How to break bad habits
We all have a few bad habits, be it overeating, biting our nails, procrastinating, smoking, drinking too much alcohol, social media dependency, overspending, gossiping, etcetera. And, we all try to get rid of these habits but, most of the time we fail and resort to our old practices. We fall in the endless loop of trying and failing at our resolutions to quit the bad habit. So how to break bad habits?
It is crucial to understand how a bad habit forms, to break a bad habit
All bad habits form because they give you a sense of relief. It can be a physical, mental or social pleasure. For example, let’s take overeating, you tend to overeat when you experience stress/anxiety/depression, and when you eat you feel better. The brain recognizes overeating as a solution to your emotional distress. And, it will prompt you to overeat whenever you are in the same situation again. So, it is essential to break the link that your brain has established. When you can successfully break this bond of bad habit and pleasure, then you can successfully quit it.
How can we break the bond of bad habits and pleasure?
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Practice substitution
The most successful method of taming a bad habit is to replace it with a new one. When you try to get rid of a bad habit, your brain thinks it’s lacking something. It will give you a stronger urge to bring back whatever you have stopped doing. But, when you substitute, the brain experiences no such thing. That is why substitution has proven to be successful in many cases.
Let’s take overeating as an example; if you decide not to eat anything when you feel stressed, then your brain will keep signaling you to overeat. Each time the urge would be stronger than before and eventually, you would give in to it.
What if you overate fruits or popcorns or something healthy? It won’t deteriorate your health, and the urge to overindulge would subside. You can also choose to do some other activity to substitute. Try going for a bike ride, take a hot shower, take a hike to make yourself feel better.
When you replace the bad habit with a new one, you can successfully quit it and end up with a new good habit.
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Identify the triggers
Each bad habit has one or many triggers associated with it. When you identify them, it will get easier for you to get rid of the habit. It does not matter how strong your willpower is but if you surround yourself with something that triggers your bad habit, you will continue doing it. Some of the common triggers are stress, peer pressure, lack of time, boredom, seeking attention.
To identify the triggers, you must assess the following things:
What time of the day was the urge stronger?
Who is the influencer of your bad habit?
What were you feeling at that moment? (anger, hate, anxiety, stress, lonely, neglected)
Some of the common triggers are stress, peer pressure, lack of time, boredom, seeking attention. Whatever your trigger is, once you figure it out, try to stay away from it.
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Hold yourself accountable
Most of the time, we don’t tell anyone about our decision to quit a bad habit. Because we feel, “if we fail no one would know.” That is why you must tell a group of people (whom you feel comfortable telling) and announce it to them that you are going to quit it. It will keep you accountable because the feeling of failure is worst when you know there is an audience. It will make people cautious of not triggering anything that promotes your lousy habit. You won’t have to hide your struggle, and you may even inspire someone to quit their harmful habit too.
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Visualize your success
It is essential to keep your motivation high when you are trying to quit something. Visualization is a powerful skill, and it can help you to boost your willpower. Whenever you feel like giving in to the temptation of your bad habit, try visualizing your goals. Imagine how good you would look and the clothes you would buy when you lose weight? Imagine how much health you would gain when you quit smoking?
Try speaking these phrases for additional help.
“I will be in great shape a few months from now.”
“I will be able to save a lot of money.”
Try to boost your morale and continue making an effort to improve your well-being.
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Take the easy route
When you decide to quit something, it is similar to forming a new habit. So, at the beginning make things easier for yourself. If you take easy and smaller tasks, you will be able to do them without any motivation. Practice smoking nine cigarettes instead of 10. Try to overeat one time healthily. I know you are already thinking “that’s doable” well, that is the goal. When you make doable changes, you are bound to do them for a longer time. That is the key to quitting a bad habit, keep making small changes regularly, and after a few months you’d happily give up your bad habit.
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Reward yourself
When you accomplish tinier goals, you must reward yourself. The sense of accomplishment helps you to stay motivated, pushes you to keep making the efforts. Set smaller goals such as smoking nine cigarettes instead of 10 for a week. And reward yourself when you accomplish the goal. Get a manicure if you didn’t bite your nails for a week as it will motivate you not to nibble your nails.
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Practice patience
Everything takes time be it forming a good habit or breaking a bad one. When you start small and keep making an effort to quit something, you might not see significant results. But, if you are patient enough the minor changes will add up to a noticeable difference. Be patient, when you begin the journey, to transform your habits from bad to good. Don’t get too impatient for the results; it will happen when you keep making an effort. It always does!
Each one of us is different, and each habit has a different trigger. Try to customize the methods mentioned above to serve you in the best way. I hope the article helps you to successfully replace your bad habits with some great ones.
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It’s not wrong to need a little help
We live in a time of dramatic change, the internet, followed by connected mobile devices, has transformed how we work, how we play and, with social media, how we interact with each other. Even just two decades ago, what we have now was a dream, and with so many opportunities available to us all as a result of all this technology, the expectation to do something amazing seem to have grown.
But sometimes, that need to be a success, to have the idea, the business or the career that is expected, can simply be too much. Who hasn’t set the snooze button in the morning and wished the day would go away? Who hasn’t felt like they have not really reached their goals, and sometimes, can’t even see a way to get there? In this fast-paced world, such feelings can creep up on you.
But what can you do about it? Many of us feel that we can’t talk about these doubts and fears, because doing so is a sign of weakness and that could make everything worse. But nothing is further from the truth, in fact, most of these doubts and fears stem from one thing, motivation. Or rather, a lack of it.
When we are feeling motivated, challenges are there to be overcome, doubts disappear, and those goals are within reach. Motivation is the antidote to self-doubt and fear, it is the most powerful weapon you have in your journey to success. Whatever your goal is, whether it is a business aim, a relationship, anything, being motivated is the key to achieving it. People find their motivation in many places, but those around you can be a great source.
The thing is, getting help to stay motivated is not wrong, we all need it, even the most successful people in the world did not get there all by themselves, and having others help motivate you is not something to be ashamed of, although somehow many see to think that it is. Sometimes that motivation comes from friends reminding you that you really can achieve those goals, and let us be honest here, sometimes, hearing someone tell you that yes, you really can do it, can be all the motivation you need. But other times, it may come from someone you don’t know, an inspiring article or book you read, a lesson from a motivational expert, there is help for motivation all around you, and there is nothing wrong with taking it. At the end of the day, motivation only powers you, and your actions, not replaces them. The end result, when you reach that goal, that will be your hard work.
That is the beauty of motivation, others can help you gain it, but what motivation does is empower you to reach beyond your own limits, step out of that comfort zone and grab those goals. You can do all of those things, and you don’t have to do it entirely alone.
Here at Avyanna, we love our community, if you have any problems that you are having difficulty with then please get in touch, even if you need some motivation! We are honored to be given the chance to help, offering our guidance and assistance to all the wonderful members of this community.
Please check https://www.avyannamotivation.com/blog/ for more interesting(fiction/non-fiction,true life changing stories,etc) blog posts
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What is Success in a Material World?
We live in a material world, people are often judged by how much money they have, what car they drive, how expensive their watch is, what their house is and so on. In fact, it is the basis if much of modern society, where simply being rich is enough to make you famous and celebrated. It even gives you a louder voice in terms of national and international problems, as if wealth makes someone’s opinion more valuable too.
We often take this for granted without thinking too much about it, but when we take a step back and look, we all know that is wrong. Not many people really think that someone with more money is a better person, and I doubt very many people stop and think ‘No, they have more money than me, so their opinion should matter more’, or that because someone can afford an expensive car, that is really a demonstration of their worth as a human being.
So, with an unhealthy focus on using money and material wealth to judge people, how can you identify success without falling into that exact same trap? If we remove financial status from the equation, what is a success anyway? Many people struggle to define success in terms of anything but material goods, but there are other ways to look at success.
Some people will tell you that success is 50 years of happy marriage, healthy children and grand children and so on. Other people may think of success in terms of money, and others may see success as reaching their career goals, but whatever the measure of success, there is actually one word that describes the state those people think of as success. That word is contentment.
When someone is content, they are happy with where they are and what they are doing and have done, and when you think about it, is there a better way to define success? If having a certain amount of wealth makes someone content, then that is success, but that doesn’t mean money is success, because there are many, many rich people who are very far from content, and this is the crucial thing about success.
Success is not about things, it is about you. Success is an individual thing, what you want to achieve will be different to anyone else, and when you get there, your idea of success will be yours alone. What allows you to sit back and feel content with your life, that is what will give you success. So, when you think about success, don’t fall into the trap of thinking it means setting out a list of ‘things’ you want to own or have in your life. Instead, think about what will make you truly content, and whatever that is, that is your success goal.
If you find setting your goals a challenge or need help with any of your aspirations, here at A Beautiful Thing we would love a chance to help. Feel free to get in touch, we are always honoured to provide advice and guidance to all the wonderful members of this community.
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Finding your Voice – Learning to stand up and be heard
Social anxiety is something that affects many more people than you may think, and it can be a harmful problem that is difficult to overcome. It can also creep up on you, for people that have always felt a little uncomfortable speaking up in class or meetings, suddenly you can find yourself having difficulty expressing dislike of things, or obsessing over meeting the expectations of others even when it negatively affects you, just to avoid the confrontation about it.
While being shy or having social anxiety may seem like an inconvenience that people should just ‘shake off’ to many, it is a problem that can lead to worse things for sufferers. Firstly, being unable to speak up can cause problems in that it can limit your opportunities, allow others to take chances that you were capable of doing, and that applies everywhere, at work, at school, even in social settings, always stepping back means never stepping up.
But being unable to speak up can do much more than that because as opportunities slip by, you put yourself last and do things to your own detriment to please others, and all the other things being unable to speak out can do, then resentment builds inside you.
That is because you know it’s wrong, and you can start to resent those who succeed, who speak up and are heard where you cannot, even though it is not really their fault, and you know it. That resentment can lead to stress, and that can have a significant impact on your health long term. That is why it is important to realize that this kind of anxiety is not a trivial thing, and if this is a problem you face, then there are solutions to help you.
Being able to speak up, finding your voice, will transform your life in ways you may not imagine, but to get there, the first step is to have a willingness to accept the help that is there for you. Until you are ready to take on the challenge of overcoming the problem, of listening to those who will help and provide a solution, and to work hard with that solution to improve things for yourself, then no solution will work.
However, once you are willing to take on that challenge, then a different life is not far away. There are many groups and organizations who help with these conditions and there will be one near you. It may be the most difficult step you have taken in your life, but the step you take towards that help will also be the most important one too. Don’t suffer in silence, life can be better for you, and with support and assistance, it will be.
If you are having trouble finding your voice, and recognize your own situation here, here at Avyanna we value each and every one of you, and want you to know that if you need any advice or help, you can get in touch with us today. We are always honored to help, providing the guidance and solutions that can change your life.
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