Breaking Bad

To break bad from bad habits is hard. We’ve likely all tried to get rid of a bad habit, and we’ve all likely failed a few more times than we may be willing to admit. And that’s okay, don’t give up. Here are two steps you can try to use the next time you try to kick a bad habit.

Step 1: Recognize that the habit is bad; acknowledge the need for change. The only way this can truly happen is when you sit and reflect on the damage it’s doing. This doesn’t have to be a significant amount of damage; this could be something like recognizing that sleeping in is causing you to be less productive. The bad habit is sleeping in, the damage is a decrease in overall productivity.

Step 2: Find a positive replacement. Once you decide to quit the bad habit, it’s very important to find a positive replacement. If you quit something, without fining some kind of replacement, you’ll soon feel deprived. A common example is to start chewing gum as a replacement for smoking. In keeping with the sleeping in example, a positive replacement could be something like committing to working out or doing yoga in the morning.