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Here's an awesome trick that will lead to a better, more enjoyable life.
Learn to control habits!
Good habits can be made and bad ones broken (often at the same time.)
Your life will have fewer nuisances and more sources of pleasure. You will feel better about yourself, feel less shame and guilt, and more in control of things.
Controlling habits is actually very easy. Understanding how habits work is the key. We humans, like most animals, are creatures of habit. We don't all have the same habits. Habits are personal; reflections of our individual character. Habits can be made and broken with surprisingly little effort.
Say, for instance, you have a bad habit that you are not proud of. You'd really like to change it, but you can't help yourself. You keep doing it because habits are not conscious acts. They are subconscious acts. Things that we do without deciding to do them. We just do them, as if on auto-pilot. That's because they are programmed into our subconscious. That is the key to changing habits. You have to reprogram the subconscious.
How is that done? Repetition.
Say, for instance, you have a habit of drinking something flavored instead of the water your body is actually seeking. You know your body just wants the water, but you like to have it flavored. Maybe it's soft drinks, maybe it's coffee, maybe it's fruity drinks, maybe it's beer. Whatever it is, you can change your bad habit by replacing it with a preferred habit. If you want to switch to water, you can do it. It's not going to hurt you. In the end you may find you actually prefer it. And what a savings in money!
Here's how it works. Once you decide you want to change a habit you figure out what the preferred habit should be. Then, every time you catch yourself doing the unwanted habit, or wanting to do it, you try to consciously stop yourself and force yourself to do the preferred habit.
Unless this involves a physical addiction like coffee or tobacco, this process will take 2-3 weeks. If it's merely a psychological habit, 2-3 weeks is all it takes. What you will find is that by the end of that period your subconscious has then been reprogrammed to simply do the new habit without even having to consciously think about it. Once you reach that point, the old habit is effectively replaced with the new one.
Then, the only concern is slipping back into the unwanted habit. You have to be on guard for that for a period of time, perhaps months, but as long as you remember that you made up your mind you wanted to control this, you'll be fine. The first 2-3 weeks are the most difficult part. The more time that goes by after that critical initial period, the less likely you are to slip back into the unwanted habit.
Learn to control habits!
Good habits can be made and bad ones broken (often at the same time.)
Your life will have fewer nuisances and more sources of pleasure. You will feel better about yourself, feel less shame and guilt, and more in control of things.
Controlling habits is actually very easy. Understanding how habits work is the key. We humans, like most animals, are creatures of habit. We don't all have the same habits. Habits are personal; reflections of our individual character. Habits can be made and broken with surprisingly little effort.
Say, for instance, you have a bad habit that you are not proud of. You'd really like to change it, but you can't help yourself. You keep doing it because habits are not conscious acts. They are subconscious acts. Things that we do without deciding to do them. We just do them, as if on auto-pilot. That's because they are programmed into our subconscious. That is the key to changing habits. You have to reprogram the subconscious.
How is that done? Repetition.
Say, for instance, you have a habit of drinking something flavored instead of the water your body is actually seeking. You know your body just wants the water, but you like to have it flavored. Maybe it's soft drinks, maybe it's coffee, maybe it's fruity drinks, maybe it's beer. Whatever it is, you can change your bad habit by replacing it with a preferred habit. If you want to switch to water, you can do it. It's not going to hurt you. In the end you may find you actually prefer it. And what a savings in money!
Here's how it works. Once you decide you want to change a habit you figure out what the preferred habit should be. Then, every time you catch yourself doing the unwanted habit, or wanting to do it, you try to consciously stop yourself and force yourself to do the preferred habit.
Unless this involves a physical addiction like coffee or tobacco, this process will take 2-3 weeks. If it's merely a psychological habit, 2-3 weeks is all it takes. What you will find is that by the end of that period your subconscious has then been reprogrammed to simply do the new habit without even having to consciously think about it. Once you reach that point, the old habit is effectively replaced with the new one.
Then, the only concern is slipping back into the unwanted habit. You have to be on guard for that for a period of time, perhaps months, but as long as you remember that you made up your mind you wanted to control this, you'll be fine. The first 2-3 weeks are the most difficult part. The more time that goes by after that critical initial period, the less likely you are to slip back into the unwanted habit.