How to Get Rid of a Bad Habit and Replace It with a Beneficial Habit
Bad habits disrupt your life and prevent you from reaching your objectives. They put your emotional and physical wellbeing in jeopardy. They are a waste of time and energy for you.
So, why do we continue to do them? Is there anything we can do about it, more importantly? How do you get go of negative habits and replace them with positive ones?
If you keep reading this essay, you will discover how to break a negative habit.
What factors contribute to the development of harmful habits?
The majority of your poor habits are caused by two factors:
Boredom and stress.
Stress and boredom are frequently relieved by bad behaviors. Stress and boredom can lead to everything from picking your nails to overspending, drinking every weekend, and surfing the internet.
It doesn't have to be that way, though. You can learn new and healthy ways to cope with stress and boredom in order to eventually replace your negative habits.
Of course, the worry and boredom that appear on the surface can be a symptom of underlying problems. Although thinking about these concerns can be challenging, if you are serious about making changes, you must be honest with yourself.
Are there underlying ideas and motivations behind harmful habits? Is there something deeper prompting you to cling to something that is bad for you—a fear, an experience, or a limiting belief?
Opening your computer email, for example, makes you feel connected. Looking at all those emails, on the other hand, kills your productivity, distracts you, and worries you out. But it keeps you from feeling like you're missing something... You repeat the process.
Because poor habits provide some sort of value to your life, quitting them is quite difficult. (This is why advice like "stop doing it" is rarely effective.)
Instead, you should choose a new habit that gives the same benefits as your old one.
If you smoke when you're anxious, for example, "quitting" while you're doing so is a horrible idea. Instead, you should develop a new technique to cope with stress and replace smoking with this new practice.
In other words, unhealthy behaviors help you meet specific needs in your life. As a result, it is preferable to replace unhealthy habits with healthy ones that match the same criteria. If you expect to quickly cut through your poor habits without changing them, you will have certain unmet requirements, and sticking to this "don't go" pattern for long will be challenging.
To replace your undesirable behavior, choose an alternative. You should have a strategy in place for how you'll react if you're faced with the stress and discomfort that leads to your bad behaviors. What will you do if you feel the need to smoke? (Instead, try breathing exercises.) What will you do if Facebook asks you to stay a little longer? (For instance, write a line about your profession.) No matter what you're up against, you should have a plan in place to replace your poor habits.
Remove as many triggers as feasible. If you want to smoke while getting a drink, don't go to the bar. If you're at home and you're eating cookies, toss them all out. If the first thing you do when you sit down on the couch is to reach for the TV remote, put it away in another room. Avoid the items that create your negative behaviors to make it simpler to break them.
Your surroundings are currently supporting negative behaviors while stifling beneficial ones. Modify your surroundings to change your results.