Four Steps to Break Bad Habits

All of us have things we do without thinking about them. Maybe it’s taping the pen on the desk when we’re deep in thought. Or maybe it’s procrastinating on projects we don’t want to work on. Or it could be spending hours looking at forwards instead of working on assignments with tight deadlines. There are tons of behaviors we would probably change about ourselves if we could and if we were committed to achieving our long-term goals. But where do you start? Well, you can start right here with these four steps to break bad habits.

Step 1: Recognize the Habit

As mentioned above, habits are generally things we do automatically without consciously being aware of them. Our brain was designed for habituation – that’s how we can learn so many new things and be able to do them so easily. The bad part of that inclination is that when we want to break bad habits we have to force ourselves to pay attention to the habits that we would normally just ignore. If we don’t take that step, we’ll end up being unable to make the changes necessary. So you must make a conscious decision to pay attention to your actions and to watch for the habit.

Step 2: Desire Change

No one can break bad habits without a strong desire to do so. If you don’t have the proper motivation, it’s not going to happen. Once you recognize the need to change and you decide you want to change, you’ve accomplished the second important step on the way to breaking those bad habits.

Step 3: Make Changes

What you should do next is to begin watching yourself. Each time you attempt to do that habit, you should adjust your behavior. For example, if you’re trying to break bad habits like smoking, you would do something else. You might grab a lollipop or a piece of gum or maybe run in place or do a game of solitaire on the computer. The important thing is that you distract yourself from what you are doing. The distraction helps to break the habit. If you continue distracting yourself, you’ll eventually get over the hump and be well on your way to breaking the habit.

Step 4: Reward Yourself

Once you are successful you should do something nice for yourself as a reward. Give yourself small treats along the way to keep your motivation high. For example, if you’ve been successful at your attempt to break bad habits for a week, buy yourself a present or do your favorite activity. If you continue your progress for a month, choose a bigger reward. It might even help to think about the rewards ahead of time so you can strive towards reaching them and can use that to fight off the urge to engage in the habitual behavior. Just make sure the reward is in no way connected to the bad habit.