Eight Tips On How To Break The Bad Habits

We are not born with habits; we give birth to them, feed them, nourish them, and make them healthy.

There is nothing wrong with this until you feed the bad habits and starve the right one because these habits soon may become either your silent enemy or may turn into a loyal friend.

Now, before proceeding further, let us understand a few things about habit-forming.

Because by understanding this concept, you can solve the problems promptly.

Habits are formed through a habit loop, which includes a cue, routine, and reward.

Let me explain it by taking an example: I used to drink lots of coffee during the dusk and wanted to get rid of it anyway, but I cannot control my mind when the sun sets because I was addicted to coffee during that time. I usually convince myself that drinking a cup of coffee will calm down my mind. So here, the cue was the evening time that triggered me to go for the coffee. Routine was the repetitive action of drinking coffee that I was taking for several years. And the reward was the thought that coffee will make my mind relax.

So how to break the loop?

The routine part is the stubborn one amongst all the three, so we need to focus on the cue and the reward that motivates us for any action.

In my case, I substituted the cue part by taking an evening walk and swapped the reward part with green tea. I tried breaking the routine by not buying coffee anymore. 

Although it seems easy, it’s not that easy in reality.

To defeat the bad habits you need to take a few steps

1.Start slowly: You can’t change things at once, so take baby steps. First, work on the part that you are comfortable with. For me, it was easy to break the cue one. For you, it may be a reward. So keep on experimenting.

2.Be a detective: Try to find out what is stimulating your mind to go for the action. Then try to divert it with something else.

3.Consistency: A habit is like a mountain that is formed after years of deposition.

If you do things once in a while, that will not leave a more significant impact on your habit structure. You have to work on it consistently. Habits are very stubborn to break. So you have to become tenacious to defy it.

4.Be an analyst: Know about your habits, try to figure out whether the habit you are staying with is harmful or beneficial for you. You can do some research on it.

5.Keep a distance from the wrong company: Most bad habits are formed due to bad company. Make sure with whom you are roaming around. Sometimes destiny plays the role of weaving a web for you, like putting you in the wrong company, and we slowly tend to cultivate bad habits and become addicted.

And once you are stuck in the vicious circle of bad habits, you will keep on spinning in the same process, landing nowhere, and it’s tough to break those habits.

5.Hack your mind: Both the miscreant and the warrior are sitting inside your mind. If you can able to handle them successfully, then only you can win. Practice meditation it will help in calming the mind and help in making properly controlled decisions.

6.Be a gatekeeper: Bad habits love you a lot; they keep on returning even if you kicked them hard. They will try to convince you to accept them again and again. So be conscious of the things that you are doing. Keep a check of your activities by doing proper planning.

7.Never give up: When it comes to stubborn habits, many people fail because they easily surrender in front of it. Be strong, never give up, and you will win.

8.Discipline: This is the key ingredient that works like magic if you know how the magic wand works. If you are disciplined and supposed to stick to your strict actions against your bad habits, they are forced to leave their seats.

If we cultivate good habits they can make us successful; the choice lies in our hands, which one to sow ,the good one or the bad one. By implementing these few steps, we can give our life a new chance and complete makeover.