Let’s talk about habits and more importantly – how to break bad habits.
It doesn’t matter if your bad habits are smoking, having too much sugar, gossiping or lack of self-care in favour of basically everything else.
If you want to be your best self, you know there are certain habits you must leave behind.
But how?
How to Break Bad Habits?
There are a few ways to give up bad habits, and I’ll quickly go over them below.
1. Replace a Bad Habit With a Good One
Many scientists have said that it’s not possible to remove a habit but only to replace it with another one.
It’s something like quitting smoking by chewing gum every time you feel the need to smoke. So, if you want to give up on a bad habit, choose a good one to replace it with.
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2. Remove the habit trigger
In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about the four stages of developing a habit, no matter if it’s a good or a bad one: Cue, Craving, Response and Reward.
The Cue is every bit of information our brain picks up and around us and predicts a reward at the end of specific behavior.
The Craving is the physical or psychological need to have or do something.
The Response is when we follow the Cue and the Craving with action – we perform the future habit.
The Reward – we get dopamine of satisfying our Craving in one way or another.
Every habit you have goes through this process every single time.
James Clear suggests as one of the ways to give up on a habit is to cut the Cue out, to remove the trigger.
For example, let’s say you’re trying to eat healthily and cut out junk food, carbs or any high-calorie food.
Yeah, but every day you pass by that pizza place or junk-food truck, and the smell of the food triggers all types of cravings in your brain.
You probably rarely resist the temptation and often get something from there. If you’d like to remove that bad habit of indulging in unhealthy food, you might have to remove the trigger. Obviously, you can’t move the pizza place somewhere else, but you certainly can walk on the other side of the road or if possible take another route home.
In this way, you’ve removed the trigger. Your brain won’t get the clue and evolve it into Craving.
Problem solved.
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3. Make it hard to perform
We are lazy. We live in a world that promotes how easy everything should be and how hustle-free we should get things. And while in most cases that’s bad, in some cases it’s actually a very good thing.
Especially when you’re trying to give up on bad habits.
If a habit is hard to perform, we would usually drop it in a while. For example, if we decide, I want to run 5 miles every day, and I’ve never done it before (I haven’t!), chances are by the third morning I’ll be seeping in instead of jogging in the park.
At the same time, if you want to wake up early in the morning, but always hit the snooze button too many times before getting up, you might want to put your phone across the room. In this case, once you’re out of bed, it will be easier to stay up than to go back to sleep.
If you’re trying to reduce the social media time, try deleting all the apps from the phone and logging in through the browser instead. Manually placing your log in details every time will drastically reduce the dopamine in your brain, and you’ll end up using social media less often.
4. Celebrate Every Win
How to break bad habits forever and make them never come back?
Never underestimate the power of celebration and self-praising.
Every day that you don’t smoke is a win. Every time you don’t get that junk food sandwich is a huge win. Every moment you spend in working on your dreams instead of mindlessly watching reality shows is a huge personal growth win.
Celebrate that day. Cross it off the habit tracker. Reward yourself even more. Show off to your family and friends. You deserve their praise as well.
5. Never give up
It’s impossible to count how many time I’ve decided to stop doing something (or to start doing something), and I’ve failed. For a very long time, I felt like a failure, but I realised that the process of learning is what builds my character, not the end result.
The idea of changing your life is to do it no matter what, and by that, it often means by going over your own old beliefs, toxic behaviour, bad habits, poor self-care and self-love.
The point of everything we achieve is not just to check it off a list, but to actually allow it to improve us, change us forever.
So don’t give up if you go back to that old bad habit. Just start all over again. What other choices you have if you truly want to improve yourself and your life?
Top 3 books on how to break bad habits
Atomic Habits by James Clear
I talk about this book all over the blog, but there’s a reason why.
James Clear knows how to get under your skin, explains the psychology behind every tiny habit you perform and helps you develop good habits in a way that works for you.
I listened to his book through Audible, narrated by him, and I cannot stress how important it is to get it for yourself too.
Listen to this book for free here.
The Greatest Salesman in The World
Og Mandino and his book The Greatest Salesman in The World are another must-have. The book is old, published in the 60s, but it reflects every single we face with habits today. After all, human’s behaviour hasn’t evolved too much for 60 years.
The Greatest Salesman comes with ten simple tips – scriptures, to read every day and implement into your life. It’s an actionable book, and if you’re someone who looks for clear guidance, then this book is your perfect choice.
Listen to this book for free here.
5 AM Club
This is the last book by Robin Sharma, one of my all-time favourite life-coaches and motivational speakers. He also gives you clear steps to follow, but the level of motivation is so high, his language is so different from everything else out there… it’s something you must see for yourself.
5 AM Club is the book that combines the best of Sharma and explains how to transform your life be the best in what you do by pushing your limits.
Listen to this book for free here.
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Think about what craving your habit is really satisfying. Going to the break room for a cup of coffee might not really be satisfying a coffee urge; what you really may be craving is the chance to hang out with other people and getting coffee is just an excuse. Work hard to identify the reward, because to change a habit the reward has to stay the same. You won’t deny yourself the reward-;you’ll just make the way you get that reward a lot more productive or positive..