A Guide to Breaking Bad Habits

Habits are behaviors we perform daily and with little thought process to do so. Habits are important for many reasons, one being that they allow our brains to take a break from simpler tasks and decisions by performing them automatically, which frees up energy so it can focus on more demanding things like relationships or problem solving skills. Some habits we developed are bad, however. We’ll be talking about some tips to breaking bad habits today.

The fact is that habits can make it easier to reach our goals in life. That is, if you choose to develop the right ones for you. Having a better health, for example, could be a general goal that habits can help you to achieve. You can set a specific goal, such as lose x pounds, be able to run a 5k mile in x minutes or lower cholesterol levels by a certain percentage; by a certain date. When your goals are timed and measurable, it becomes easier to work back from your final goal date to today and determine what are all the required steps to get there.

But health improvement is just one example, you can use habits to reach many other types of goals in life.

Positive X Negative Habits

We all have habits. Some are positive, meaning, they contribute to making our lives better and bring us closer to reaching our goals, while the negative ones go in the opposite direction. Going back to the health goals above, good habits would be a daily exercise routine and a balanced diet, while a bad habit would be to sit all day, frequent visits to fast food restaurants and smoking, for example.

So, in order to use habits as a tool for improving our lives, we need to start by auditing our current behaviors and classifying them as positive or negative. Take a few minutes a day to write down what habits you can detect on your daily routine. What are the goals you would like your habits to support achieving? Also write these down. Then, the next step would be to identify which negative habits need to be eliminated, according to if these habits are supporting or hindering the achievement of your goals.

How to Determine Which Bad Habit to Break First

Change your habits for the better by making small changes such as gradually eliminating one bad habit at a time. Start slow, so that you are able to sustain these changes. If you want to get into shape, start small. Don’t assume that just because you’re starting with a walk around the neighborhood means your ultimate goal will have to be five miles every morning. Set goals for yourself that are achievable first and work up from there.

Say your goal is to invest US$1K by the end of the year. You’ve worked it back to today, and determined how much you need to set aside per month (hopefully when you did this it was January! 😀 ). However, when you look at your finances you realize your restaurant dining habit is taking a large part of your monthly expenses, and you are not able to set that monthly amount aside yet.

One way to fix that would be to find a way to make more money, so you could keep your dining out frequency. But, for the purposes of this example, let’s say you decide the way to support your goal is to cut down the times you dine out in a month. If you used to dine out 4 times a week and cutting it back to one or two enables you to set aside your monthly goal, great! If not, check what other spending habit might be getting in the way.

Habits Die Hard

Once you eliminate one, celebrate! No need to spend the money you saved on this one… there are creative ways to celebrate that don’t cost anything. When you settle in this new routine (give yourself some time), then tackle the next bad habit on the list!

Don’t be hard on yourself: trying to eliminate a list of bad habits all at once is setting yourself up for failure. You’ve probably taken years to build these habits into your routine, don’t fool yourself into thinking they’ll go away easily.

One thing you can do to facilitate changing or eliminating a habit is to identify what situation triggers it. For example, if you want to eliminate your habit of eating a bowl of ice cream before going to bed, see if there’s a specific situation that triggers the desire to do it. Is it the stress of the day? Is it the need to reward yourself for a whole day of hard work?

Then try to replace with something else but positive: maybe a hot bath would do the trick, or a cup of Greek yogurt. Sometimes habits fulfill a need, and not addressing that need is the exact formula to bring you back to the bad habit in no time.

Why We Have Bad Habits

One of the main reasons we have bad habits is because the behavior feels good or serves a purpose. So, it’s important to retrain your brain to use some other source of reward and break that link. First you’ll need to find out which negative behaviors you want to get rid of, then try breaking them one at a time by filling up on other rewarding activities instead.

What Are Habit Loops?

A habit loop describes the 3 consecutive parts of a habit: a trigger, a behavior, and a reward. A habit starts with a trigger, a behavior and ends with a reward. This is why it’s important to identify your bad habit triggers.

The way of breaking the loop is by identifying triggers in order to avoid them, as well as looking out for alternative rewards so there isn’t any relapse.

This is why writing a habit log for a while is helpful in identifying all the components of the habits you want to get rid of, since it should contain also the triggers, and rewards for each of them.

For example, I had a period when I’d frequently bite my lips. I identified the trigger to be driving, since this was the only time I had the urge to do that, probably due to some traffic-related anxiety. The reward here would be that the act would release that anxiety. However, I ended up with chapped lips, so this had to end. I started buying packs of sugarless chewing gum and using them while driving – since the chewing calmed my nerves down the same way (alternative reward), I was able to break the habit!

Patience and Kindness

Breaking bad habits can be challenging! When you decide you will take control over your actions, be aware that falling off the wagon is normal! Breaking bad habits can be challenging! Get back up, dust yourself, and try again. It is not helpful to add guilt and shame to this process. Persistence is key.

New studies show smokers try to quit around 30 times before they are successful! Be patient and kind with yourself.

Get Support

Lastly, find a friend or family member to hold you accountable. Besides increasing your chances of success, you will have someone rooting for you and to celebrate with when you reach your goal!

Pin This!