Can I break my bad habits?

Habits are what we do on a continual basis.

They are learnt and you can develop a habit within 30 days.  So how can we use habits to achieve more in life?

Well let’s first start by saying that most habits we have are not good habits.  I know I have some that I really need to work on!  Seriously, I really do want to stop some habits I have.

It would seem that many of us develop habits that are negative.  That is they have a negative effect on our lives.  They don’t enhance they hold us back.

They are the reason we are not achieving what we are going for.  These habits keep our potential back and stop us from being all that we could be.

If you are reading this post then you probably know what I am talking about.  You may have a some habits you know that you want to stop.  There are the obvious habits: -

1. Smoking
2. Drinking
3. Eat food you don’t need to eat
4. Watching too much television

These are just a selection of the ones I am sure you can list.

What is really damaging is the fact that when we “do” one of these habits we beat ourselves up about it.  It’s another negative feeling, another moment when we tell ourselves that we are “stupid”.

And that is also a bad habit, being negative to yourself.

All in all the message to your subconscious is not good.  It tells your subconscious that you do lots of negative things.  As as we know, if you train your subconscious to believe that then it will do more of what you have trained it to.

We are humans.  We have flaws and we know it.  But if we are beings that can think why do we let these habits control our lives?

Well that is really the question we should answer.  I believe it is just the lack of knowing how much we are letting habits control our lives.  If we all knew how much habits controlled, and I mean know as in really know, our lives then we would control them.  Right?  I think we would.

On that basis then we let habits control our lives.  We let these negative actions develop so that we don’t even see how much they are changing us.

And that is the big challenge.  We have to stop these developing into habits we are not in control of or realise what is a negative habit now and change it.  This is achievable if you are prepared to put in the work to do this.

Let’s take a look at some of the common habits that we might not think about.

1. Swearing
2. Being rude
3. Not listening
4. Talking too much
5. Getting angry all the time
6. Putting people down
7. Feeling sorry for ourselves

Do you see yourself doing these?  I would be surprised if you said no.

These are the habits that we don’t think about that much but can cause major problems.  So the first steps to solving bad habits is to realise we have them!

Once we have admitted that we can start to put a process in place that will stop these habits. Here are some basic steps you can use: -

1. Admit you have the habit
2. Write down exactly what you think it is
3. Write down each time you do it
4. Write down the positive and negative of the habit
5. Keep that list with you.  Each time you see yourself doing the habit show yourself the list

This is the start of how you can stop habits.  You have to show yourself that you don’t want to go on doing the same thing.  You have to show yourself that what you are doing is negative.

So then what?

Well it’s really is just about keeping reminding yourself that you don’t want to do the habit and realise the negative effect it has.  I know this looks simple but it does work so give it a try.

At the start of this article I asked – How can we use habits to achieve more in life?

Well its pretty much the same as getting rid of bad habits.

Firstly see if you have any “good” habits that are helping towards your goals.  If you haven’t got your goals you could read my post on how to set goals.

Once you have written these down then we need to work out what you can start to do that will get you to your goals.  Let me give you a good example.

Let’s say your goal is to run 3 times a week for 30 minutes.  A good habit to get into would be to go running!  But let’s say that you are unable to run for 30 minutes unless you stop a couple of times.  A habit that will get you towards your goal would be to go running 3 times a week and keep that up for at least a month.  Don’t worry if you have to walk.  Eventually you will be able to run for the whole 30 minutes.

You see, that would be a good habit to get into.

Let’s take another example.  let’s say you want to get more new clients in your business but you are not really that good at sales.  Well I would say, having been in professional sales for over 10 years, that selling is really talking to people.  You talk, ask questions, listen, find out what they want and then help them get that!

So for this goal I would say all you have to do is make a habit of talking to 5 more people a day.  They don’t even have to be potential customers just people in the street!  Yes this will feel bizarre but you should give it a go!

Over time this will give you the confidence to approach people and eventually approach new clients.  As before, I know this looks simple but it really does work.

We now have a way that we can develop new habits.  All you have to do is do them everyday.  After a while you won’t even know you are doing them.  They become second nature and you will not really remember not doing them!

Does this really work?  I mean can I change my habits and use them to be successful?  The answer to that is a YES!  I know this works because I have used it and know many other people who have also used it.

if you want a great book on this then Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is really the book to check out.

What I would say is, if you think it won’t work, try it for a month and see what happens.  If you do and nothing positive occurs I want to know.

Go for it.

Matt

Related posts:

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
2. Are you putting good seed in your head? Why you are your biggest enemy