Break any habit in 30 days

Bad habits can be hard to break. Regardless of the habit,destructive behaviors keep you away from the life youdesire.

Unhealthy habits can have a negative impact on your physicaland mental health and leave you feeling as if you don't haveenough control over your impulses. While change is frequentlychallenging, having a plan can make it easier.

This step-by-step plan can help you eliminate any bad habit:

Monitor the habit for a week. Make note of the times you'relikely to engage in the habit. Maybe you only smoke aroundcertain friends. Perhaps you bite your nails when you're stressedor bored. At any rate, identify under which circumstances yourhabit is most likely to rear its ugly head.

Find out why. Your habit is satisfying some need. You're gaininga benefit or you wouldn't be exhibiting the behavior at all. Figuringout the positive aspects of your habit will help you understand it.Once you understand it, you can begin to change it.

Develop a substitute behavior. Find a more acceptablealternative that satisfies the same need that was being met by the

30 DAYS TO CHANGEHABITS

1 �������������� ���������������

old habit. So if your habit helps you to deal with stress, what aresome healthy alternatives? Yoga? Other exercise? Deepbreathing? Meditating? Singing? Watching a comedy? Calling afriend?

What could you do instead that isn't harmful? Better yet, whatcould you do instead that would be healthy for you?

Start substituting the new habit for the old. It will take a fairamount of attention at first, but begin intentionally substituting thenew behavior each time you would automatically use the oldbehavior. It's likely to be challenging, but with a positivefocus, you can do it.

Measure your progress. Keep track of how many times youengage in the old habit and how many times you engage in thenew habit. Progress can be difficult to determine withoutmeasurement; if you don't know where you are, how will you knowif you're moving forward or backward? By measuring yourprogress, you accomplish two things:

You get feedback so you know how successful you are.

You have the added motivation of seeing your progress.

Be patient. Take one step at a time. Complete perfection isunreasonable, but a little perfection can work wonders. Don'tbe upset when the inevitable slip occurs while you're breakingyour old habit. Just examine the situation dispassionately anddetermine a better solution for the next time. You still gain a lot bydecreasing the frequency of the bad habit.

A good idea is to focus on having one perfect day today. Theidea of one day without the habit may seem quite reasonable -and doable - to you. A string of perfect days is a lot easier thantrying to be perfect for an extended period.

2 �������������� ���������������

For tough habits, a perfect hour might work better for yourshort-term goal.

Now that you're armed with a process, you can start eliminatingthat bad habit today. In 30 days, the new, healthier habit shouldbe a part of your routine without requiring as much consciouseffort. Changing to more positive habits can be challenging, butyou gain a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when you do so.

About The Author

Richard Butler is a life and business success coach based inBarcelona. His focus is getting people to where they want to be.He can help you if you need:

• Focus in your career, including cv coaching, interviewcoaching, LinkedIn help

• Removing blocks you may have in your personal life• Helping setting and reaching goals

You can contact Richard by visiting his websiteRichardButlerTheSuccessCoach.com

3 �������������� ���������������