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Habit Busting!

It was Aristotle who said, “We are what we repeatedly do,” but there are habits that we may not want to define us.

Good habits actually let us accomplish things. We need to freeze sometimes and reflect on the order we do things. Most of us have a routine for even the little things like setting the table or washing up at night. Basically habits allow us to be economical with our time and reduce the stress of having to make decisions.

Regardless, there are many habits that are beneficial and others that are just so destructive. They can infringe on our ability to be creative, effective and functional. These ‘bad” habits can hurt our health, lifestyle, and our relationship.

Eating fast food daily for example, is a habit that can eventually impact on our health. Some habits are based on things that worked in the past, but these also can negatively effective our well being like automatically putting sugar and salt on a food item without trying how something tastes first. These kinds of habits usually don’t change without medical admonitions or interventions.

The good news is that you can change habits that are detrimental to you.

First you need to understand that you may have supported bad habits and enabled by others around you at one point in your life, but those habits are doing you no good today. For instance, if you used to eat past 10 PM, continuing that habit may lead to discomfort and unwanted weight gain. Habit busting starts with education and self- awareness.
It is easy to be in denial about how bad your habit really if you had derived significant pleasure from it. Actually, feedback can breakdown that denial. If you asked two or three close friends to identify what are some of your good and bad habits, you may find their input invaluable.

Overall, habits are very hard to change. For some people, it may take years to change their bad eating habits, especially without the help of a habit-busting coach. As it could take years to perfect lifestyle habits, a considerable amount of time can be reduced if we consistently try to visualize how we want to change, live and practice new habits. Even though habits are slow to be hard wired, you need to change your habits that are detrimental to your life.

Keeping a journal is another way to change habits is to become aware of destructive habits. A great way to become aware of your bad habits is to write about how each day went. Shortly you will see that even journal writing can become a habit Doing one thing differently each day is another to change unwanted habits. Taking an apple to work for a late afternoon snack can help curb a late afternoon candy bar habit. An apple will not hurt our teeth or bodies as much as a candy bar and not take away our appetite.

Here are some other helpful suggestions for healthy habit change:

1. Be prepared to grieve because it can be hard to say goodbye to even a bad habit.

2. Set a target positive goal and write it down like “I want to eat more vegetables or get out and walk more.” Once you see the positive goal written down you will slowly see your habit change.

3. Write a list of positive justifications and reasons why eliminating that detrimental habit would be the best thing for you now. This list will help you to see the bigger picture and feel more committed to take positive steps.

4. Find a new routine or substitute routine. For instance, if you eat more during a particular time of day, you may want to begin another activity than eating during that time.

5. Empower yourself by saying to yourself each day,” I can do it; I am getting closer to the very goal I want. By talking to yourself you will slowly break ties to all of the triggers that foster your bad habit that got you off track.

6. Encourage support by telling the people you care about that you see yourself making this change and need make this change.

7. Set your boundaries with people who may try to sabotage your motivation to change. Asserting your position will help people respect your need to change.

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© Arlene Unger, Your guide to positive Stress, Habut Busting, Anger Management, Life and Weight Management.
www.MyPrivateCoach.com: Life Coach - Life Coaching
Arlene Unger is the Clinical Psychologist with over 20 years of experience and additional certifications in Nutrition, Sports Psychology, Executive Coaching, Addiction, Nonverbal Therapies, and Communication Disorders Coach at My Private Coach. She can be contacted at info@myprivatecoach.com.
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