There is this habit you hate. You have made several attempts to try stopping it, but you find yourself repeating it. You know you are doing something wrong, but you can never bring yourself to completely eliminating it.
You have a strong desire to change, but you don’t seem to find a way. That sucks, huh? You are even frustrated and feel like giving up. Don’t give up yet.
Good news! There is hope! You can work on that bad habit and come out of it successfully. You are now wondering how. That’s what I’m thinking.
Here, I’m going to show you what you can do so that you can drop that habit like a hot potato!
Let’s go!
· Awareness
Yes, you must accept that there is something that you are doing that is not right. That is the first step. Accept that you need to change.
· Understand where it came from
Understand where those beliefs and habits came from.
As you grow up, you notice what people around you are doing. Research has it that 90% of what we are, we learned it before we were 10 years old.
Yes, you learn to do things from your parents, siblings, neighbors, media, friends and even your teachers in school. This is what we call conditioning.
How you respond or act towards anyone or anything is determined by what is stored in your sub-conscious mind. That is like the permanent memory. You face a situation and the permanent memory sends information to the conscious mind on how to react to it. It is automatic.
When something happens to us, we respond the same way all the time because that is what we know.
More often than not, your habits and conditioning are from outside you. It’s not inside. The sooner you understand this, the better for you. This way you will accept that the person that you are today is a combination of the things that we saw others do.
· Move away from that habit
Now that you understand that how you think and do things come from how others molded you, the next thing is to disassociate yourself from that kind of thinking.
Understand that those beliefs or habits are not about you. They came from outside you and now you have the power to move away from them.
· Reconditioning
Once you make a conscious decision to drop a habit, you must replace it with what you desire. As you are aware, nature does not entertain a vacuum. You must replace the habit that you are getting rid of with what you want. Or else something else will come and fill that space automatically.
As you take the initiative to unlearn your old habit, remember to put effort to learn the new habit that you want.
· Practise Repeatedly
It is said that it takes around 21 consecutive days for a habit to be part of you. You have to consciously do what you desire to do. You must really want change.
You can put down your goal in writing. You are most likely to be committed to a goal that you have written down as opposed to what you haven’t.
Do not be frustrated if you feel like change is too slow. Nothing comes easy. You may go back to your habit a few times. But don’t let that to discourage you. Remind yourself that you have control over those habits. Practice it again and again until it becomes part of your sub-conscious mind. Yes, practice until it becomes part of you.
If you do these things, you will manage to drop those habits you hate and become the person that you’ve always wanted to be. Wishing you the best!