Bad Habits: Learn how to be more successful today
Bad habits are hard to get rid of.
Your brain interprets your bad habits as pleasure or reward.
Common bad habits like:
- Overeating
- Overdrinking
- Oversleeping
- Overworking
- Over-Netflixing
- Over-porning
- Over-spending
These habits can feel like pleasure, but they are not.
They carry long term consequences.
The brain will gladly ignore this fact to receive the dopamine hit it receives when you engage in these activities.
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Breaking a bad habit doesn’t start with doing things differently.
It starts with why…
Why do you want to stop your bad habit?
Why do you want to start a good habit?
The answer is because you know that your bad habit is making you unhappy.
It may feel good when you are doing it, but you know that without it you could be happier.
Why is it so hard to create new habits?
In this article you will learn:
- How to break you bad habit
- How to avoid starting it again
- How to build better habits
- How to stick to your better habits
‘Successful people aren’t born that way.
They become successful by establishing the habit of doing things unsuccessful people don’t like to do.
The successful people don’t always like these things themselves; they just get on and do them.”
– William Makepeace Thackeray
These 7 steps will help you break your bad habit
#1 Recognize when you’re overindulging
You overindulge to avoid negative feelings.
Oversleeping, overdrinking, overeating, overworking, or over whatevering, are all habits you have created to avoid feeling something.
These habits provide you with a easy dopamine hit and just like that you’ve found a solution to your problem
You get stuck in this cycle because you aren’t aware of what is happening and you don’t know where else to get this pleasure from.
Sleeping in isn’t bad.
Having a glass of wine isn’t bad.
Eating a piece of cake isn’t bad.
It becomes bad when a habit becomes your new norm.
#2 Figure out why you are overindulging
When you catch yourself overindulging, think about what is going on in your life that you are avoiding dealing with.
If you have a hard time breaking your bad habits, then you need to look at why you are indulging in them in the first place.
Try asking yourself some questions:
- What is going on?
- The thought you are having about it?
- How does this thought make you feel?
- What are you making this mean?
- Why do you feel this way?
#3 Find triggers
A habit is just a repetitive thought that triggers a feeling within you.
This feeling then creates an action or inaction.
This is how your habit is created.
The more you practice your habit, the more ingrained into your personality it becomes, and the harder it is to unlearn it.
It becomes a part of you, that you feel you do not have control over.
This is why your habit is so hard to break.
It isn’t just something you do.
It is a series of events that take place, without your knowledge, that cause you to realize you are doing something that is not beneficial to your future self.
#4 Become aware
If you want stop this cycle from keeping you stuck in your bad habit, then you need to become aware of the thoughts you are having in reaction to your triggers.
Pay attention to the thoughts you are having, just before you feel triggered to indulge.
You may not be aware of the thought at first, but you will notice the impulse to indulge in your bad habit.
Whenever you feel the urge to indulge, retrace what you were thinking just before the impulse.
Your brain is wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
When the brain is stressed it will keep going back to what has relieved this in the past.
Your bad habit acts like pleasure to the brain.
This bad habit provides relief to your brain from the thoughts and feelings you do not want to deal with.
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# 5 Practice the new habit
If you want to overcome a bad habit, you can’t simply just stop. Instead, you are going to need to practice the desired habit, in place of the bad habit.
This step is crucial.
It will take time and commitment.
Your brain is going to try and exchange your bad habit for another bad habit.
Your brain is still in instant gratification mode.
For instance, it will try to exchange overdrinking for overspending and overspending for overeating.
Your job then is to practice your desired habit in place of the bad habit and the urge to perform the bad habit!
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#6 Allow your urges
Anytime you learn something new it is difficult at first, but it does get easier if you keep practicing and stay committed.
The same applies to learning a new habit.
You brain is going to tell you that you cant do it, that it’s too hard or that giving up would be easier.
Your job is to allow theses thoughts and feelings.
Allow them, but choose how you will respond.
The objective here is to respond to your urges by replacing the impulse for the bad habit with a new and better habit.
Every time you feel the urge to give in to your bad habit, you will intentionally perform the new habit instead.
#7 Remind yourself
Remind yourself why you gave up the bad habit in the first place.
You will find yourself bargaining and wanting to ‘reward’ yourself for performing your new and better habit, with the bad habit you are trying to get rid of.
Coming up with a strong and personal ‘why’ will help you to combat the tricks and urges of the mind.
Remind yourself of your ‘why’, whenever you’re feeling triggered to indulge in your bad habit.
Remind yourself when you are having a bad day.
Remind yourself when everything is going great and you want to celebrate.
If you remind yourself and continue to practice replacing your bad habits with better ones, you will eventually retrain your brain to associate these new, good habits with pleasure!
Final note:
You may think its easier to break a promise to yourself than to someone else, but its actually more difficult.
You see you have to live with the feeling of letting yourself down.
You can try to ignore it or numb it, but it’ll keep reminding you.
Maybe when you see someone else living a life you want.
Maybe when your 5 year plan comes to a close and you still haven’t reached your goals.
Maybe you’ll be reminded every morning you wake up hungover, longing for the productivity and freshness of a sober morning.
You could be reminded when you get frustrated that you’ve gained weight, when you really wanted to lose some.
In all these moments you will be reminded of the promise you broke to yourself and it wont feel good.
It will become another feeling you want to avoid.
So make the easy choice and invest in yourself now, so that when you get to the future you can live the life of your dreams.
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