Stopping bad habits is often on the top of any list that people create about improving their lives. Bad habits can take up time, have a controlling grasp, and seem impossible to break. However, with a few simple tips and tricks, it’s possible to break any bad habit. Small habits, like nail biting, can be broken fairly easily. Larger habits, such as addictions or OCD compulsions, may take longer to break and even require professional help. Whatever your bad habit is, taking the necessary steps to break the habit can give you back precious time in your life and also give you a sense of empowerment as you regain control of your life from bad habits.
The first simple thing you can do to stop bad habits is to identify the habits in your life that you consider to be bad, and why you want to stop doing those things. Listing out the reasons you want to quit a bad habit will give you extra motivation to quit, and you can refer back to the list and the reasons when you experience obstacles in quitting to regain momentum. Write down everything that you do that you’d consider a bad habit, and then determine which ones are important enough to take action against. Some of the most common bad habits are biting nails, being overly competitive, making excuses, chewing with your mouth open, smoking and many more. Identify your bad habits and how hard it will be to break the habit.
Admitting that you have a bad habit is one of the best ways to start to break down the habit. Tell others that you are going to kick the bad habit and make it known that you are taking steps towards breaking the bad habit to members of your family and your friends. Being accountable to others is one of the best ways to make sure that you stay on track and keep making progress in breaking bad habits. If your habit is something that you normally take part in with others, such as smoking or drinking, you will want to remove yourself from situations where you will be around these people. This will help you remain strong in your resolve to break the bad habit, and not give in to temptation.
The two main ways to break a bad habit are to quit it cold turkey and to replace the habit with another more constructive and positive habit. Stopping a bad habit cold turkey can be very hard, but it also gives you a sense of empowerment over the bad habit. Being able to stop whenever you want on your own free will is a very motivating action. Bad habits that are on the lighter side of the scale, such as nail biting, can most likely be broken cold turkey when a conscious decision is made to stop the bad habit. However, sometimes people have trouble with this method, particularly if the bad habit is an addiction.
Another proven method to break bad habits is to replace the bad habit with a new habit that is not considered bad. These habits could be something like exercise, learning a new hobby, cooking, calling a friend and more. These new habits will not only give you more constructive things to do, but also become your go-to actions when the temptation to participate in a bad habit creeps around. You should begin to replace your bad habit slowly so the change is not overwhelming and causes you to rethink breaking the bad habit. Start by replacing the bad habit with a new habit once or twice a week and work up to replacing the bad habit with the new habit altogether.
