Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Replacing Negative Habits With Positive Ones

Many of us have some bad habit or the other which we are ashamed of. We might not admit this in front of others, but most of us would like to get rid of some habit or the other.

But the problem is that habits may not be so easy to break. You might have tried your best, but still be unsuccessful from staying away from your dreaded habit for long.

What do you do in such cases? How do you break your habits for good?

For example, someone might chew nails. Or you might be a bigtime procrastinator. Or you might be an indecisive person or someone who loses temper all too easily.

These kind of habits might be causing problems in your life. You need strategies to encounter and overcome them before its too late.

A good strategy to overcome a bad habit is to try and replace it with some other positive habit.

When you try to give up a habit, there is a vacuum created. Now your body is confused as it doesn't know what else to do in a situation where normally you would have indulged in your old behavior.

So you see, the body doesn't like this kind of confusion and vacuum. It may be a better option to replace the old habit with something new and positive.

Replacing a Habit - Key to Success
Instead of merely trying to remove a bad habit, try to replace it with another alternative.

Here are a few examples to help you:

If you have the habit of watching too much TV, try some other thing like reading a book or going out for a walk or spending time with your family as an alternative habit.

If you want to cut down on your coffee intake, try to replace coffee a few times with milk, or juices or green tea etc.

If you replace a habit with another one, it becomes easier for the body to accept the new behavior. Thus you can give up your old habit.

While this is not a foolproof strategy that is guaranteed to work everytime, but it can be a better strategy with more chances of success.

Just try it out a few times, and you may really be able to give up some of your bad habits if not all of them!

Recommended Resource - A good resource to help overcome bad habits within 21 days or less is the habit busting program. Check out details at - Habit Buster

Articles of Interest:
9 Tips to Increase Productivity
3 Steps to Overcome Bad Habits
How to Stop Tiredness

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