How to Break a Bad Habit (and Replace It With a Good One)

Bad habits interrupt your life and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. They jeopardize your health both mentally and physically. And they waste your time and energy.
So why do we still do them? And most importantly, is there anything you can do about it?
I’ve previously written about the science of how habits start, so now let’s focus on the practice of making changes in the real world. How can you delete your bad behaviors and stick to good ones instead?

I certainly don’t have all of the answers, but keep reading and I’ll share what I’ve learned about how to break a bad habit.

What causes bad habits?

Most of your bad habits are caused by two things…

* Stress and boredom:

Most of the time, bad habits are simply a way of dealing with stress and boredom. Everything from biting your nails to overspending on a shopping spree to drinking every weekend to wasting time on the internet can be a simple response to stress and boredom.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can teach yourself new and healthy ways to deal with stress and boredom, which you can then substitute in place of your bad habits.
Of course, sometimes the stress or boredom that is on the surface is actually caused by deeper issues. These issues can be tough to think about, but if you’re serious about making changes then you have to be honest with yourself.
Are there certain beliefs or reasons that are behind the bad habit? Is there something deeper a fear, an event, or a limiting belief  that is causing you to hold on to something that is bad for you?
Recognizing the causes of your bad habits is crucial to overcoming them.

* You don’t eliminate a bad habit, you replace it:

All of the habits that you have right now  good or bad  are in your life for a reason. In some way, these behaviors provide a benefit to you, even if they are bad for you in other ways.
Sometimes the benefit is biological like it is with smoking or drugs. Sometimes it’s emotional like it is when you stay in a relationship that is bad for you. And in many cases, your bad habit is a simple way to cope with stress. For example, biting your nails, pulling your hair, tapping your foot, or clenching your jaw.
These “benefits” or reasons extend to smaller bad habits as well.
or example, opening your email inbox as soon as you turn on your computer might make you feel connected. At the same time looking at all of those emails destroys your productivity, divides your attention, and overwhelms you with stress. But, it prevents you from feeling like you’re “missing out” … and so you do it again.
Because bad habits provide some type of benefit in your life, it’s very difficult to simply eliminate them. (This is why simplistic advice like “just stop doing it” rarely works.)
Instead, you need to replace a bad habit with a new habit that provides a similar benefit.
For example, if you smoke when you get stressed, then it’s a bad plan to “just stop smoking” when that happens. Instead, you should come up with a different way to deal with stress and insert that new behavior instead of having a cigarette.
In other words, bad habits address certain needs in your life. And for that reason, it’s better to replace your bad habits with a healthier behavior that addresses that same need. If you expect yourself to simply cut out bad habits without replacing them, then you’ll have certain needs that will be unmet and it’s going to be hard to stick to a routine of “just don’t do it” for very long.

Steps To Replace A Bad Habit With A Good One:
Here are 6 actionable and practical steps which will help us to replace a bad habit with a good one, and stick with it:

1) Change the environment & change the habit:
As discussed earlier, there exists a peculiar ‘habit loop’ which empowers us to religiously follow a habit, and sub-consciously we become dependent on it. The three steps of this habit loop are:
The Trigger: It’s the environment, the platform which tricks our mind in following the habit. Our mind follows this trigger, and performs the action which fulfills our habitual requirement.
The Behavior: It’s the habit itself
The Reward: The hormone which is released which gives us a sense of reward, and which prompts us for the habit next time.
As you can see, among them, the first step, the ‘trigger’, is the most important aspect of habit formation; and in order to replace it with a good habit, we need to attack this factor first.
The trigger is nothing but the environment, the platform which prompts us to follow a habit. For example, say eating sweets is a bad habit which you want to replace. One way we can change the trigger is to avoid bringing in sugar in home; or only bringing in a replacement of that sugar. If you smoke only while consuming alcohol, then stop consuming alcohol all together. If watching TV for long hours is your bad habit, then either hide the remote control or remove the cable TV connection.
Don’t let your mind follow the habit routine by denying it the platform, the trigger it seeks. If you are able to perform this one change, you are 80% done with replacing your evil habit.

2) Team up with a partner and do it together:
By surrounding yourself with those persons who are themselves trying to replace a habit will prove immensely beneficial for you. Team up with persons who are like you, entrapped in the vicious cycle of bad habits, and suddenly you will experience that your energy has multiplied.
There are various focus groups, communities and workshops where like-minded people gather and collectively act against that habit. Join such groups, and experience the power of community in replacing that bad habit.

3) Do Meditation & Visualize Your Future:
Meditation has immense psychological and mental healing powers, which will surprise you. Meditation means taming the mind, and in order to change a bad habit, there can’t be no other fail-proof technique. While meditating, it is encouraged to visualize your future, as you see it and next time you even think of following that bad habit, you will be guided by the mind to stop it. Visualize your actions which you want to do, and suddenly you will find yourself actually doing that.

4) Do not reinvent yourself but transform your old self:
Generally it is assumed that we need to reinvent ourselves and create a new person who has no bad habits. This is entirely false way to start it. We are not required to re-invent the wheel but to use the wheel in a better way. The ‘changed’ person which you are seeking is actually present inside you, right this moment. All you need to do is bring that out by becoming the person who were previously without any bad habit. For example, if you want to quit smoking, then you need not aim for a drastic change within yourself, but simply you need to revert back to your non-smoker self.
And once you start the process, it actually becomes easier as your mind now knows that what you are seeking is actually present there.

5) Harness The Power of ‘But’ In Killing Negativity:
One of the major deterrents while killing a bad habit and replacing it with a good one is: negativity. You skip one day, or you switch back to old habits once, and tremendous amount of negativity creeps in, which can hamper the whole campaign all together. It is very essential to get over such short term negativity and avoid snowballing it into a big one.
Psychologists suggest using the power of “But” to counter this short dip in morale.
For example, you are trying to destroy the habit of eating fatty and oily food, but one day, you couldn’t control your instincts and had a full plate of noodles. After you are done, just say to yourself:
“Yes, I screwed up today BUT it won’t happen again. I will not eat this food and become healthier”
Or say you smoked another cigarette and feel bad about that. Say to yourself:
“Yes, I smoked one BUT I won’t smoke again, and I will live longer”
By stating the ‘but’ word, you are giving yourself another chance at being awesome, and this can be the stepping stone to your success.

6) Keep Calm & Prepare for Failure:
Lastly, keep your calm, and be prepared for failure. Remember, by attempting to change a bad habit, you are actually going against the stream, and more than 90% of human beings are not even able to start the process. Your deadlines will be broken and your plans will be fail.
Experience the failure, feel the heat, but keep on doing that. Visualization of your success by meditating will help you in such circumstances, as it will guide you to break that bad habit which can even take your life.
Do share your experiences of killing a bad habit, and replacing it with a good one, by commenting right here.