Breaking a Bad Habit is Not Impossible

Breaking a bad habit is easier planned then done. Breaking bad habits can be hard without the right tools emotionally, physically and support-wise.

There are some sure fire ways to break a bad habit. The first thing that can break a bad habit is external circumstances. An external circumstance is when something that is very important to you is threatened by your bad habit. This can be your livelihood; your health; or your loved ones health or needs. A good example of this would be a parent who quits smoking to live longer for their child; or an individual that comes to work on time in order not to be fired.

External circumstances are great motivators; and if you can create one for yourself, it will make quitting your bad habit much easier. But, external circumstances are not reliable tools for quilting. They depend on something external from you; and if you need to quit something right now, all you know you can depend on is yourself.

Sometimes also when the external motivator changes; you return back to the negative habit. What happens if the child and parent grow apart and begin fighting all the time? Things done for the child by the parent may start to seem futile. Will the parent return to smoking? What about if the employee gets a new easy going boss. Will the employee fall back into lateness for work?

Step 1: You must decide to quit. You must decide for yourself why you want to quit. You must look inside and see if you really want to quit. Many times if we really look inside our hearts with honesty, we will see that we don't truly want to quit. We must find a true reason within our hearts to quit any behavior or we will not quit the behavior. We may discover an enabler hiding in our midst or we may discover that there is much more work to be done.

Let's say for example that your bad habit is shopping and you spend over 70% of your income shopping and are about to lose your home. You discover that you don't want to stop shopping. But, you've found the true reason within your heart to quit is that you need a place to live. But, you may discover that on some level you don't feel worthy of a place to live because you are disgusted with yourself for being unable to change your habits. Or you may find that you feel deep down if you do run out of money that you can run to a family member for help. You may find deep down that if you do that; you are not required to change because of an enabler.

Step 2: You must understand why you're repeating the behavior and address the source of the problem or you're doomed to regress even if you quit for a little while. Let's say you eat ice cream every night as a reward for working at your job everyday. Let's say your goal is to eat ice cream only on Fridays as a reward. Seems easy enough; but you're finding it really hard to quit. Maybe this is not the right job for you if it gives you this much stress; and you need to start looking for something more suited to you.

Step 3: Set goals. Setting goals is like praying. If you have a religious faith and belief; then I recommend praying and setting goals. It's amazing how close you will get to your goals if you just try to head in the right direction. As long as you're not going purposefully in a completely different direction; you will get much further if you set goals and try to reach them. (I personally feel you will get even further if you set goals and pray.) Don't force yourself or abuse yourself if you fail or have small failures along the way. Just try to learn from them and keep setting goals. Never stop. In a year or two you will surprise yourself.

Step 4: Keep a log of your successes. Read it from time to time.

Step 5: Use a healthy substitution like drink water whenever you want a cigarette. That might be a stretch; but you catch my drift. You wouldn't eat more so that you don't want cigarettes. That would be an unhealthy substitution of course. Often healthy substitutions can turn into good habits.