How to Break Bad Habit
By: Noah St. John Fan
Tags: Habit Building, Success, Habits, Goals, Bad Habits

Habits are in the news today because a lot of people right now are trying to break one or more bad habits. Based on the study, millions of people all around the world try to break at least one bad habit and yet only eight percent succeed at breaking that habit, boredom takes the energy to pay attention to the future goal. Why is that? One of the main reasons that people are being ingrained breaking a bad habit is that:

They do not understand what a habit really is.

They are not using the right system.

They are relying on the wrong things to try to break that habit.

Habit takes way with what most people have been told to, break a bad habit is behavior that controls, start positive or negative practice. People should form awareness of this action to avoid unhealthy routines and to eliminate unwanted habits. Be aware of negative friends, be social with positive friends to avoid negative practices.

What is the Way That You’ve Been Told to Break A Bad Habit?

Most of us have heard for many years that the way to break a bad habit is you have got to use this thing called willpower. To develop powerful support from your mind that triggers your mindfulness to stay motivated. If you have tried to use willpower to break one or more bad habits, what’s one bad habit?

Procrastination

Overeating

Smoking

Drinking alcohol

Hanging out with the wrong people

Not believing in yourself

Doubting yourself

These are all some of the bad habits that a lot of people try to break every year but unfortunately, they do not do it successfully. These are some of the common bad habits that we try to break and try to do that and try something else but whatever you have been trying to do, most people have been told to use willpower. If you are procrastinating, buckle down and knuckle down and you can put your nose to the grindstone, come on you can do it and the gurus talk about the hustle and the grind. We have heard this, that is great, but it does not work. that does not work at all, why doesn’t it work? There are several reasons, but one of the main reasons that process, and strategy does not work is that you’re setting yourself up to fail, you’re setting yourself up to fail because willpower is a very limited resource.

What Is Willpower?

Willpower is trying to get yourself to change using the power of your will, hence you’re trying to force yourself to change your feelings. How is that working for you? Humans don’t like to be told what to do even by ourselves, even if you’re telling yourself you have to make this change, you don’t want to listen to you just like you wouldn’t want someone else telling you what to do.

What Is A Better Way to Do It?

What’s a better way if you have a bad habit like procrastination or overeating or something that you have to do? You want to make sure that you are using this process, what is the process that we really want to use? Use a process called understanding what a habit really is. Plan your goal and quit the junk feelings, track, and address yourself mentally, crave for something pretty that will encourage you from quitting bad habits.

What Is A Habit?

This is something that I talk about all the time in my books like Power Habits®. Power Habits®, the new science for making success automatic. Habit is simply five stages:

1. Cue

- That is the trigger that happens in your environment, it is the trigger that happens in your day.

2. Routine

- What do you do when the cue is triggered?

3. Reward

- The reward that happens in the brain when you do this habit.

4. Craving

- You get a craving for things you get a craving for, continuing to do this habit.

5. Belief

- Your belief and most people believe.

What does that mean? It is too hard to change these habits, so why even bother? Do you visualize rewarding returns that encourage practicing and stick on the progress? That is what I mean by setting yourself up to fail. We don’t want to do that idea anymore, instead we just want to do a simple three-step process.

Three-step Process

1. Understand the Cue

- What is the cue that’s triggered when you do this bad habit, for example procrastination.

- You are thinking about doing that activity that you know is going to make a big difference for you.

- You think about calling that customer or that prospect.

- You think about doing that video or whatever it might be.

2. Have A Routine

- You go do something else, you procrastinate then do something else.

- If you just change your routine, you say wait a minute, what if I just do that thing maybe just take five minutes.

Do something that is a little uncomfortable but maybe it’s going to make a big difference for me.

3. Use Afformations® Method

- You can learn more about Afformations® Method at Afformations.com

The point is when you go to powerhabitschallenge.com, it is simple and yet it is stunningly effective, it is so effective because we are using what works. what does not work is willpower, it just does not work because willpower is a very limited resource because we can only do so much every single day. It is also known as decision fatigue. That is why people like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg always wore the same outfit. You notice Mark Zuckerberg always wears the same thing, why? because you do not want to have to make so many decisions every single day. That is one example of the use of habits, the right use of willpower. If you have a habit that you would like to break, if you have a habit that you would like to change, remember one thing you actually can’t stop doing, all you can do is replace one habit with another instead of procrastination.

You replace it with doing something that scares you every day instead of smoking.

Do something like eat a healthy snack instead of overspending.

Do something like meditating or thanking god for the gifts of your life.

There are many ways that we can replace and cut a bad habit with a better, more empowering habit. Open your phone to a positive friend and positive habits that may help you reach your goals much faster and easier with a lot less effort. The idea is not easy, strategies may have issues, or it may slip to weeks, but the original plan should not leave. People learn a lot through curiosity, the moment we have learned about the benefit of having a positive mind, the process of being aware changes our behaviors. Cues may repeat itself, stress may happen, remember that the plan is to take control of the habits and ideas to have the capability to shake the cravings away.