5 Great Ways to Break a Bad Habit

Yes, everyone has bad habits. Whether it’s smoking, biting nails, chewing on things, or even eating too much, it’s possible to get rid of it easier than you think.

With 3 key factors called willpower, determination, and perseverance, you can overcome the nasty habits you’ve developed for good!

Below are 5 strategies that can help you:

1. Commitment. Before you set out to do this, make sure it is what you want. Ask yourself if this is the right time to kick this bad habit? Be honest when answering yourself. If it is to work, it has to be done for the right reasons.

• Don’t allow yourself to be pressured by outsiders. If you need to, do some soul searching to be certain that you’re only doing this for yourself and no one else. After all, it’s your hard work going into quitting or breaking your habit.

2. Start a journal. Every time you engage in your bad habit, write it down. This is to show you the patterns of when the bad habit happens; it’s not to make you feel like a failure. This is to help you to develop ways to prevent it from occurring.

• Be sure to include thoughts and feelings that arose when you practice your bad habit. What this does is it tells you why you’re doing the bad habit. Maybe it’s when your stressed or bored.

• This just might be time consuming recording everything you do but it will certainly speed up the process of breaking the habit.

3. Create an alternative behavior. The behavior you choose can be a reminder of your commitment to quit or can act as a permanent replacement of your bad behavior instead of the bad one!

• One example is to put a rubber band on your wrist and every time you feel the urge to smoke snap it back to remind you that you are quitting!

• Other easier ideas would be to take a walk or read a book or even cook. Any activity that can get your mind off of your bad habit and can be used for an alternative behavior. Just make sure it’s a positive activity; you don’t want to replace one bad habit with another!

4. Start a replacement schedule as soon as possible. Cold turkey with anything is dangerous; you want to gradually start replacing your bad habit with your alternative habit.

• Take it slow by starting maybe with once or twice a week and then build yourself up to where you’re consistently doing your replacement behavior and not your bad habit.

• Be patient, nothing happens overnight! Everyone learns at a different pace. Do not become discouraged if your co-eds quit smoking before you.

5. Be open about it. If you are making the decision to break the habit, spread it to the world! The more people you tell the more support you have from friends and family and everyone else you told.

• It does not matter the outcome of your step forward, what matters is you’ve taken a major step in a positive direction. This is why you need to tell everyone what you’re trying to accomplish. That way, they all can support you and encourage you when you need it the most.

It is not impossible to break a bad habit even though it may seem impossible at times. By using these techniques, you can make it easier and then can celebrate your accomplishments when you finally succeed at kicking the bad habit for good!