Break up with bad habits. Move on to good habits.
The world today is becoming quite haunted with lifehacks. Daily hacks, office hacks, beauty hacks, and there is no end to it. As a smart, affluent professional you would be constantly looking for meaningful shortcuts to have the push but you would see that your undefined bad habits are keeping you from reaching your goals. Thus, people have now started looking for hacks for maintaining the progress because they are not able to bring the change despite your best efforts.
Procrastination. Lazy mornings. Junk foodie. Inflexibility. And much more. The list of habits can be never ending.
Unfortunately, everything we go through is connected. Our brain is likely to get addicted to a bad habit faster than a good one. The human brain is suspect to adapt to negative behavior over positivity. Thus, our future results will depend on our habits and there lies a strong reason to avoid the bad habits that are most toxic in the office.
Is it a Habit or Addiction?
There is a significant difference between a habit and addiction and you need to know it well for yourself. A habit is something that can be modified if there is will, with efforts, time and attention. While an addiction will keep killing you daily and bring a negative impact on your life. Both, being a big part of all of us, is often confused and misunderstood.
So, know what category you fall into and follow these steps that will let you know how changing bad habits work. Shift yourself out of your worst habits to make a decent move towards a happily ever after. This step-by-step plan will help you get started.
#1. Know your habit
You need to identify your bad habit before making any changes. You need to completely acknowledge what are you actually doing, while deliberately adopting good habits will help you succeed in work. So, participate in taking charge of knowing your habits and finding an alternate to give up your tribe. Make a note of all your bad habits like isolating yourself, gossiping, procrastinating, always taking things personally, being a slob and being negative and develop a power to make the change.
#2. Identify the underlying cause
It is not just enough to know your habit but we all need to identify the underlying cause of the bad habit. The simplest way to prevent habit is to prevent the habit to begin with. All habits have a function; whether bad or good. To bring a change to your bad habit, you need to have a hold of whatever function the bad habit is serving you. To identify the loop understand the underlying reason behind each cause. Address the issue directly and you will see that it somehow involves our own choices.
#3. Align your actions with your words
Your words should not have a different affect than what you wanted. Build a culture where words and actions are aligned. No words should be left undercharged and do not let anyone receive your communication differently from the way you intend it. Once you get to know your bad habits, it becomes important to determine to make sure your words and actions are heard. Be sure to have an alignment with your actions by cleaning up your language, build your willpower muscle and words so that you develop a self-trust to make the change.
#4. Cultivate self-awareness
Self-awareness is the conscious knowledge of oneself and is the power that can change the bad in us. It is something that grows with time and effort and is defined by what we think and do repeatedly. Our negative work habits can begin to change if we are completely aware of when and how we show up. You need to watch yourself for your actions and poke yourselves for your intentions. Ask yourself questions, “why am I doing it”? And you will get the reason to move away.
#5. Look for true motivation
Your motivation to change your bad habits will fire up to make new habits. When you know your true motivation like a dear possession or your favorite thing that you always wanted to have or anything, it will kick you to eliminate the bad from you. Being a Marketing manager at ProofHub, I have to maintain a pace between my goals and achieving true motivation. So, look for your true motivation and follow a simple approach to replace your bad habits with good ones.
#6. Goal+habits = Success
A successful person will set some realistic goals and similarly if you have to actually be free from your bad habits, set your goal and record it. As it is well said, “Fail to plan and you Plan to Fail”, the odds are high that if you do not have a goal to reach leaving behind your bad habits, it will leave you continuously revolving around it. Look for the possible causes of failing to eliminate a bad habit, make a list of what are the good habits you want to have in your routine. Do not give up trying and come out with a grand plan to kick that bad habit out of your routine.
#7. Love yourself and be self-motivated
The last step towards the good cause is to love yourself. Love yourself and everything else will fall into place. You will probably fail if you try to break up from your bad habits out of fear, depression or anger. Do not do anything against self-love and switch to habits that you value and do that will truly change the habits in your life.
Bad habits are something that everyone has in some or the other form. If you are trapped in your inevitable bad habits, be sure to follow these steps and you will see yourselves falling apart from your bad habits. Break up with your bad habits before it becomes increasingly difficult to fix. Developing the right type of habit should be at the top of your effort to transform your life.
Image: Photospin
