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People tend to internalize a series of patterns that they carry with them for the rest of their lives. While some of these habits help us out in times of need, bad habits have dangerous downsides that can affect our relationships, day-to-day activities, and productivity.
Learning to break free from these negative patterns is a liberating and life-changing experience. And although it’s not easy, it can be done.
Here are seven ways to exclude bad habits from your life and start forming better ones:
1. Find New Productive Habits
Having a total behavior change doesn’t mean you’ll drop all your habits entirely. Somewhere along the way, you’ll be inevitably forming a new habit. However, you do have a choice on whether this habit will have a positive or negative impact on your life.
Take control of how your habits affect you and the people around you by replacing bad habits with more productive ones. For instance, smokers weaning themselves off for the first time try to find other things to divert and focus their attention on, like chewing on gum or finding other outlets for stress instead.
2. Train Your Brain
As we’ve already established, habits are deep-seated patterns in our brain. To break the pattern, you’ll need to train your brain to constantly reject it once it starts. Avoid reverting back to negative patterns by keeping a close watch on yourself and your actions.
Do you find yourself falling back into those crushing routines? Gather enough willpower to shake yourself out of it. It may feel unnatural at first, especially if the habit has been around for some time and feels like the more familiar choice, but it will be more beneficial to both you and your loved ones to let it go.
3. Get to the Root of the Problem
Sometimes it may be difficult to identify bad habits until they become detrimental to your day-to-day life. However, once you’re able to pin it down, one of the best ways to get it out of your life for good is to get to the root of the problem.
Find out what triggers your habit. For a lot of people, stress is a strong trigger of unhealthy behavior. A few examples are binge eating, violence, or general negativity. Finding out what causes you to act a certain way can help you undo it at its very core and weed out naturally.
4. End Unhealthy Relationships
Staying in a place or with a person who doesn’t bring out the best in you can make it even more difficult to break a bad habit. Get away from enabling persons or places which push you towards negative behavior. Seek out positivity in an active way.
The unfamiliar may seem daunting at first, but rest assured that this is for your own good in the long run. Free yourself from unproductive situations and look out for the best type of relationships and environments to help you grow, rather than put you down.
5. Start with an Incentive
Studies show that incentives can strengthen your resolve against something. It may not seem like a healthy thing to do on a regular basis, but it’s a great way to start, especially when it comes to motivating yourself out of a bad habit.
Pick a small, but fulfilling reward that will move you to do better every day and progress inch by inch away from unproductive behavior. Try to keep it in line with your efforts to maintain overall wellness, too. As an example, instead of treating yourself to a chocolate bar after a rigorous workout, why not go for a healthy sugar substitute instead?
6. Get a Positive Support System
Breaking a bad habit is a long and difficult journey, especially for those that have been so deeply ingrained in our systems. It can seriously deplete your self-esteem and positivity. Make sure that while you’re on the track to getting out of it that you’re surrounded by plenty of loving and understanding individuals who will act as strong anchors.
A positive support system is often found in our family and friends, but it can even go beyond that. There are various support groups for those who are trying to overcome particularly strong habits, and even trained professionals who are there to listen to you and offer advice in times of need.
7. Don’t Be Hard On Yourself
All this said, acknowledge that you’re only human. If you don’t get to live up to your schedule or break out of your habit on a specific time, don’t be too hard on yourself. People make mistakes, and it’s ultimately getting back up and trying again that matters. Giving up is the only time when you’ve ever truly lost, so keep going.
If you feel like you’ve hit a dead end in trying to move out of a negative pattern, try stepping away from the process. Reevaluate your options, and try something that you may not have tried before. You never know where this might lead you.
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Bad habits affect our lives in different ways. But the more detrimental of these deep-seated patterns can be extremely hindering to living a fulfilling and happy life. Don’t let these long-standing behaviors control you.
Get to the root of the problem and find ways to rid yourself of these bad habits.
Stacey Marone is freelance writer and contributor for Scholar Advisor.. She likes traveling, exploring the world and helping people to make their life easier.
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Photo: GettyImages