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How To Change Bad Habits

Learning to change bad habits can free up your time and energy which can help you to attain more in life. Bad habits are a huge barrier to keeping your self motivation high. They block you from taking the actions you need take to achieve your goals, and in the end you accomplish less.

In the most general sense, habits are your automatic behaviors, the ones you do without consciously thinking about what you are doing. Good habits can save you time and energy by automating productive actions and behaviors, and freeing you to focus your attention on more important matters.

Bad habits can sabotage your efforts by creating problems and issues that you will hinder your ability to get important things done. If you really want to accomplish more in your life, learn how to change bad habits that are currently plaguing you.

Self Awareness

To break bad habits, the first step is to increase your self awareness. Take yourself off of autopilot and start focusing on what you do on a daily basis.

It might be helpful to start carrying around a notebook and writing down observations about yourself, what daily habits seem to be helping and which habits you be better off changing. You may not even realize how many bad habits are driving your actions and interfering with your ability to be productive.

Pay very close attention to the things you normally do without really thinking about it, and really evaluate whether those habits are really serving your long term interests. It can be helpful to ask the people around you to help you identify any bad habits that you may not even be aware of having.

The key is to identify and become aware of those bad habits you'd like to change.

Triggers

Once you become are of what habits you'd like to change, start looking for those things that trigger them.

A habit is basically a default behavior pattern that is often initiated by specific triggers. These triggers can be things you encounter in your environment, or common thought patterns that you have.

For example, an alarm clock in the morning may trigger a set of patterned behaviors that you do without really thinking much about it- you get out of bed, shower, put on your cloths, eat breakfast, etc. When the trigger happens, you just react without thinking what you are doing, and move through a predefined set of actions.

Learn what things trigger your bad habits, and take control. Change the environmental cues that initiate your bad habits, consciously associate negative consequences with the triggers, or if possible, avoid the triggers altogether.

Replace the habit

When you initially change bad habits, there can be a vacuum in which a new habit can be formed.

This is a key point: be proactive in what replaces your bad habit.

You don't want to just replace one bad habit with another. You need to pay close attention to what things you do in place of your old habit. Conscious awareness is the key. For example, you may cut down a habit of watching T.V., but if you just end up spending more time idly surfing the net or playing video games, you may not have really accomplished anything. Be proactive in how you change your bad habits.

As you decide to break bad habits, plan what things you will use to replace them. It may take some time before the new habit is solidified, and it will help if you use positive reinforcement to ingrain the new habit. (Take a look here for more information on forming habits ).

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