(ThyBlackMan.com) Bad habits are things we do regularly that could cause harm to us or others. Almost all of us are guilty of carrying some kind of bad habit, but some of these habits can be worse than others causing serious damage to our health, our finances or our relationships. It’s these serious bad habits that need to be stamped out.
Unfortunately, breaking a bad habit isn’t always easy. Bad habits are often ingrained into our behaviour. They may provide a form of release from the stresses of everyday life – this could include smoking or eating unhealthy snacks. They may be something that we do subconsciously such as biting our nails or swearing. As a result, a lot of willpower is needed to quit these bad habits.
For those struggling to give up their unhealthy behaviour, here are just a few tips that could help to make quitting easier.
‘Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him’ (James 1:12)
Remove triggers and temptations
You’re more likely to give in to a bad habit if you’re constantly surrounded by temptations. When possible, try to remove these triggers and temptations from your life.
First, you want to remove any temptations from your home. If you’ve got a bad habit of snacking on sweets throughout the evening, make sure that you don’t have any sweets in your home. This will stop you raiding the cupboard when you get a craving.
You may also want to avoid places and people that are likely to tempt you into giving in. If you’re trying to quit drinking, you probably don’t want to be meeting up with your alcoholic friends at the bar. Instead choose meeting places where you can you can’t give into your habit (e.g. a coffee shop). As for people who may be temptations, avoid these people if you feel that they’re not going to give you the support you need. This idea of taking a break is very much a monastic idea and shows the value of monastic ideals today. Whilst isolating yourself could be a bit extreme, we all need to take time to distance ourselves from familiarity sometimes to realise the things in out life that we don’t need.
There are times when you may have to take drastic action to create a physical barrier, especially with bad habits that you may do subconsciously. Some people go so far as to wear gloves to stop them biting nails or picking at skin. Meanwhile, if you’ve got a social media addiction, there are all various degrees of temptation removal from hiding your phone in another room to shutting down your social media accounts (it all depends on the severity of the bad habit).
Get support from other people
As mentioned when it comes to temptations, it’s important not to surround yourself with people who are negative influences. Most of your friends and family members won’t try to egg you on – it’s people who share your bad habit who you have to be careful about. Whilst you don’t want to force your lifestyle onto them, you don’t want these people to force your lifestyle onto you either. In such situations, the two of you must come to an agreement and be happy with each other’s practices.
Most people will be willing to offer morale support if you ask them to do so. If you feel you don’t the willpower, these people could help to provide the discipline for you. This could include telling you when you’re relapsing which could be helpful with subconscious bad habits such as biting nails or swearing. You could even get them to safeguard temptations from you so that you have to physically ask them to access these temptations – this could include giving them your debit card on a night out if you have a bad habit of overspending or being keeper of the wi-fi password if you have an internet addiction.
Joining certain groups could help to provide the support you need. Your church is obviously a great place to share your struggles, but if you feel you need support from people going through the same struggle you may also want to join a specialist support group. There are groups for people giving up smoking and groups for people with eating disorders. These may be groups where you can physically meet up with other people or they could be online groups (although you probably don’t want to be joining an online forum on internet addiction).
Take up a healthy habit in its place
Some habits may play a major part in your life such as drinking, smoking or gaming. Breaking these habits could fill you with a sense of emptiness. Filling this gap with a healthy habit can make it easier to break the habit.
This is a popular strategy when giving up smoking. Many people turn to vaping, which although not entirely healthy is certainly healthier making it a good alternative. Other people may chew gum as a way of giving them an activity to fill the gap.
As for avid snackers, you could try adopting a healthy snack in place of the unhealthy snacks that you used to eat such as walnuts, unsalted popcorn or fruit instead of chocolate and crisps. When it comes to drinks, you could try drinking non-alcohol beer instead of regular beer or sugar-free soft drinks instead of the regular versions.
For unhealthy long activities such as watching too much TV or playing too many video games, you could also find ways to replace these habits with something healthier. If the major problem is that you’re spending too much time inactive, taking a form of exercise could be a good option. There are many fitness apps that could still help you engage with your loved of technology and competitiveness if you’re trying to give up gaming. Meanwhile, if you’re simply looking for a break from screens and feel that you get enough activity elsewhere in your life, you could simply replace this habit with something screen-free such as reading paperback books or playing a musical instrument or taking up a craft hobby.
Record your progress
When taking on any personal challenge, recording your progress can be a great way of keeping you motivated. In the case of a bad habit, it can help you to prevent a relapse by showing you how far you’ve come.
You could record your progress in an old-fashioned calendar, ticking off the days since you’ve gave up. Alternatively, you could use apps to provide stats and motivation – dieting apps are common with people breaking a snacking addiction. You could even take to social media to talk about your progress or write a blog, allowing you to seek support from other people whilst applying pressure by putting your challenge in the public eye.
Even if you’re simply trying to cut down on a habit, recording progress could help. You may be planning to break a habit in stages, in which case recording progress from week to week can keep you aware of how far you’ve still got to go.
Consider professional help
Some people may feel that they need the help of a professional to provide that extra motivation. When it comes to giving up unhealthy foods, you may want to call upon a nutritionist who can help enforce measures to stop you being tempted by unhealthy snacks. In the case of smoking, there are counsellor and hypnotists than can try to talk you out of smoking by creating negative associations.
Bad habits that have become serious addictions may need specialist counselling services, especially if you’ve tried to give up numerous times and there are already clear signs of damage as a result of your addiction. A good example of this could be a gambling or alcohol addiction – there may be a deeper cause to it all and you may need a counsellor to open up to about this if you don’t feel that you can discuss it with anyone else.
Ultimately, giving up a bad habit should be something you want to do – no professional is going to make a difference if you yourself don’t really want to give it up. A good indicator that you need to give up a habit is the fact that people close to you are showing concern. This shows that this behaviour is clearly having an impact on them and if you don’t break the bad habit for yourself you should certainly consider giving it up for their sake.
Staff Writer; Ron Brown