3 Easy Steps To Eliminating A Bad Habit!

Have you ever wondered how or why you developed a habit? And how or why a practice became good or bad? Or how and why is it so difficult to break bad habits and so challenging to instill good habits?

Most of the time, bad habits are simply an outlet from stress or boredom. Nail biting, snacking, procrastinating, smoking, drinking, any of this hit home? Bad habits typically happen when our subconscious mind is relieved from a stressful situation or boredom and taken to a place of imaginary peace.

Good habits often take time and a massive amount of focus. This focus puts pressure on our brains, which have roughly over 100 billion nerve cells, trying to process and form over a trillion connections in response to the world. Understanding the trigger points is essential to understanding how to break bad habits.  

In 3 easy steps, let’s begin eliminating your bad habits one at a time.

Recognize That You Have A Bad Habit

First and foremost, we should recognize why habits, good or bad, even form. Habits form because our brain, although powerful, cannot handle the trillions of synapses that are processed. Synapses are transmitters processing every bit of information we receive through smell, hearing, touching, and tasting. So, our brain helps us out by conditioning or training our response to repeated information by forming repeated behaviors.

Not all habits are bad. Patterns are only harmful when they create a negative response from our behavior. Negative patterns take on many forms, such as poor health, consistent tardiness, broken relationships, and an escalated form of depression.

It would be best if you first recognized the difference between your habits, as to whether they are good or bad, then making a list of your top 3 bad habits and prioritize them in numerical order. List the bad practice that is affecting you the most negatively, first.

The first step in eliminating or changing a bad habit is simply recognition. Recognizing that we have a terrible habit and that we want to remove it will help us diagnose the root of the problem.

Diagnose The Root Of The Problem

Numerous studies report that it takes anywhere from 18 to 300 plus days to rewire the brain to eliminate bad habits. The number of times or days to rewire the brain is only relevant to the individual with the bad habit. 

If you are trying to quit smoking and no one else in your household smokes, then the temptation to light up every day will be very minimal than to someone that lives with a smoker who is not ready to give it up. Eliminating bad habits is not based on some given days, but is based on each individual’s surroundings and circumstances.

There is typically a trigger or a pattern that leads to a bad habit. A responsive action began due to boredom or stress, and our subconscious mind recognized a negative/non-difficult response to repeat. Identifying the root of the problem, the trigger if you will, should be the primary focus and not the number of days it takes to kick a bad habit. 

The second step to eliminating a bad habit is to keep a log of every time you carry out the bad habit and write down what triggered your action. Recognize the trigger. 

Replace The Root Of The Problem With A Positive Behavior

Before successfully rewiring our brain to eliminate a bad habit, we must first recognize the bad habit and diagnose the root of the problem or the event that triggers our negative behavior. If the bad habit is distractions that keep you from a productive lifestyle, then turn off all electronic devices while focusing on completing a project. If the bad habit is mindlessly surfing the internet, leaving you with feelings of depression, always have a good book at your side focused on self-improvement. If the bad habit is overeating, buy food that is high in protein like boiled eggs or avocados so that it fills you up faster.

To eliminate bad habits, we must replace the bad habit with a positive behavior that will soon override the repeated pattern over some time.

Closing

Many experts have found that it can take as little as 18 days or as many as 200 to eliminate bad habits. There is no magic answer; it is based solely on the ease and convenience of what we are trying to accomplish.

Bad habits are easy to form; it takes our mind away to another place. Good habits are difficult to create because our minds must be sharp and focused on establishing a pattern. To eliminate harmful practices, you must recognize, diagnose, and replace repeated behaviors with a strategic plan.