It's finally here, the plan to help you stop overeating, pulling your hair out, biting your nails subconsciously, and walking around like a zombie from being sleep-deprived. Your answers are all here.
Do me a favor and ask yourself ‘How many times have you’ve tried to stop eating candy, junk food, overeating, quit smoking, or anything that has had a negative impact on your life?
If you answered “yes” to anything stated above, don’t you think it's time to try a whole different approach.
Breaking old habits can be hard and challenging but they are also necessary. I want to bring to your attention that you are currently where you are in life because of your habits.
Habits are repetitive behaviors that you do without even noticing. We do things all the time that we never notice because we are creatures of habit.
The habits become uncontrollable because they are all triggered by our minds.
Have you ever driven home and do not remember the car ride? The reasoning behind this is because our minds go into autopilot and move the body the way it wants it to go.
Maneuvering in autopilot can be good, but can also suck big time. We have to be more conscious and act more with intention in the way we react to our everyday life. And that’s the only way we can start to change for the better. Use these strategies to break your old habits.
1. Be Aware
In order to start moving in the right direction, you have to be aware of your habits. You have to notice when you're going to dive into that bowl of ice cream or go back for seconds (thirds, fourths, and even fifths). To get down to the nitty-gritty it’s going to require a little journaling. Take out a pen and paper, record what the bad habits were, what triggered it, and what you did or reward was.
If you are unaware you have a problem, you’ll never be able to stop the problem from recurring.
2. Environment Shift
One of the most simplistic ways of creating change is to change your environment or scenery. We associate our bad habits with the environment, the time of day, and people. We do this all subconsciously without even thinking twice about it. Switch up the cues and before you know you can change the way you act
Have you ever noticed when you are around a friend who swears a lot, you start swearing more? You swear more because you have trained yourself to act this way when you are around this person. Change the meet-up place to a more public place like a library, and I'm sure you will probably swear less.
3. Add an Obstacle
Making your negative behaviors positive is a great way to break your old bad habits. Try adding an obstacle to make doing the habit more difficult. Get a little creative with your obstacles if you truly want to change. If you always feel like you overeat when you go out to eat, try drinking more water before you go out to eat. Do you sit down at a computer way too long? Get an uncomfortable back support chair, so it forces you to stand up more. Just creating mini obstacles in your day can help block some of your automated behaviors.
4. Be Presented
Know exactly where you are at and exactly what you are doing. Living in the moment is probably one of the most important things you can do. You have to be real with yourself and ask difficult questions, like “What am I getting from this?’ You have to value what you are doing and notice if it is really fulfilling a need or an emotion.
Also ask yourself, “Is this getting me any closer to my goals?” You have to be conscious of how you feel and if you are getting better or worse with keeping up with this habit.
5. When/Then Plan
Listen you are going to have moments when things just don’t work in your favor and you give in to your old habits. But, you need to create a solid backup plan to help you with your journey. Create a plan that states When I do… Then I will do. This will help you stay accountable for the goals that you have set for yourself.
It only gets easier when you practice it. But if you never practice and expect it to work, the change will never happen.
Just keep implementing the strategies above and break those old bad habits, and soon these will become good habits. And BOOM that’s how change happens.