Is Breaking Bad Habits even Possible?
If you have followed along on Part I and Part II of the Breaking Bad Habits post series, you probably aren't real encouraged so far.
Let's do a quick review:
- Once a bad habit is written in your brain, it is stored there forever. You will never completely eliminate that bad habit from your thinking.
- The biggest triggers for relapsing back into bad habits are too much stress and boredom. Unfortunately, we all feel over-stressed and bored sometimes.
- Your willpower is not going to help you too much in breaking bad habits. The more you try not to act out on a bad habit, the more likely you will. Trying not to do it keeps the habit at the forefront of your brain, which makes acting out on it more likely when stress and boredom come.
5 Tips that might help you break bad habits
1. Make the Decision
It sounds too simple, but if you aren't absolutely sure that you want to make this change in your life, then you won't do it. You must have a compelling reason. It may be your health, it may be for your kids. Only you can decide what is going to give you the fuel to keep going when the road gets tough. The secret is to use that willpower we discussed earlier to focus on what your life will look like once you make this change. Therefore, instead of focusing on trying not to fall into your bad habit, focus on how your life will be improved once you overcome the habit.
2. Throw perfection out the window
This is the one that has tripped me up over and over again every time I want to eliminate a bad habit. For some reason, after I decide to make a change in my life, I envision the process of change to be perfect. I picture myself making the transition from a bad habit to a good one and don't plan for the inevitable slip-up. Then, when I do mess up, I beat myself up for it, which makes me feel miserable, which leads me a large relapse in my negative behavior.
Even if you have a compelling reason to make the change in your life, if you expect to be perfect and never mess up, you are setting yourself up for failure. PLAN ON MESSING UP from time to time while getting rid of bad habits. Messing up is part of the learning process. When you mess up, don't beat yourself up for it. Now you know that it is going to happen and is part of the process. Dust yourself off, learn from your mistake, and get back on your journey.
3. One day at a time
When eliminating bad habits, it is very important to focus on the big picture. You must have a vision for what you are shooting for and keep the compelling reason for your change in the forefront of your mind.
Breaking the bad habit isn't going to occur, however, by continuously focusing on the future goal. Any positive change occurs as the result of making the right decisions over and over again, day after day. The change happens one day at a time.
In my experience, it works well to peak at the future goal and know what you are shooting for, but quickly come back to the present moment and decide what you are going to do this day to move you a little closer to that positive change.
THE PRESENT MOMENT is where the rubber meets the road and where progress is made.
4. Manage your Stress
I know this is a tough one. We live in a stress-filled society. It's all we know. If we are not stressed out, most of us find something to stress about because that is our normal state. There are things that we can do, however to manage the stress in our lives. I hope to discuss this topic further in a later post.
5. Replace bad habits with good ones.
When we stop acting out on a bad habit, it leaves a void in our lives. There is no way around it. If you spend 2 hours a day doing your bad habit, you now have 2 hours that you will need to fill up with something else.
In my experience, a bad habit cannot be broken without replacing it with a good one. If you want to maintain freedom from a bad habit for a long period of time, you will need to begin another habit to do instead.
Without replacing the bad habit with a good one, BOREDOM will creep into that time slot, and it will lead you right back to your bad habit.
What about You?
Does perfection creep in when you are trying to eliminate bad habits and lead you to failure? Can you add any other tips that you have found for breaking bad habits?
Parts of this post was based on a seminar sponsored by the Institute of Brain
Potential called How the Brain Forms New Habits: Why Willpower is Not
Enough: More information can be found at:
https://www.ibpceu.com/pdf/custom/HABNHMEMARIF11-4.pdf
***Please Note: If you enjoy my posts and would like to share them on Facebook or Twitter, all you have to do is click on the tiny social media icon at the bottom of each post. They are so small that I thought many people might not know that they are there.***
Showing posts with label perfectionism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perfectionism. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2012
Sunday, June 3, 2012
The Freedom to Fail
And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Philippians 1:6 (NLT)
As a recovering perfectionist, the thought of failing at anything in life makes my skin crawl. Failure has always horrified me. I want to succeed. I want to win. I want to be PERFECT.
While growing up, I often thought that being a perfectionist was a positive character trait. I thought that having this trait meant that you were driven and were not going to allow failure in any area of your life.
There is one little issue, however, in expecting perfection. We are HUMANS. Humans are not perfect and WILL Fail. As my drive for perfection increased, my peace of mind decreased. Every time I would fail, I would throw up my arms and give up. My thought was, if this plan led to failure, then obviously the whole plan is worthless.
This cycle of making a plan, failing, completely changing plans, failing again, and then finally giving up has shown up in nearly every area of my life. A great example of this was dealing with weight loss. I would come up with a great plan of how I was going to eat healthy and exercise. I would run this plan through my mind over and over again tweeking every little detail until the plan was perfect. I would then start the plan, have a small failure during the first couple of days, and then give up in disgust. At the first failure, I would decide that the plan was doomed and give up on the entire thing.
As I look back, the flaws in my thinking were obvious. Who am I to think I can do something perfect? Do I think I am God? Nobody ever does anything well, let alone perfect, the first time. Highly successful people know that failure is part of life and actually use it to gain even more success.
Finding this acceptance of imperfection has been one of the most liberating experiences of my life. It is actually one of the biggest reasons why I had the guts to start this blog. I know that I have a long ways to go to become a good writer. I have so much to learn and know that I will FAIL a number of times as I work on it. I also know, however, that if I keep working at it and learn from my mistakes, I will get better.
This is how I found The Freedom to Fail :
1) Accept that I am a HUMAN BEING and that all human beings FAIL sometimes.
2) Realize that Failing is actually one of the most effective ways that God teaches us.
3) Understand that Jesus was the only person who ever lived a perfect life.
4) Accept that if I am trying to be PERFECT, then I am trying to play GOD.
5) Believe that if I have a relationship with HIM, then I am perfect in GOD'S EYES, despite my
failures.
6) Believe that if I am already perfect in God's eyes, I have the FREEDOM TO FAIL in this life.
Failing is just part of the human experience. If we never fail, then we never learn. If we never learn then we never succeed.
What About You? Do you expect perfection out of yourself? Would accepting your Freedom to Fail help you relax and try new, challenging or scary things in your life?
As a recovering perfectionist, the thought of failing at anything in life makes my skin crawl. Failure has always horrified me. I want to succeed. I want to win. I want to be PERFECT.
While growing up, I often thought that being a perfectionist was a positive character trait. I thought that having this trait meant that you were driven and were not going to allow failure in any area of your life.
There is one little issue, however, in expecting perfection. We are HUMANS. Humans are not perfect and WILL Fail. As my drive for perfection increased, my peace of mind decreased. Every time I would fail, I would throw up my arms and give up. My thought was, if this plan led to failure, then obviously the whole plan is worthless.
This cycle of making a plan, failing, completely changing plans, failing again, and then finally giving up has shown up in nearly every area of my life. A great example of this was dealing with weight loss. I would come up with a great plan of how I was going to eat healthy and exercise. I would run this plan through my mind over and over again tweeking every little detail until the plan was perfect. I would then start the plan, have a small failure during the first couple of days, and then give up in disgust. At the first failure, I would decide that the plan was doomed and give up on the entire thing.
As I look back, the flaws in my thinking were obvious. Who am I to think I can do something perfect? Do I think I am God? Nobody ever does anything well, let alone perfect, the first time. Highly successful people know that failure is part of life and actually use it to gain even more success.
Finding this acceptance of imperfection has been one of the most liberating experiences of my life. It is actually one of the biggest reasons why I had the guts to start this blog. I know that I have a long ways to go to become a good writer. I have so much to learn and know that I will FAIL a number of times as I work on it. I also know, however, that if I keep working at it and learn from my mistakes, I will get better.
This is how I found The Freedom to Fail :
1) Accept that I am a HUMAN BEING and that all human beings FAIL sometimes.
2) Realize that Failing is actually one of the most effective ways that God teaches us.
3) Understand that Jesus was the only person who ever lived a perfect life.
4) Accept that if I am trying to be PERFECT, then I am trying to play GOD.
5) Believe that if I have a relationship with HIM, then I am perfect in GOD'S EYES, despite my
failures.
6) Believe that if I am already perfect in God's eyes, I have the FREEDOM TO FAIL in this life.
Failing is just part of the human experience. If we never fail, then we never learn. If we never learn then we never succeed.
What About You? Do you expect perfection out of yourself? Would accepting your Freedom to Fail help you relax and try new, challenging or scary things in your life?
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Unresolved
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to GOD and the PEACE of GOD which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 6-7 NIV
Unresolved, unfinished, lacking, incomplete. These are all synonyms of how I feel at times.
I have spent so much time planning, envisioning and daydreaming about THE DAY that I will finally reach that place of Nirvana. I will reach this or that particular goal, and I will feel complete. Life will make sense, all of my struggles will be gone and all my relationships will be how I want them to be.
I would set a particular goal. I would plan exactly how I was going to get there, and I would dream of the day that I reached that particular goal. The next day, I would wake up, something would go wrong and mess up my perfect plan and I would throw my hands up. It didn't go EXACTLY like I wanted it to, so I would give up and forget the whole thing in anger and frustration.
Life is not Perfect. It does not always go like we plan it to. In fact, in my experience, it never goes like we plan it. Life is full of errors, defects, mistakes, and alternate paths.
So what does this have to do with Peace which transcends understanding. This verse tells me that we can live with unresolved issues in a imperfect world. I can have peace when the world is full of chaos and when I have unresolved conflicts in my own life. I have issues that are not resolved. I do not understand what causes Devan's autism. I have relationships with loved ones that are not what I want them to be. When I look at these issues and then examine my abilities to deal with them, I become overwhelmed. I do not have the resources to handle them all or actually any of them on my own.
God meets us in the Middle. Where we are lacking, God takes up the slack. Where we do not understand, God directs our path until we get it. When we screw up, God offers forgiveness. Therefore, we CAN have peace which transcends all understanding even though our human nature says otherwise. We can be OK, even though our lives aren't exactly the way we wish they were.
TIP: Every few months, take a glance back at where you were then and where you are now. Do you notice patterns? Are you moving closer to where you want to be or futher away? This glance back can often bring some interesting surprises. You just may be making more progress than you thought you were.
Unresolved, unfinished, lacking, incomplete. These are all synonyms of how I feel at times.
I have spent so much time planning, envisioning and daydreaming about THE DAY that I will finally reach that place of Nirvana. I will reach this or that particular goal, and I will feel complete. Life will make sense, all of my struggles will be gone and all my relationships will be how I want them to be.
I would set a particular goal. I would plan exactly how I was going to get there, and I would dream of the day that I reached that particular goal. The next day, I would wake up, something would go wrong and mess up my perfect plan and I would throw my hands up. It didn't go EXACTLY like I wanted it to, so I would give up and forget the whole thing in anger and frustration.
Life is not Perfect. It does not always go like we plan it to. In fact, in my experience, it never goes like we plan it. Life is full of errors, defects, mistakes, and alternate paths.
So what does this have to do with Peace which transcends understanding. This verse tells me that we can live with unresolved issues in a imperfect world. I can have peace when the world is full of chaos and when I have unresolved conflicts in my own life. I have issues that are not resolved. I do not understand what causes Devan's autism. I have relationships with loved ones that are not what I want them to be. When I look at these issues and then examine my abilities to deal with them, I become overwhelmed. I do not have the resources to handle them all or actually any of them on my own.
God meets us in the Middle. Where we are lacking, God takes up the slack. Where we do not understand, God directs our path until we get it. When we screw up, God offers forgiveness. Therefore, we CAN have peace which transcends all understanding even though our human nature says otherwise. We can be OK, even though our lives aren't exactly the way we wish they were.
TIP: Every few months, take a glance back at where you were then and where you are now. Do you notice patterns? Are you moving closer to where you want to be or futher away? This glance back can often bring some interesting surprises. You just may be making more progress than you thought you were.
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