6 Steps to Overcoming Your Worst Habit

How ashamed are you of your habit? How much do you want to get over this habit? Thinking about the amount of "satisfaction" you gain from your habit, where would you place it on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest?

The apparent satisfaction that you gain from your habits is the real reason that you might fail to overcome them. Whether real or imaginary, it is the value you place on satisfaction that determines how successful you are in overcoming them. This then, leaves you with a question that you must answer before you can go any further with this topic: "Are you prepared to pay the price?" You need to address the question of not so much being prepared to give up the habit, but to give up that "satisfaction" that it brings.

I keep putting the word "satisfaction" in inverted commas simply because often as habits are concerned, any such occurrence is simply masking the negative effects that are taking place behind the scenes. Such effects can by physical, spiritual, or both. This type of gratification and/or the delivery of it is nothing more than a master of illusion.

Simple examples of this would be:

Cigarettes - "they calm nerves"

Alcohol - "it helps me relax and unwind"

Coffee - "it wakes me up"

Such gratuitous statements cover up the damaging effects that such habits may be having behind the scenes. In cigarette smoking for example, the damage to lungs and the potentially lethal existence of cancer.

So why? Why do millions of people participate in those things/experiences that potentially are the source of damage or even death? Some will say that it is simply out of habit, but in reality, the problem starts sooner than that. As all things, it starts with a first step. But of course, that first step has gone now. For the purposes of this particular article, it has disappeared into the ether. So forget about the first step, forget even about successive steps that have brought you to where you are today. The real question is what is to be the next step? What step is it that you must take to overcome the most demanding of habits?