How to Break Bad Habits

Written By Colēgia

Habits are something that all of us have and some are better than others. Knowing what these habits are is essential when it comes to being able to change or improve them. One specific type of this we want to cover are bad habits. Today we'll discuss how to break these and why it's crucial to do so.

Understand What Your Habits Are

Many of us have habits we are unconscious of which is all the more reason why we need to understand what our habits are in order to work on them. A common example of this can be spending a lot of time on social media. We may be confused as to where most of our time is going throughout the day until we learn to see where we're spending it. A time journal is a fantastic way to keep track of this since it gives us a tangible idea of what we're doing and when. Self-awareness is a powerful skill since it teaches us the value in reflecting on ourselves. This can give us the courage to know when things need to change along with seeing what is and isn't helping us. Habits are meant to empower us and it can take an active effort to do so.

“Many of us have habits we are unconscious of which is all the more reason why we need to understand what our habits are in order to work on them.”

Ask Why You Want to Change it

Once we have a clear understanding of what our habits are, taking time to understand why we want to change them can provide us with a clear direction. Let's take the bad habit of eating fast food. In the short-term yes it can make us happy but it comes at the cost of it being very unhealthy. Asking why we want to break this is important since it lets us deconstruct it. Breaking this habit can allow us to lead a healthier lifestyle which can, in turn, increase our overall happiness. Another example is not doing enough physical activity. While being sedentary can be comfortable at times, too much of it can affect how our bodies feel. Breaking this allows us to stay in shape which can improve the quality of our lives.

“Once we have a clear understanding of what our habits are, taking time to understand why we want to change them can provide us with a clear direction.”

Take Actionable Steps

Understanding and deconstructing our habits are crucial when it comes to breaking away from the things we want to change. Both of these allow us to work towards taking actionable steps. A key element of this is recognizing that your motivation plays a key role. It's one thing to want to change these habits, but having a genuine desire to work on these is what will actually help you put things into action. This is done by visualizing where we'll be once we're finished breaking away from this habit and we can also use other elements to help with this. We can also opt to plan out specifically what we want to do to fix these. If we want to go to bed sooner, we can slowly unwind during the evening and lower our screen time. Life is best appreciated when we have a healthy balance and breaking away from bad habits can improve things for us.

Colēgia

Colēgia

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