How to Get Rid of Negative Habits?

We try very strange tips to get rid of our bad habits, and we easily believe anyone who gives us advice in this regard. The most common advice is that you should replace a negative habit with a positive one, but it does not work like that.

I have discovered a much more effective way to change our lives by changing our habits, and I will share it in this article, but first we will define what a negative habit is.

What is a negative habit?

We can say that anything you do that does not give you a positive return is a bad habit. Accordingly, a negative habit may be our inability to do something. For example, laziness is a bad habit, but if you're so lazy that you cannot get out of bed in the morning or go to the gym, it doesn't mean you're a worthless person; you just have a negative habit you need to break.

Not everyone shares the same belief about the meaning of life, but if we want to consider that one of our life purposes is to be useful, we must admit that this can only be achieved by getting rid of bad habits.

Anything that prevents you from being a useful person is simply a bad habit, and we all know that most of our behaviors are negative. It doesn't take much thought to know that eating unhealthy food, smoking, drinking alcohol, complaining, addiction to news, social media, gossip, and sitting idle all day long are all bad habits. This is because they do not have a positive return, and no one feels good because of these habits, yet we stick to them because we cannot break them.

Misunderstanding Tips for Breaking Habits

What is the best way to make a habit? I've searched for an answer to this question for more than ten years, and in doing so, I've tried every piece of advice I've been given in this regard, and I've found that if we want to follow a habit, we only have to focus on it to increase our ability to obtain it.

Anyone with experience in making and breaking habits knows this fact; the misunderstanding lies in our assumption that it applies to breaking negative habits.

Moreover, if we are to form one new habit after another, we are also able to form more than one habit at the same time. It may seem paradoxical now, but we must admit that focusing on one habit only means that making a radical change in life requires a very long time, especially since we know that some habits require months of work to take root. Thus, we have to work for years until we have a solid base of positive habits that help us reach our goals.

However, not everyone has the capacity to remain patient, so most people give up before the new habit takes root completely, and when we give up a positive habit, we go back to the negative behavior we had before trying to change it.

You need more effective action

The problem with the previous advice is that most of us apply it to only one of our bad habits; therefore, it is of no use.

For example, someone who smokes and meets their smoking friends every day decides to quit smoking while they keep meeting them. They’ll surely soon feel the urge to smoke simply because they will surely crave a cigarette when they see everyone around smoking.

Another example: let's say you are addicted to social media and watching TV. You will not gain any benefit from deleting social media apps from your phone while you stick to watching television; this will simply prompt you to reinstall social media apps.

If you are wondering about the solution, you should know that actions aimed at making partial changes do not work, but if you really want to change your life, you must commit, and if you really want to break your negative habits, there is no alternative to taking strict and comprehensive measures. That is, you should be very serious about changing your negative habits if your life is very important to you.

Therefore, the useful advice that you should remember is: If you want to get rid of your negative habits, get rid of them all at once. You should change all your negative habits at once or not do it at all.

You need a different lifestyle

Your ability to make a change depends on your answer to the following question: How determined are you to live a meaningful life? I have asked myself this question many times in the past, and until now I have asked myself this question: Because returning to negative habits does not happen without a reason.

Life is hard, and it hardly comes without psychological and physical pain, failures, and anxiety. The natural reaction is to avoid all these challenges. Every time we consider curling up on the couch with unhealthy snacks, we attempt to block out our troubles and hopelessness. We feel lonely and empty, and we try to fill this void in the easiest way possible.

These easy ways are bad habits that differ from person to person. For most people, eating a bag of chips is a way to numb their inner pain; others binge watch movies, while you find yet others escaping their letdowns by talking to their friends all night long through social media, and so on.

If you want to leave a positive imprint and become useful, you need a different lifestyle—a healthy lifestyle that takes into account your physical and psychological health—a style in which you commit to sleeping well, eating healthy, exercising, reading books, and meditating on life. Most of all, you become someone that others can rely on, but you certainly cannot do that while following negative habits.

How do you do that?

Decide where you stand and whether or not you are determined to live a meaningful life. Then, identify the habits that are holding you back. Once you have identified your bad habits, make a firm decision to break them. Only now are you no longer messing around; this time you are serious about breaking your negative habits, and you can adopt new ones.

Now you know what we mean by saying you can form new positive habits all at once. When you get rid of all your negative habits, you will be psychologically prepared to make many positive habits at the same time.

There is only one condition: focus on one habit for each area of ​​your life - work, health, learning, finances, relationships, etc.

For example, in terms of your professional life, you have to go to work earlier, and in terms of health, you can start running daily. As for learning, you have to set aside an hour a day to learn a new skill, and for your relationships, you have to replace your rude behavior with a nice one. In terms of finances, you may want to save 20% of your income, for example.

Yes, you can do all of these things; why not? But remember that your chance of success diminishes when you set more than one goal in the same field. So instead of trying to learn several skills at the same time, focus on learning one and your chances of success will be higher.

In conclusion

Believe that you can achieve many great things in life, and all you need are the right habits to help you succeed.