[AD] As human beings, we are all habit-driven creatures, and the vast majority of what we actually do on any given day is going to be automatic and more or less unconscious.
Once you’ve got a habit in place, it requires very little energy or attention to keep it moving – that’s why good habits are so powerful, and bad habits are so detrimental. The writer Charles Duhigg has also pointed out that there are such things as “keystone habits” – habits that cause a cascade of other habits to “activate,” whether for good or for bad.
Keeping all of that in mind, it’s pretty clear that having a bunch of negative habits in your life isn’t a great path to success and happiness. So, here are a few tips for removing them.
Consider temporarily “switching over” to less negative intermediaries
Going cold turkey with certain habits is often a good idea, if you can manage it, but sometimes it’s not necessarily the best way forward.
If you are addicted to smoking, you might find that you would have better success, with a lower chance of relapse, if you were to temporarily “switch over” to vaping. Vsavi offers great quality vape pens, for example, and with vaping you get many of the same “rituals” and “sensations” as you do with real smoking.
It’s important, here, to weigh up the pros and cons of different approaches. A habit like smoking is likely to kill you and severely impact your quality of life; for that reason the sooner you can stop doing that, the better – and if vaping is a quick way to stop, then so be it.
Start simple, and focus on the most obvious and straightforward things to let go of
It can be very difficult to come up with a comprehensive plan for your life, or to figure out exactly how you should transform everything in order to “become your best self.”
Fortunately, there’s a direct path forward – just start simple, and focus on addressing the most obvious and straightforward negative habits you can think of. In other words, start small, and let go of the most easy-to-manage bad habits you can.
This might be as simple as pre-cooking healthy meals each evening, so that you have a nutritious breakfast waiting for you each morning, instead of turning to processed junk food to curb your appetite.
Fill the “void” with something uplifting, as soon as possible
Eliminating negative habits is great, but it’s important to remember that those negative habits filled some kind of space in your life, and addressed some perceived “need.”
Often, when people have successfully eliminated negative habits, they fail to fill in the “void” with something uplifting and positive that they can expend their energy on.
Don’t make that mistake. When you are working to get rid of a negative habit, simultaneously replace it with something positive. So, for example, if you’re trying to stop playing video games, don’t just leave your evenings empty – consider joining a martial arts or sports club, or going down to the gym, instead, for the same kind of high-energy rush.
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