Successful Ways to Break Bad Habits and Develop Good Habits
When you remove your bad habits from your good ones, determines your true value. We all have good or bad habits we are trying to adopt or break. Some of our habits can pose threats to our well-being. From time to time, we work towards eliminating bad habits from our lives and creating good new habits that will prove beneficial to us.
Many people fail at keeping up good healthy habits, despite repeated resolutions and trials to do so. It is difficult to break free from bad habits that you have kept up for a long time, just as it is difficult to develop and keep up new good habits that you have not done before.
There are reasons why people keep failing at keeping up good habits and breaking free from bad ones. There are steps people can take to improve their chance of success in creating good habits and dropping bad ones.
There are many ways you can benefit from developing new good and healthy habits. If you develop a new good habit and keep at it for a while, it becomes part of you.
Below are some healthy habits people try to develop from time to time:
Working out regularly, meditating, praying, making healthy choices with their meals, etc. You can make a habit of anything you want to carry out regularly that will prove beneficial over a period of time.
You can make healthy activities habits by following the simple tips given below:
1. MAKE IT A GRADUAL PROCESS:
If you intend to develop a good habit and become successful at it, you should not expect to just start it and keep at it for a long time. You increase the odds of failing if you make your changes drastic. If you want to start running every day, start with small distances and you can do a brisk walk. With time, you can gradually increase the time and intensity you spend at it.
If you want to eat healthily, you can start with making healthy choices with your in-between snacks. You can eat healthy fruits and nuts as your snacks, instead of changing your whole eating process at once. With time you can keep replacing your food choices like swapping your choice of drinks for water and smoothies.
2. TELL A TRUSTED FRIEND, FAMILY MEMBER, OR ACQUAINTANCE
If you make yourself accountable to someone you trust and will not want to fail, you can help yourself stick to your new habit. If a family member, friend, or acquaintance knows about your plans to replace your sedentary morning life with a healthy run, you can become accountable when you do not want to disappoint the person or make the person feel you are not up to the task.
3. REWARD YOURSELF FOR LITTE SUCCESS
You need to remind yourself you are making progress and feel proud that you are doing things to improve your life. If after some time you make progress by sticking to your new routine, take out time to reward yourself for it.
You can take a relaxation trip to the spa or massage parlor. Treat yourself to some pedicure, or you can go shopping for things you like. You earned it.
4. FOCUS ON ONE AT A TIME
Many times, we have many things we want to change in our lives. Sometimes we want to change the way we eat, change our daily exercise routines, or start walking long distances to the mall or book store.
To prevent yourself from getting overwhelmed, you should try making a change at a time. It might seem you are not doing much making a change at a time but these small changes make a massive difference in your lifestyle. If you stick to making a change at a time, you will stand a high chance of succeeding.
5. DO NOT FORCE IT
If you want to make changes in your life, stick to routines that you will find fun and you really want to do it. Do not just make changes in your daily activities because people say it will work out well for you. You need to have your personal reasons why you want to succeed at it and know the benefits that come with it.
If you want to improve your body shape and shed some weight, you do not need to hit the gym if you do not like going to the gym. They are fun activities like yoga, belly dancing, and brisk walking you can adopt to start your journey of having a healthy shape.
6. WRITE OUT A PLAN
If you intend to succeed in your newfound habit, you need to put it into writing. You can stay on track if you prepare a list of the good habits you want to adopt and prioritize your list.
You can also break down your routine into daily and weekly activities. This will help you stay on track and from time to time, give you the extra motivation you need.
7. HAVE EXACT STEPS
To succeed in new habits, you need to stop having a vague target. If you intend to start running every day, have daily and weekly planned targets to meet. This will stop you from rationalizing your tasks. If you need to jog in the morning, have a schedule. If it is 30 minutes, hit the road and meet the set time.
If you intend to start drinking more water daily, have a set number of glasses to drink and make sure you meet that daily number of glasses of water.
8. USE AVAILABLE RESOURCES
You need outside sources of motivation and help to stay on track. Use tools at your disposal to help you keep up with your plan. You can prepare a spreadsheet on your system, or make a to-do list. You can write your daily goals, and targets you met in a journal. You can prepare sticky notes that will serve as a reminder and put them in places that will draw your eyes. You can prepare an alarm or schedule chart on your mobile device.
You need to use the resources available to help you stay on track and keep you motivated
9. DO NOT LET LITTLE SLIPS WEIGH YOU DOWN
Remember that everyone slips up from time to time. When you slip up, do not berate yourself about it. It is normal for little failures to take place. What matters is remembering why you decided to make the changes. Keep in mind the benefits that will come with your changes and continue at it the next day.
If you fail to wake up on time for your early morning run, do not feel bad about it. Remember you have tomorrow to go at it again. Pick yourself up and use some motivational tools to make sure you continue the next day.
You should not let little failures make you quit but use them as a motivation source to make you continue pushing.
Breaking old habits can prove difficult. We do things occasionally that can prove detrimental to our health and lives. Sometimes we make unhealthy choices with our food, lead sedentary lives, smoke cigarettes, procrastinate important tasks, over drinking, etc.
All of us have unhealthy habits that we will have to break but find it difficult to do so. What makes breaking healthy habits difficult is doing it for a long time until they become part of us. Many times, we do them subconsciously.
If we want to see drastic improvements in our lives and health, we need to work on breaking bad habits.
REASONS WHY WE FAIL AT BREAKING BAD HABITS
1. LACK OF PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE
Most times, desperation for quick results can lead us to give up hope. This can lead us to fall back into our old bad habits. Keep in mind that it did not take a day to develop the habit. Sometimes, we have made this wrong choice over years. Remember it takes time and you need to have a patient mindset that with time, you can drop the habit.
2. NOT PAYING ATTENTION
Most times, we carry out bad habits on autopilot. For instance, if you are used to watching TV and having a bag of chips, you will not know when you have eaten the whole bag. Some drink without realizing how much drink they have consumed until it is too late.
You need to become self-aware and pay attention to things around you. If you find yourself unconsciously doing a habit you are working on changing, stop it immediately.
Take steps to prevent yourself from doing these things unconsciously. You can clear your fridge of unhealthy foods, drinks, and other triggers.
3. POOR EMOTIONAL COPING MECHANISM
Many people use unhealthy choices as an emotional coping mechanism to beat anxiety, stress, or depression. Some people turn to cigarette sticks when they feel under stress. Some people binge eat junk foods to help fight depression.
If you want to beat bad habits to improve your life, you need to find other sources to help deal with emotional distress. You can try eating healthy snacks or ‘comfort foods’ when you are emotionally down. If you are under stress, you can try meditating, exercising, or going for a massage to de-stress.
You can build a healthy emotional coping mechanism to help you deal with stress, anxiety, and depression.
4. TRYING TO DO IT ALONE
Many times we embark on a journey to improve our lives by breaking bad habits, we try to do it on our own. We often have fears of disappointing those we love. This robs us of having the necessary support system to help us break the habit.
To succeed at breaking a bad habit, reach out to friends, family members, and acquaintances. They can give you emotional support when you need one. They can help you stay motivated and make you accountable for your actions.
5. BEING TOO HARD ON YOURSELF
Just as adopting new good habits can prove difficult and lead to occasional slip-ups. Dropping a bad habit is also a difficult task. You will fail many times at it before you get it working for you. When you have some failures or slip-ups, do not beat yourself hard. It happens to everyone. Breaking a bad habit is a marathon, and it is not a sprint race. You will slow down sometimes but if you keep at it, you will get to the finish line.
Instead of beating yourself about failing, remember the benefits that come with meeting your goals. This will keep you motivated to keep working on it. Remember why getting this right is important and how it can help improve your life.
Instead of bothering about your slip-ups, work on things that can help prevent further slip-ups. It is okay to have little failures but how you bounce back will help you win.
I hope you work on these tips to help you stay focused on developing good habits and cut your chances of failing at it. You can also beat old habits that are drawing you back.
Remember, with successful habits, you increase your chances of becoming a success.
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