Overcome a Bad Habit by Affirming Yourself

Once you’ve decided to jumpstart the process of getting rid of a negative habit, let me give you two words – just two very powerful words – that will help you tremendously:

I can.

We human beings are a strange lot. We sign up for college courses in order to build careers. We reduce our food intake and exercise to lose weight. We doll ourselves up in order to attract the man or woman of our dreams. But how many of us have actually said – and believed – that we can get the end result of what we’ve set out to achieve?

We might create elaborate or even systematic plans to conquer a bad habit, but any plan will crumble if we fail to lay it upon a very strong foundation, and that foundation is an unwavering belief in ourselves. Remember that your attitude towards the beginning of a task will greatly determine whether you will succeed at completing it or not.

Likewise, when we are trying to get rid of a bad habit, be it smoking, being late for appointments, overeating, etc., let’s constantly affirm ourselves that we’re competent enough to achieve a satisfying result.

When faced with a seemingly daunting challenge, I resort to several techniques. The first one is to create mental pictures in my head. Let me share one I’ve always used. I imagine a fence blocking my way like a hurdle in a marathon. The fence could be any bad habit that could be hindering my progress during that time. It could be related to the physical (e.g. being addicted to sweets or staying up way too late too many times) or mental (tormenting myself with doubts). And then I would imagine myself jumping over the fence with confidence and making it to the other side. This would serve as a “symbol” that I should follow through with a plan to finally give up my bad habit.

Another tool I like to use is to jot down at least 10 affirmations on a journal page. When I was trying to give up soda, I wrote down more than several positive and extremely powerful statements, and then allowed them to sink in my mind and heart. Although I admit that it hasn’t been easy, part of the reason I persisted was I kept going back to those powerful affirmations.

Still another system I developed when I was trying to overcome a sedentary lifestyle was to use colored sticky notepads. I created a poster that served as an exercise chart, and then wrote down the minutes I spent working out on the sticky note. Towards the end of the week, I tallied the total hours of the time I spent exercising.

So if you’re aiming to overcome a nasty habit, don’t think you can make do without the affirmations. They fuel action that results to success.