeping us from being as healthy, happy, or fulfilled as we could be otherwise?
If you are trying to break a bad habit, try these 5 steps to set yourself up for success.
Identify your “why”
We are more likely to accomplish our goals when we have defined the purpose behind them. Because it’s not just about what you’re changing, but why. This purpose serves as your driving force, attaching the behavior change to something important and meaningful. Your “why” will support and encourage you to remain focused on the goal. And when you’re tempted to give up or change course, this purpose will serve as your North Star to keep you headed in the right direction.
Choose a substitute
When we are breaking a bad habit, it is naive to think that the desire it meets will simply go away. To combat this, it’s important to find a replacement or substitute for it. This allows us to spend time focusing on cultivating something positive rather than avoiding something negative. It also gives us a distraction from wanting to engage in the bad habit. For example, replacing smoking cigarettes with eating lollipops is a small change that meets the need to keep your hands busy while also helping you quit smoking cigarettes. If you’re trying to change negative self talk, replace it by choosing positive self talk. You are still allowing yourself to have the self talk, but only allowing the positive remarks, which is beneficial to your mental health.
Stay away from triggers
Whether we realize it or not, bad habits are brought on by triggers in our life — often things like stress, boredom, hunger, or loneliness. This is partly due to simply needing something to do to keep busy. Distract yourself by staying busy with positive activities and actively avoiding circumstances or emotions that you know may cause you to revert back to the habit. This can include small scale things such as engaging in a positive hobby, making art, going for a walk, playing sports, or spending time with positive supports in your life (friends and family). It can also include larger scale activities such as volunteering, working, or pursuing a higher education.
Add accountability
Don’t keep your goals to yourself — studies show that those people who verbalize them to others are up to 10x more successful than those who don’t. Share your goals with your friends and family, with your medical providers if it is related to your health, or even share your goals online. In the digital age, it is easy to post something stating what your goals are and have your friends and family follow your journey. For example, if you are choosing to quit smoking, posting it online with your goal and your progress will provide accountability and you will more than likely get positive feedback from friends and family on your goal, which serves as encouragement to continue!
Give yourself grace
You’re not perfect — that’s ok! We are all human and humans are not perfect. When you slip up on your progress toward breaking bad habits and meeting your goals, you can alway refer back to the reason you defined for why you wanted to break the bad habit to begin with (see #1 above). You can look to your friends and family for encouragement to get back on track, and, if necessary, re-evaluate your path and make any adjustments that may have been holding you back from achieving your goal. You can also seek out additional support, as there are many self-help books, online resources, apps and community groups that are designed for and focused on helping people break bad habits.
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Ultimately it is your choice to want to break the bad habit. It may be difficult at times, but you have the power to achieve any goal you set your mind to and the tools to help you do it right at your fingertips!
