Continued from part 1…
Rebel
Research suggests that one of the main reasons we persist with bad habits is that so many other people have them too; they are cultural norms. That makes sense: It’s hard to say no to fast-food burgers, French fries, and soda when everyone around you is eating them. But they are bad for you. The message: Pay no attention to social norms. You are not defined by them. Do what’s right for you, rather than worrying about fitting in. Chances are, others will respect you for your choices not shun you. An even better strategy: Spend less time with people who have bad habits and more time with people who have the good habits you want to develop.
Put Obstacles in Place
In his 2010 book, “The Happiness Advantage,” positive psychologist Shawn Achor says that you can break bad habits by putting obstacles in place that stop you from carrying out the behavior. For example, if one of your bad habits is to check Twitter when you should be working, you could disconnect from the Internet by using software applications such as Freedom and Anti-Social to block access to it; or move desks, so that people who are passing can see your computer screen.
You also need to avoid the people, places, or situations that trigger the bad habit, if this is appropriate. For instance, imagine that you’re trying to stop gossiping at work. You know that you engage in the behavior during lunch with a specific group of colleagues, so you resolve to avoid the break room, and, instead, eat lunch outside or at your desk.
Engage in Positive Behaviors
Often, you can break bad habits by replacing them with positive behaviors. For example, let’s say that you want to stop criticizing team members. One way to avoid this would be to make a conscious effort to praise people instead. Or, imagine that your goal is to stop checking your email in sales meetings. You could replace this by taking detailed notes on what’s being discussed, or by offering to chair the meeting.
Replace
Most of your bad habits are caused by two things… stress and boredom. Everything from biting your nails to overspending on a shopping spree to drinking every weekend to wasting time on the Internet can be a simple response to stress and boredom. But that doesn’t mean that bad habits are useless. Bad habits address certain needs in your life and for that reason, you need to replace them with habits that satisfy that same need. For example, if you smoke when you get stressed, then it’s a bad plan to “just stop smoking” when that happens. Instead, you should come up with a different way to deal with stress and insert that new behavior instead of having a cigarette. If you waste time by turning on the TV whenever you feel bored, then you need to develop a new habit to address your boredom.
The easiest way to break a habit is to replace it with a new one. Begin by identifying the payoff your bad habit was providing—relaxation, escape, reward, satisfying a hunger, or just filling time. Make sure your replacement fulfills that need as well, but in a healthy way. Change your evening bowl of ice cream to an evening bowl of strawberries. Change your after-dinner TV habit with an after-dinner walking habit. Change your 2 p.m. can of soda habit with a 2 p.m. cup of tea. Remember: All habits aren’t bad, just the unhealthy ones.
Choose a substitute for your bad habit
You need to have a plan ahead of time for how you will respond when you face the stress or boredom that prompts your bad habit. What are you going to do when you get the urge to smoke? (Example: breathing exercises instead.) What are you going to do when Facebook is calling to you to procrastinate? (Example: Write one sentence for work.) Whatever it is and whatever you’re dealing with, you need to have a plan for what you will do instead of your bad habit. If you expect yourself to simply cut out bad habits without replacing them, then you’ll have certain needs that will be unmet and it’s going to be hard to stick to a routine of “just don’t do it” for very long
Plan
Once you’ve got yourself in the right state of mind to take on a bad habit, you need to do one more thing before taking action: Plan your approach. Will you stop cold turkey? What day do you start? Will you keep a journal of the process? What awards for success will you grant yourself, and when? Who else will you involve in the process? A clear, detailed plan helps provide the rigor and discipline to succeed.
Act
So far, we’ve talked about the mindset changes that precede taking on a bad habit. But don’t let internal factors hijack the process. It’s easy to overthink the changes you want to make. Take action! Experts say that most habits can be broken if you can go 30 days without them. Focus simply on this: no partaking in the habit for one month. Then focus on 30 more days.
Cut out as many triggers as possible.
If you smoke when you drink, then don’t go to the bar. If you eat cookies when they are in the house, then throw them all away. If the first thing you do when you sit on the couch is pick up the TV remote, then hide the remote in a closet in a different room. Make it easier on yourself to break bad habits by avoiding the things that cause them.
Right now, your environment makes your bad habit easier and good habits harder. Change your environment and you can change the outcome.
Honor yourself
The research is clear here too: People who try to make a change due to guilt or frustration often fail. People who respect and like themselves — and who are generally happy with who they are — are more likely to succeed. So challenge your bad habit from a position of personal strength and confidence, not a perspective of failure or weakness. Remember that you have countless good habits and qualities, and only a handful of ones that warrant change.
Visualize yourself succeeding
See yourself throwing away the cigarettes or buying healthy food or waking up early. Whatever the bad habit is that you are looking to break, visualize yourself crushing it, smiling, and enjoying your success. See yourself building a new identity.
Reward Yourself
To break a bad habit, it’s helpful to reward yourself for engaging in the positive behavior.
The reason rewards are important is because when you stop the old behavior you won’t get that all-important dopamine surge; however, the reward will give it instead. Over time, your brain will start to associate this new, positive behavior with the dopamine surge coming from the reward.
How you reward yourself is up to you, but make sure that it’s something that you truly want and will enjoy. Successes big or small should be celebrated. Heartfelt praise is often the most powerful reward—whether from others or yourself. But there’s no reason you can’t dangle the promise of a material reward for interim successes. Just don’t reward a month of no ice cream with a bowl of ice cream. Make the reward something entirely unrelated, like a new outfit or a night out.
Rewards will do the most good if you give them instantly or on the same day that you demonstrate the “good” behavior. You’ll likely only need the rewards you set for yourself for a few weeks; once you’ve established the positive behavior, you won’t need to reward yourself as often.
You don’t need to be someone else, you just need to return to the old you. So often we think that to break our bad habits, we need to become an entirely new person. The truth is that you already have it in you to be someone without your bad habits. In fact, it’s very unlikely that you had these bad habits all of your life. You don’t need to quit smoking, you just need to return to being a non-smoker. You don’t need to transform into a healthy person, you just need to return to being healthy. Even if it was years ago, you have already lived without this bad habit, which means you can most definitely do it again.
Involve Others
Finally, consider asking people such as your colleagues, family members, and friends to help you break your bad habits. Share your goals with them, and ask them to tell you if you slip back into your old ways. This will provide further accountability, and boost your motivation. There’s a reason so much of corporate America long ago shifted to a team orientation; groups of people sharing the same goal succeed better than individuals who go it alone. Pick your team members carefully—your spouse might or might not be one—and empower them to help you achieve your goal with reminders, praise, distractions, even backrubs. And remember: The hallmark of good teamwork is communication. For your personal team to be engaged, you need to talk openly and frequently with them, just as you would with a corporate team. The team can hold each other accountable and celebrate your victories together. Knowing that someone else expects you to be better is a powerful motivator.
Forgive
When you slip up, forgive yourself. Start the next day fresh and fully committed to beating the habit. No one is keeping a scorecard. Yesterday’s mistake is history. Learn from it, and move on. People who are committed to breaking a habit don’t throw up their hands in defeat after a few lapses. Rather, they apply themselves even more.
Use the word “but” to overcome negative self-talk. One thing about battling bad habits is that it’s easy to judge yourself for not acting better. Every time you slip up or make a mistake, it’s easy to tell yourself how much you suck. Whenever that happens, finish the sentence with “but”…
- “I’m fat and out of shape, butI could be in shape a few months from now.”
- “I’m stupid and nobody respects me, butI’m working to develop a valuable skill.”
- “I’m a failure, buteverybody fails sometimes.”
Plan for failure. We all slip up every now and then. As Steve Kamb says, “When you screw up, skip a workout, eat bad foods, or sleep in, it doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you human. Welcome to the club.” So rather than beating yourself up over a mistake, plan for it. We all get off track, what separates top performers from everyone else is that they get back on track very quickly.
Where to go from here
Breaking bad habits takes time and effort, but mostly it takes perseverance. Most people who end up breaking their bad habits try and fail multiple times before they make it work. You might not have success right away, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have it at all. So keep up the good work and keep trying. When you get down on yourself and want to quit, think about the words of Michael Jordan one of the winningest NBA players in history: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I have been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I have succeeded”.
References
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/bad-habits
http://jamesclear.com/three-steps-habit-change
http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/3-easy-steps-to-breaking-bad-habits
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/bad-habits.htm
http://www.rd.com/health/wellness/how-to-break-a-habit-in-12-steps/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clear/breaking-habits_b_3540148.html