The Importance Of Accountability When It Comes To Breaking Bad Habits
If you are serious about breaking a bad habit, then you will need to embed some accountability for yourself into your plan. Accountability means holding yourself responsible for your behaviors. Being accountable for your choices and behaviors will help you truly rid yourself of the bad habit by reinforcing your commitment to change. There are several things you can do to help you hold yourself accountable. No one said it would be easy. All of these methods require vigorous self-honesty and the intention to follow through.
You can keep a journal. Writing your behaviors down helps hold you responsible for them. You may find that having to write down your behavior may curb the undesired habit because putting it in writing makes it undeniable. Journaling will also help you track your progress toward your goal. You can even build in some rewards for yourself that will keep you motivated.
Enlisting the help of friends or family to hold you accountable will work too. Tell a few of the closest people to you about your commitment to change this behavior. Ask them to either call you, meet with you or text you to help keep you on track. It will help to agree on a set check-in time every day. Your accountability partners will help support you and hold you responsible for the actions you choose.
Find a support group. Support groups exist, depending on the habit you want to break. Being able to be in a group situation where everyone has the same goal as you do is comforting. It helps you know that you’re not alone in your commitment to ditching this bad habit. The group helps each other stay accountable and helps reinforce each member’s pledge to change.
Staying accountable for your behaviors is an integral part of breaking your bad habits. As mentioned, change is only possible with true commitment and honesty with yourself. Without honesty, there is no accountability. All of this requires diligence and effort. But, you will eventually find yourself in a better place because of your own hard work. You will be able to say that you improved your quality of life. It will be worth the commitment you put in.
Forgiveness Is Key For Long Term Success In Breaking Bad Habits
No one is perfect. Everyone has some habits they’d like to improve on and that’s totally normal. Imperfection is one of the things all humans have in common. A bad habit is classified as a repeated behavior that negatively impacts one’s life. So, although we all have bad habits to some extent, when a person has too many bad habits, they aren't able to live their life to the fullest potential. On the other hand, when better habits are practiced daily, overall quality of life improves. This is why we should be regularly examining ourselves to be sure that we are living the best version of life possible.
Self-reflection is necessary to gauge your life and decide which habits are with keeping and which ones you likely should move away from. Once you decide which bad habits need to be broken in order to improve your life, the hard work begins. When habits are formed, so are new neurological pathways. When you break yourself of a bad habit, you must retrain your brain away from those formed pathways. Everyone has heard the sayings, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” or “Old habits die hard.” They are common sayings because retraining your brain to start a new habit or to stop an existing habit is not easy.
Breaking a bad habit isn’t fast either. Some studies suggest it takes about 21 days to break a habit. So, be patient with yourself and don’t expect instant results. One of the main rules to live by when committing to change your habits is to not be too hard on yourself. Perfection should not be the goal, rather self-improvement should be. Nearly everyone slips up at some point, maybe even multiple times. When you fall off course, it's imperative that you don’t give up. It’s never too late to try again tomorrow. Remember to forgive yourself and keep moving forward.
Forgiving yourself for possible slip-ups is key in the long-term success of breaking a bad habit. It does you absolutely no good to be too hard on yourself. Sitting in your negativity is unhealthy and unproductive. When you slip, get right back up and start again. Keep focusing on your long-term goals and move on.
How Do You Go About Forming A New Habit?
Habits are like rituals that we perform daily without having to give much thought to the behavior. Everyone has habits, good and bad. They affect our lives and contribute greatly to who we are. Starting a new habit isn’t always easy. It will take effort to make this desired behavior part of your everyday life. There are a few steps you can take that will help you form a new habit.
First, you need to set your goal by deciding on the one, and only one, new habit you want to form. Centering on just one new behavior at a time will increase your chances of success with forming the habit. If you try to change too many things about your routines at once, change becomes much less likely. Really focus on the one new habit you want to integrate into your daily life.
After deciding on the one new habit you want to have, you need to commit to sticking with it for at least a month. That means doing everything in your power to make sure you perform that specific behavior daily for thirty days. It’s been said that habit change takes hold in no less than 21 days. So, do your best to ingrain this habit into your everyday life for at least that long to ensure it sticks.
Another thing you can do to help ensure your new habit sticks is called habit stacking. It’s done by attaching the new, desired habit to an already existing one. Habit stacking makes it easier to remember to perform your new habit and helps instill it in your brain. So, say you want to start a new habit of daily mindful meditation. Try attaching meditation to the routine of brushing your teeth in the morning. After you brush your teeth, that’s always when you meditate. If you find a way to stack the new habit into an existing habit, you will have a greater chance of success.
Anticipate possible obstacles. There will be bumps in the road when it comes to trying to form a new habit. If you’re able to identify obstacles ahead of time, you can plan ways to overcome them before they happen.
Make small goals within your larger goal and reward yourself for staying on track. Giving yourself smaller goals to achieve along the way and rewarding yourself for those achievements will help solidify the new habit you want to form.
Forming a new habit requires time and some conscious effort. If you follow some of these basic steps you can take control of your daily habits, ultimately making you a happier person.
Changing A Habit Vs. Creating A New Habit
If you’ve given your habits some thought and you’ve decided that you would benefit from changing a few things, you’re not alone. No one is perfect, so most people would benefit from rearranging some of their habits. You have two choices when it comes to changing your habits; you can create a new habit altogether or you can choose to change an existing habit.
Habits are formed as a result of something called a habit loop. Within the habit loop, there are three components, the cue, the behavior, and the reward. Neurological pathways are formed as habits are formed. Habits actually change your brain. Needless to say, this takes time. Most studies show that forming a new habit takes a minimum of three weeks. Cues or triggers are the signals to the behavior that is the habit. Changing an existing habit will involve using an existing cue. For instance, you’re bored, so you find yourself mindlessly snacking. Boredom is the cue, snacking is the behavior or habit.
So which way is best, creating a new habit or changing an existing one? Both can be achieved with persistence and commitment. But arguably, changing an existing habit is easier and somewhat faster. Because forming a new habit requires the brain to form new neurological pathways which happen when behavior is consistently repeated daily, forming new habits takes longer. When you try to change an existing habit, the brain is already trained to act on that specific cue. You work with the cue that exists; you’ll just need to change the habit itself. An example of changing an existing habit is, when you are bored, instead of reaching for a mindless snack, go for a walk around the block. Boredom is the cue; you now need to change the habit that exists.
Whether you choose to change an existing habit or to create a new habit, taking a closer look at your routines and changing them where necessary is a step in the right direction. All of us could benefit from more self-analysis. If you notice that you’ve formed a habit that doesn’t enrich your life or that negatively affects you, taking steps to rewire your brain will only lead toward self-improvement.
When It Comes To Habits, Smaller Is Better
We’ve trained our brains for certain behaviors using repetition and what’s known as “the habit loop.” This loop involves a trigger, a behavior, and a reward. Consequently, changing an existing habit or starting a new habit is pretty difficult. One of the main components to success in doing so is to start small. Using smaller steps that you can build on, will help you avoid slip-ups and enable you to reward yourself more along the way. Both of which enable you to achieve your goal more quickly and at a higher success rate.
When it comes to habits, starting with smaller goals and using them to build up to your ultimate goal is more effective than trying to accomplish the entire goal all at once. These mini-goals should be ones that you can tackle pretty easily. With the achievements that mini-goals allow, there is less room to slip up. Slip-ups, like not following through or giving up, are decreased when you feel like you're achieving. An example of this would be, you want to make running a habit and your goal is to be able to run a 5k. It wouldn’t make sense to start out day 1 and try to run 3 miles. It would be better to start small-maybe run half a half-mile and walk the rest of the way, slowly working up to running the full 3 miles. Since the goals are smaller, they’re much less overwhelming, therefore setting you up for better overall success and fewer slip-ups.
Taking smaller steps in order to achieve your ultimate goal will give you the opportunity to reward yourself along the way. Rewards help the brain solidify habits. The more you successfully achieve these mini-goals, the more that specific habit becomes ingrained. One reward that’s easy to use is logging your accomplishments. This not only makes you feel great, it is perceived as a reward by your brain. More obvious rewards can also be used, especially when the reward refers directly to the goal. Buy yourself the new pair of running shoes you’ve been holding off on or new earbuds made for running.
Small goals are important when trying to form new and change old habits. Things such as mini-goals and use of a reward system will help you achieve your goals. Ultimately, turning the mini-goals into full-blown habits that you do every day with little effort.
