Thankfully so much of what we do is subconscious and occurs without much thought or effort on our part.
If we had to actively process the multiple thousands of things going on all at once around us we’d become immediately overstimulated, overwhelmed, and shut down.
Our subconscious minds takes care of the everyday stuff automatically and allows us to focus our attention on more important matters.
This makes the subconscious mind a great tool to have, and it has an incredible amount of power to shape our lives. But like most things, with great power comes great responsibility, and a subconscious mind left to its own devices is a scary thought.
This is because our habits are run completely by our subconscious mind.
We don’t really think about habits, they just seem to happen on autopilot. The problem is that many of the habits you may currently have aren’t helping you move towards your goals or adding any value to your life. They may even be detracting from your life, causing sickness and disease physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually.
There’s an entire spectrum of bad habits that ranges from interrupting people to procrastination, laziness to smoking, over eating or over drinking to cursing too much in the wrong settings. We all have some bad habits, and areas of our lives that we’d like to change. But how?
Are you doomed to repeat these destructive behaviors?
Not at all. Thanks to your conscious mind you’re free at anytime to stop, and evaluate your current habits and whether or not they’re serving you, or if you’re a servant to them.
Habit Intervention
According to Charles Duhigg in his book The Power Of Habit, the key to a successful habit intervention is to first identify the trigger or cue, and then identify the reward.
You need to understand what’s causing the habit, and then what perceived benefit you’re getting from it.
When I was a teenager I used to have a terrible habit of procrastinating. I’d procrastinate everything from homework, to mowing the lawn, to preparing for a job interview or exam. Everything.
My trigger was work that had to be done, and the reward was free time now.
The problem was that when I looked a little closer, the free time now wasn’t all that enjoyable as I was carrying the weight of work that needed to be done, so I could never truly relax.
What it finally took to overcome the procrastination habit was a mentor of mine explaining that putting things off, didn’t mean putting things away. The work still had to be done, only by delaying the pain I ruined both the present and the future, instead of just getting it over in the present.
Habit Replacement, The 2 For 1 Effect
The trouble with habits is that once they’re ingrained, they can be a real pain to undo. But we do have the power to change them.
Rather than simply trying to eliminate a bad habit, the best thing to do is to replace the bad habit with a good one. This way you get a 2 for 1 effect, and you can take advantage of the trigger to add additional value to your life. It’s a powerful concept but it does take some work and mental effort to apply.
You can start to replace a bad habit with a good one by:
1. Understanding the trigger, cue, or underlying cause
You need to know what triggers the bad habit in the first place, so you may need to enlist some outside help from a friend or family member to alert you when you subconsciously start your bad habit.
2. Finding a substitute habit
- Instead of snacking on candy at night, snack on cut up carrots and celery
- Instead of procrastinating, finish early and reward yourself after with something you enjoy
- Instead of drinking cup after cup of coffee, try switching to decaf in the afternoon or every second cup
- Instead of spending hours in front of the TV, try reading for an hour or two
- Instead of smoking have a glass of water, talk with friends, go for a walk, eat something healthy, listen to music, etc
- And the list goes on…
3. Visualize success
You really can change a bad habit. It’s been done before and it continues to be done every single day. Once you understand and accept this you can start to visualize your new self, without the bad habit, and visualize how much more enjoyable life will be without it.
4. Allow for slip ups.
Nobody’s perfect. The trick is that if you do slip up, you need to get right back to where you were before. Slipping once, twice, even for a week doesn’t justify giving up and quitting. You have control, you’re in charge, and you can replace any bad habit you choose.
Replacing a bad habit may be a bit of a challenge, but it’s nothing you can’t handle. The key is to understand that it’s going to take some time and diligence to replace an old unhealthy habit.
How long?
There’s no exact answer as it’s based on how long you’ve had the bad habit, how much you identify with it, your circle of friends and family and a few other factors. But if you’re dedicated to making a positive change in your life, than stick with it and in a few short months you’ll be amazed at what you’ve accomplished.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. -Aristotle
