Give Bad Habits the Boot!

Everybody has bad habits. Everybody. Now, granted, some people have less than others and some people’s bad habits are more grating than others, but we all have them. Some we know we possess and others we don’t.

Well, Chris, how can I get rid of a bad habit if I don’t know I have it? It’s simple, but hard. Ask somebody who loves you and has your best interest in mind to be brutally honest with you and tell you your bad habits.

You might think, “Yeah, but I’ll be embarrassed.” Would you rather everyone talk behind your back? Get up the courage and ask. Be gracious and don’t defend yourself. Just accept it and work on it.
What about the ones we know about? Those are the tough ones. How do I know they are tough? Because they must be tough if you know about them and yet you still have them! If they weren’t tough, they would be former bad habits!
So, how do you break a bad habit? How do you give it the boot out of your life? Here are a few things that must be a part of the plan.

1. You must want them to go.
Some people don’t want to break their bad habits. I have seen parents choose alcohol over their children. I have seen smokers continue smoking while watching their parents die of emphysema. You first must go deep into the recesses of your heart and ask, “Do I really want to give this up?”

2. You do?
Good. Step Two: Make a list of all the reasons you want to quit your bad habits. Make them positive. Make the list long! Start with the really powerful and dramatic if you need to. Now memorize them. You are making connections between stopping the bad behavior with the good things you will get from doing so. If you want to lose weight, then picture yourself slim and looking good in those thin-people clothes! If you want to stop smoking, picture your wife actually kissing you rather than sending you to the bathroom to brush your teeth!

3. Choose.
Once you have the information, it comes down to one thing: It is an act of will. Choose to do it. Say to yourself throughout the day, “I am choosing to…” Eisenhower rightly said, “The history of free men is never written by chance, but by choice—their choice.” It is your choice. You can write your history.

4. Take action!
Step Four is tricky because there are two philosophies about this. One theory is that you must take massive action. You must go all or nothing. Using the weight-loss example, this person would spend $500 to join a gym, rework their schedule and hit the treadmill every day for a year. They would get rid of all fatty foods in the house—they would go all out! That works for some. Others would burn out on that, feel like failures and be worse off than before. They should start out slow, taking baby steps, but working diligently toward a planned goal. This person would decide to start walking three days a week. They would decide to limit dessert to two nights a week, down from seven. See how this works? Either way is OK, as long as you get to the goal eventually. Which one are you?

5. Tell somebody.
This is your accountability partner. Tell them your goal and tell them your plan. Write it down for them, and have them ask you on regular intervals about your progress. This will prove invaluable!

6. Recover from failure.
Inevitably, most people have setbacks. The key is to ensure they’re setbacks, not “turnbacks”! Pick yourself up and get going again. Some people may want to lose 30 pounds, and after losing 15, they eat a gallon of ice cream. They feel bad and give up. Don’t! Reset your goal for another two weeks and get going again. Say to yourself, “Sometimes you win, and sometimes you learn.”

7. Reward yourself.
That’s right. You should regularly congratulate yourself by rewarding yourself with some gift to yourself. Start small with small victories, and plan a big one when you are finally over the habit.
Is it that simple? Most of the time, no. Habits are hard to break. There are so many intangibles, it would be hard to cover them all. But this is a simple and workable plan that will help you make great strides if you apply the principles.

Get going! Give those bad habits the boot! Good luck!

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