Hello friends.
Before we start talking about the bad and good habits, we will explain one of the most important ideas that make good habits the best ways to succeed. On the contrary, bad habits make the shortest path to failure in all aspects of life.
The main idea is in the habit's definition which is what anyone gets used to doing without physical or psychological effort.
Hence, we conclude that the person who exercises every morning does not find this difficult. But rather that he has acquired this habit and feels something that he lacks if he does not exercise and, we will explain this more later.
What do habits consist of, or how do we form habits?
It may seem to many of us that acquiring a new habit is very stressful and getting rid of a bad habit is more difficult, but this is a mistake.
If we look at the components of any habit, we will find that it consists of three components: the cue, the routine, the reward from its practice.
Let's apply these components to the habit of drinking alcohol to make it clear to us. That the cue will be boredom, as well as the body's need for alcohol, which it is accustomed to obtaining. The second component, the routine, will be going to the bar or opening the fridge and getting a drink while the reward from this habit is a sense of relaxation satisfying the body's need for alcohol.
There is an important point related to the third component that should be mentioned, as it is the main reason that pushes us to acquire bad habits and, it is the barrier between us and the acquisition of good habits. The return from practicing a bad habit is momentary, meaning that you feel relaxed when drinking alcohol or smoking a cigarette. While the reward of exercising or reading books is late.
And what makes matters worse is that the damages of bad habits do not appear immediately but after a long time.
How do we get or build a good habit?
The first step we take to acquire a new habit is to determine the appropriate time for it, as we cannot determine the time to exercise after 8 hours of hard work, even if you exercise, the first or second day will not continue, it is better to exercise in the morning before work.
The second step is to maintain continuity because it is the most important factor in acquiring a new habit. For example, if we do not exercise one day, this does not mean that we fall and stop exercising completely. But rather we wake up the next day and exercise and, with time, sports will become a daily habit and do not need psychological motivation to practice it.
Finally, while working on acquiring new habits, there are two things to pay attention to:
- The first is not to have more than one habit at the same time, because this will weaken your willpower, and most likely you will not succeed in acquiring both.
- As for the second, it is recording the days in which you practiced the new habit. Watching the number of days in which you practiced the habit that you want to acquire increases is very motivating and will help you keep going.
Get rid of bad habits.
As they said "Bad habits die hard" but getting rid of any bad habit is based on a strong will in the first place, but some of the tips we mentioned in building habits can help you in this, for example, do not try to get rid of more than one bad habit at the same time, and also recording the days when you did not practice your bad habit also helps you sharpen your will and continue.
Changing the environment as much as possible is very helpful in getting rid of habits, for example, it will be difficult for you to quit drinking habit while you hang out in bars daily.