By Evelyn Evans 
Everyone possesses habits, and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with them. Some are quite helpful — perhaps you arrange your work clothes the evening prior or automatically switch off the lights upon exiting a room.
However, certain habits like nail biting, consuming caffeine too late, or repeatedly pressing the snooze button may not be as advantageous.
Overcoming undesirable habits can be challenging, particularly if you have been practicing them for an extended period. However, grasping how habits initially develop can simplify the process.
What Are the Steps to Changing Bad Habits?
Habits can form when positive or pleasurable experiences activate the brain’s “reward” systems. This can establish potentially detrimental behaviors, like excessive eating, smoking, substance abuse, gambling, and even excessive usage of computers and social networks. Here are the six steps!
Step 1: Identify Cues
A habit needs something to initiate it, and a cue can be anything at all. Perhaps stress causes you to desire chocolate, or the noise of your alarm prompts you to press the snooze button. Recognizing signals aids you in grasping what triggers your habits.
Step 2: Disrupt
Once you’re aware of the triggers, you can derail negative behaviors. If the alarm prompts you to hit the snooze button each morning, place the alarm clock across the room. Walking across the floor will probably interfere with the snooze routine.
Step 3: Replace
Studies indicate that substituting a negative behavior with a positive one is more effective than merely halting the negative behavior. The new action “disrupts” the old routine and stops your brain from shifting into autopilot. Choosing to consume fruit whenever your mind suggests “cookie” replaces a positive action for the negative habit.
Step 4: Keep it Simple
Changing a habit is often difficult since the action has turned into something effortless and routine. The reverse is also accurate: Adopting new behaviors can be challenging since your brain’s basal ganglia, the part responsible for “autopilot,” has not yet mastered this behavior. Making new behaviors simpler assists you in incorporating them into your automatic habits.
Step 5: Think Long-Term
Habits frequently develop as they address immediate urges, similar to how biting your nails can instantly soothe your anxiety. However, immediate cravings frequently lead to lasting effects, like sore, damaged, and gnawed fingers. Concentrating on the long term while working to modify certain habits will aid in reminding you of the reasons behind your investment in the effort.
Step 6: Persist
Studies indicate that your past actions are a significant predictor of your future behaviors. This indicates that forming new habits is challenging to achieve. However, if you persist, those new behaviors will also become habits. Determination pays off — initially, waking up at 5 a.m. for that run may be tough, but before long, it will become instinctive.
Tips to Break Up with Your Bad Habits
Identify Your Triggers
Keep in mind that triggers are the initial step in forming a habit. Recognizing the factors that lead to your routine actions is the initial step in overcoming them.
Take a few days to monitor your habit to determine if it exhibits any patterns.
Observe elements such as:
- Where does the routine behavior occur?
- At what hour?
- What are your emotions when it occurs?
- Is anyone else participating?
- Does it occur immediately after another event?
Suppose you wish to stop being awake beyond midnight. After several days of observing your habits, you notice that you often remain awake longer if you begin watching television or conversing with friends post-dinner. However, you sleep earlier if you either read or stroll.
You choose to cease watching television and switch off your phone by 9 p.m. on weekdays. Eliminating the trigger — viewing television or conversing with friends — makes it more difficult to maintain the habit of staying awake too late.
Enlist a Friend Support
If you and a friend or partner wish to eliminate an undesirable habit, consider doing it together.
Let’s say that you both wish to quit smoking. Managing cravings by yourself can be challenging. Stopping with a friend won’t eliminate the cravings. However, confronting them alongside another person may be simpler.
Be sure to celebrate one another’s achievements and support each other during challenges.
A friend can still provide assistance even if they don’t wish to alter any habits. Think about confiding in a reliable friend about the behavior you wish to change. They can motivate you during times of uncertainty and softly remind you of your objective if they see you reverting to past behaviors.
Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness can assist you in growing awareness of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. This method consists of merely noticing urges associated with your habit without evaluating them or responding to them.
As you gain awareness of these habitual actions and the stimuli that prompt them, you might discover it simpler to explore different choices, like steering clear of reminder signals or resisting the impulses.
Substitute the Habit for Another One.
You may find it simpler to break a habit by substituting the undesired behavior with a new one, rather than just attempting to eliminate the unwanted behavior.
Imagine you want to avoid grabbing candy when you feel hungry at work. If you merely attempt to stay away from the candy bowl, you could revert to the routine when hunger becomes too strong to resist. However, bringing a container of dried fruit and nuts to store at your desk provides you with an additional snack choice.
By consistently practicing the new behavior, the urge to adhere to the new routine grows. Ultimately, once you experience benefits from the new habit — increased energy and reduced sugar crashes — the motivation to continue this behavior could surpass the wish to stick with the old habit.