How to Break a Bad Habit

We all have at least one bad habit. If we are honest, we likely have more than one. Maybe you bite your nails. Maybe you curse before you can stop yourself. Possibly you have an ugly attitude that leads to things like road rage or saying things that you do not really mean. If you want to break a bad habit (or habits), I have some suggestions that can help.

To break a bad habit, you must realize what a habit is and what an addiction is. A habit is defined as "an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary." An addiction is "Habitual psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice beyond one's voluntary control." It may be difficult to break a bad habit, but an addiction can be impossible to break without help and at times (such as with alcoholism) it can be dangerous to break an addiction without help. I will focus only on how to break a bad habit in this article and would advise anyone with an addiction to any substance or practice to seek professional help in ridding themselves of it.

When you want to break a bad habit, you need to replace that bad habit with something good. For instance, if you want to stop biting your nails use gum to keep your mouth busy. If you want to stop eating so much, give yourself only enough to time to eat a healthy amount before moving on to another healthy and desirable activity. If you want to stop cursing, write yourself a small list of safe words to say instead. Have one "good habit" action ready to replace the bad habit. Do not have more than one good habit to replace the bad habit as this could lead to indecision instead of the automatic replacement of a bad habit with a good habit.