I CANNOT CHANGE MY HABITS,WHY?

Some habits have become almost impossible to change in our lives, most of them turn out to be bad habits. Name it; Bitting your nails, laughing at the wrong time, smoking, drinking excessively, spending all your cash, wasting time online, eating junk food,eating too fast,using dirty words, talking to yourself, picking your teeth in public, stealing, forgetting to brush your teeth, picking your nose, sucking your thumb and so on.

These habits are considered offensive to other people and can ruin relationships. Friends and relations even acquintances stay away from you once they realize you have a horrible habit. Not everyone will be open to tell you that you have a bad habit. We all experience this, and find ways to change our bad habits but it may seem futile and cause us to give up.

Most of these habits seem like we were born with them. Some of these habit, we are not even aware that they are bad habits. Others we are unable to take control and stop them. They are still some habits that we have decided not to change despite knowing that they are detrimental to our lives. Whether we are not aware that they are bad habits or we are aware and do not want to change them, it can cause problems in our lives.

 Why do these habits seem impossible to change?

In the book “Power of Habit”, Habits are results of repeated actions which become routines and later turn into habits. The brain recognise these repeated habits and makes them automatic. This means that they seem almost natural because we can do them without thinking or being aware. The basal ganglia present in the brain is responsible for this process. It stores repeated actions and makes them automatic. This process is the same as how we recognize people’s faces, how we drive to work knowing which route to take, doing other regular day-to-day activities even without putting much attention in it.

Habits are very helpful because it eases stress on the brain. Imagine a situation where you have to learn everyday how to brush your tooth, take your bath, prepare your meals for the day, drive to work while learning the routes all over again, recognize the face of your colleagues at work or school every time you see them every new day. It will put stress on the brain and weakens it. The ability of the brain to recognize these actions and turn them to habits gives it the space to focus on other things during the day thereby reducing the stress on it.

The process through which good habits is the same for bad habits. This makes it hard to change these bad habits because the brain recognize them as routines and makes them automatic. Also the brain is unable to different between good and bad habits, making bad habits seem impossible to change.

The question now is how do we change these bad habits?

Changing of habits may seem like a very difficult task but it might be easier than we thought. What are the steps to take when you want to change your bad habits.

1. RECOGNITION OF A BAD HABIT
2. DESIRE TO CHANGE THE BAD HABIT
3. TAKING STEPS TO CHANGE THEM
4. REPLACEMENT WITH A GOOD HABIT

• RECOGNITION OF A BAD HABIT

The moment you notice that a habit is not helping you, then it’s detrimental to your life. Your willingness to name it bad and not to pretend that it is not builds your defense against it.
Let’s take this habit: Wasting time online,
If you have this problem and you want to change it, First recognize this habit as being bad. Recognize the bad effects on your life, which may be wasting time which should be used for your development as a teenager when you’re clearly not Learning from it.

*DESIRE TO CHANGE THE BAD HABIT

This is very important, note the word DESIRE, this word has a lot of power attached to it. When you desire something, you place yourself in a position where you will never be happy till you achieve your aim. Once you name a habit bad, the next step should be desiring to change it.
It is not good for you so it should be changed but it all depends on you, no one will make this decision for you.
Once you desire to change it, you say to yourself, “I desire to Change this habit of Wasting time online because it is unhealthy for me and does not aid my growth and development”, repeat this everyday and believe me it works once you work with Faith.

TAKING STEPS TO CHANGE THE BAD HABIT

A goal without a plan is just a wish. Also an unaccomplished plan is a dream. Recognition and desiring alone cannot do the job. Find out how it is formed and how to change it and follow through.
Charles Duhigg described the habit loop as: A cue, routine and a reward.
A cue is the hint or trigger the brain recognises and decides which automatic habit to follow.
A routine is the action it takes after recognizing the cue.
A reward can be described as the feeling we get after or during the process of execution of the habit.

The third step lies in noting the following,
What’s the feeling you get before you execute the habit?
What do you do to satisfy your feeling?
What is that feeling you experience after you’re done?

Answering these questions is very crucial for change.
Our cited example here for example;
It might be boredom or a feeling of wanting to talk to people. This is the cue of the habit.
As a result of boredom you go online to chat with your friends or view post to alleviate your boredom. Or you may want to chat with people because you feel like doing so even though you are only gossiping or talking about irrelevancies.
When you’re done wasting maybe 6hours of a day talking or scrolling through the internet, you feel satisfaction and you don’t feel boredom anymore, this is the reward.

After you have recognized the cue, routine and reward then you get to work. Charles Duhigg recommended changing the routine. To change a bad habit, leave the cue and reward but change the routine. Since you have discovered that the cue is boredom or feeling of wanting to talk to people and the reward you are not bored anymore and happy, it becomes easier to change the routine.

*REPLACEMENT WITH A GOOD HABIT

Let’s say instead of going online when bored think of something else to do, it may be looking for educational groups on internet to learn new stuff, watching education or success training YouTube videos, reading a self-development based book, learning a new art or doing anything you find interesting at that point. It should be something that makes you feel not bored and happy when you’re done. On the first attempt it may seem tiring and not comfortable but through repetition, it becomes a routine and finally a habit.

When this happens, congratulations you’ve changed your habit. It not very easy at first but with determination and desire and dedication. Notice that I did not use eliminated or remove a bad habit because habits cannot be eliminated, they can only be changed. This process works for every other bad habit you may be battling with.

Changing a bad habit may be difficult but not impossible. With this mindset, you can change any bad habit you have.