It is often said that developing good habits is the key to success. Everybody wants to be successful, whether it is financial, relational, physical, spiritual etc. Yet why do so few people realize that in order to be successful developing good habits is necessary? In my opinion it all comes down to desire. People don’t want success badly enough because they are lazy, content or complacent; I think if one could overcome the initial force of laziness of conformity that takes hold of most people, the importance of good habits would be come obvious. Human beings are rational and incredibly intelligent creatures and that is both a strength and a weakness. Our intelligence allows us to measure a given situation and assess whether or not a given action is worth our undertaking. I also believe that human beings are by nature lazy. Hard work is difficult and painful and thus undesirable. Human beings naturally take the path of least resistance; that’s common sense right? And since good habits, discipline and a good work ethic are paths of great resistance, most people choose not to follow them.
I guess the question that you have to ask yourself is, “Are you willing to pay the price for success?” If your willing, then let’s talk about habits. If not, then you should probably stop reading 
Habits
What are habits? Well according to the dictionary.com definition, habits are: acquired behavioral patterns regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary; customary practice or use. Working with this definition, I believe good habits can best be described as habits that yield desirable and positive results; consequently, bad habits are ones that yield negative or undesirable results. If we want to successful, we need to develop good habits. The key to success then becomes, how do we break bad habits and how do we create good ones?
Breaking Bad Habits
When it comes to breaking a bad habit we first have to identify them and acknowledge their existence. For example, a smoker who wishes to improve their health but refuses to admit that smoking is a bad habit is not going to make much progress with their goal. However, even after a smoker admits that theirs is a bad habit, that does not naturally lead to a breaking of the habit. In order to break the habit, the individual would have to make the decision to break the habit, take action and continue following through with that action. Thoughts without follow up actions are useless, in fact they might be damaging because it may leave one feeling feeble and weak, impressing upon the self a feeling of powerlessness.
The Four Steps of Habit Breaking:
- Identify the Problem
- Decide on a Course of Action
- Act
- Follow Through
Sounds simple? Most people manage to make it past step one and two but when it comes to the crucial third and fourth steps, most people fail. Or people manage to act but fail in the follow through. If you liken the process to climbing a mountain, the first two steps are at the base of the mountain when one’s energy and stamina are at its height. The mountain hasn’t gotten too steep yet and your spirits are still high. But there will come a point in the trek where the mountain suddenly appears much steeper and harder to climb than you at first imagined. This is the point where most people give up. You turn around and head back down the mountain because you realize climbing it was much harder than you imagined.
The process of habit breaking is in essence the same. Identifying a bad habit and making the decision to change it is much easier than acting on that decision and following through with it. If good habits are the foundation of success then action and follow through are the pillars that keep the foundation standing. I remember during my freshman year of high school when I was addicted to online computer games, I had tried numerous attempts to break the habit by handing the game CDs over to my mother. That solution usually lasted for a few weeks until the desire to play became too strong to resist and I forced myself to find a way to get my hands on those games again. This happened over and over again. Eventually I broke the habit, but it wasn’t a dramatic break, rather it was a process that took a fair amount of time and commitment. Breaking bad habits takes sincere commitment and persistent; you have to be realistic with yourself. Stopping things cold turkey is usually not successful unless you are able to sustain that motivation over the long run.
The Long Run - Maintaining Momentum and Persistence
The irony of breaking bad habits is that it requires persistence, which is in essence the foundation of good habits. Thus breaking bad habits and forming good habits go hand in hand. Good habits are patterns of actions that yield positive results; developing an action until it becomes a set pattern requires persistence. Only when good habits replace bad habits can the removal of bad habits be sustained in the long run. There are many methods that one can use to remain persistent in breaking a bad habit. Here are a few that I have found useful:
1) Creating a mantra - When I was a child I used to create mantras in order to condition myself, usually when trying to create a new habit. If you’re trying to break a long standing habit, then it might help to create a short phrase that you can repeat constantly throughout the day like a mantra. The idea is to continually reaffirm your goal to the point where you cannot go a moment without thinking about it.
2) Accountability - Perhaps the most effective method of habit breaking is to ask someone keep you accountable. It’s easy to let ourselves down by giving up, but it is much harder to let someone else down, especially if we care about that someone and they care about us.
3) Reward yourself for small milestones - Like climbing a mountain, it’s easy to decide to break a bad habit, but actually accomplishing that goal is much harder. It’s hard to imagine the challenge that we will have to face in the intermediary steps on the way to achieving our goals. It may be helpful to set small milestones and reward yourself when you reach them. It’s much easier to sustain momentum when you give yourself incentives. Just make sure that the incentives you give yourself are not counterproductive (e.g. allowing yourself a cigarette after going a week without smoking)
One Day at a Time
Breaking bad habits is hard work. So be gentle with yourself. If you fail, pick yourself up and start again. If success is important enough to you then the effort you put in will be worth it. Although I hated myself for lacking the willpower to break my online game addiction during my first few attempts, over time I was able to break the habit by continually reinforcing my desired outcome. If I didn’t break the habit I told myself my life would amount to nothing; holding that image of a wasted life helped me to persist in my efforts to end my addiction. Continual and persistent effort is the key to breaking bad habits and forming good ones. Even if you give into your bad habits many times along the way, as long as you keep at it you will make it. Remind yourself everyday what it is you want to change and visualize the outcome; hold onto that image and turn it into action and repeat. If you keep that up there’s no way you will fail !
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