Overcoming Bad Habits; The Steps [Final Part]
There are many people's lives that have been affected negatively and even interrupted by bad habits. Someone others know they have bad habit but have not seen a potent way to overcome it and they keep going back to it even when they wish they would not. Well, wishes cannot overcome a bad habit but it requires conscious efforts and works. We took a look at some of these efforts from our last episode and we will be wrapping it up here. One thing to always have in mind is that if you will be determined and put in the required efforts, you can overcome any bad habit.
1. Strive to become a better version of you (the old you before the bad habit)
Even though someone can serve as a motivation to you, you do not have to become like the person to quit your bad habit, you only need to revert back to being the former you - the better you. Before you picked up the bad habit, there was "you" before then. Obviously, bad habits are not congenital (people are not born with it), they are acquired in the course of one's life. It may have even lasted years, but it does not matter, what matters is that you can still return back to who you used to be before the habit. Take for example; for someone that is a habitual smoker, they obviously was not born that way. So the idea is not to give up your habit of smoking but to revert back to your former nonsmoking nature.
It has always been in you to live above the bad habit because it is not inherent in you at birth, so you should create the consciousness that if you were once free from such bad habit, then you can be free again - you only need to push beyond the confines of the boarders that have been created by the new habit. A friend the stopped smoking recently shared his experience with me on the procedure he had to employ to help him. He told me that during the process of quitting, if he sees a cigarette or if he is tempted to smoke, he will look at the stick and himself "who is stronger here, the cigarette or me?" He then drew his mind back to a few years before he started smoking and then realized that he was not born smoking, so he will scream "I am stronger than you cigarette," then he will flip it over thrash. It did not take long and he finally overcame his addiction to smoke.
2. Self awareness
To be able to break free from bad habit, you need to put your consciousness, conscience and self-awareness into play. For example, when you attach a level of guilt to a particular habit, you will begin to repel the habit. Ask yourself how you feel after you have done that particular bad thing, it will help you to realise your self awareness. Obviously, every human is gifted with a degree of conscience to know when something is bad or good. So you will know when you are treading on the wrong path.
When you reason with yourself, you will be more clear about your goals to stop the habit. For someone that is a habitual smoker, they can start by asking what the benefit of smoking is. If not, then what are the harms in it? What normally makes you to smoke? What have you achieved by smoking? How do people judge your actions by your habits? Etc. All these questions will help to open up one to becoming self aware and you will begin to take the conscious step to stay away from such habits. Remember, the idea is not to condemn yourself but to awaken yourself on the inside to fight against the bad habit.
3. Imagine your life without the bad habits
Sometimes, practising mindfulness and unleashing the power of imagination can come in handy towards helping someone break off from habit. For a habitual cigarette smoker for example; imagine yourself doing away with cigarette and then replacing it with a more healthy lifestyle.
If people will have a deep thought about their bad habits, they will discover that it is not beneficial to them, rather it has negative effects on them. Some of these bad habits are products of wrong choices, but there is also a chance to make things right. When you think of the consequences of such habits you will tell yourself if they are really worth it or not.
Thanks for reading
