How to Break Bad Habits

By Lev Novak

1. Identify what it is you want to solve.

Habits can be a difficult thing to identify, and they can be as narrow or as broad as you want. Do you have a habit of smoking when you drink? That might be something you want to stop, but it also might be something you enjoy. The trick is to find what in your life you’d prefer not to be doing and to act accordingly. Don’t label things “good” or “bad”; just solve the issue at hand if you’d like it. That morning latte might be a well deserved treat that gets you going all day or it could be a waste of dollars and calories. The only difference is the perspective.

2. Go slow. Life is long, and snapping out of something isn’t as easy as it sounds on paper. If you try to stop having lattes, you might find yourself groggy and unhappy for a week before going back, and then you might decide that you shouldn’t stop, even if the answer is somewhere in the middle.

Instead, ease yourself off. I get jittery from caffeine used to have a coffee every morning and a coffee every afternoon. Now I have a coffee most mornings and a coffee some afternoons. It isn’t anything official, it’s just me evaluating it on a case-by-case basis. Do I need a coffee now? If no, I don’t have one. By breaking out of the “unnecessary” coffees I make cutting back on caffeine a lot easier, because I don’t sacrifice the coffee I do need. Sunday morning, and I slept ten hours? No need for a coffee. Monday morning? Better believe I’m having a cup.

It’s also helpful to remember that sizes in America are silly. A small here is a medium or large elsewhere in the world.

2. Forgive yourself

If you’re hard on yourself for your habits, the entire process is going to be miserable. And if the process is miserable, you’re going to hate it. And if you hate it, you’re going to quit.

A lot of people get on a diet and stick to it really well- for a while. Then they begin to trail off, and that’s fine. What’s not fine, though, is when they get mad at themselves for it; they give up, and decide they just can’t do it, rather than accepting that a challenge has its ups and downs. Be cool to yourself and the downs will be a lot less terrible than they could be.

4. Keep busy.

The longer you have to dwell on what you’re trying not to do- smoking, drinking, thinking of an ex- the more you’re going to think about it. That’s because your mind has to do something, and hey; obsessing about this issue is a sure-fire way to get the ol’ brain-stem going.
Don’t let your brain win. Instead of obsessing about it, do something else. Distract yourself and don’t let habit-breaking be the dramatic center of your life. Let it be a thing you’re doing, amongst other things that you do. With less pressure, it’s easier to perform.

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