Supranormal Paul

21st February 2012

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Change your habits

I been hearing a lot from people trying to change their bad habits ingrained after so many days, months or years of doing them. Now people think that nothing can change and it is too late?

And I can understand the feeling. Doing bad habits for years makes them deeply rooted, and getting out of that trench might seem impossible, hopeless. – Like me and the carrot cake…

I once was stuck, and felt the weight of built up bad habits crushing, suffocating, and concealing me. I felt helpless, like I had no control over myself, and was too discouraged to even try to change. I was one of the hopeless.

This opposition is what does it. It’s not that changing bad habits is impossible. But if we are so discouraged we don’t try, we will never change them. To try and to fail is of little consequence, but to never start at all is fatal to the habit change. And I’m here to tell you, that changing bad habits is not impossible. No matter how long you’ve done them, no matter how many decades. It can be done.

Here’s how

Know as you start that you aren’t changing a mountain. You don’t have to change years of bad actions. Those actions are gone — they’ve evaporated into the ether, and you can forget them. Forgive yourself for them, and then forget them. As the saying goes forgive and forget (move on).

You don’t need to run an iron man challenge, run a marathon or get in a cage to change a habit. You just need to take a step. And you can take a step. A 5000 mile journey began with the first step.

Consider for a moment your bad habit. You might have a numerous ones, but choose an easy one. Not the one you’re most afraid of — the one you think you can do.

Take a step back and think about this habit. When do you do it? What things trigger the habit — stress, food, drinking, socializing, boredom, sadness, waking, being criticized? What need does the habit fulfil for you? Know that it does fulfil a real need, and that’s why you keep doing it. – If going through hell keep on going.

Realize something — crucial point: you must realize that you don’t need this habit to fulfil this need. You don’t need the habit. You can deal with stress in healthier ways. You can beat boredom. You can cope. You do not need the habit, and you will learn better ones with practice. I train a lot and that is to channel emotions, angry, anxiety, fear and all that. Now training is a good habit as each day I am challenging myself no other but me. The best competition is with me. Each day I can smile and say okay time to improve myself mentally and physically. Yes world will have another feeling of happiness by the beautiful canvas I see affront of me.

You might be feeling a bit overwhelmed at this point, but you’ve done the hardest part. Now you just need to take one more little step. For me that next step is to smile, each morning to smile and mean it and say to myself “I believe great and wonderful things are going to happen to me”, “If I make one person laugh or smile then it is a good day, if I have a bad day it is not a bad life.”

Commit to yourself to make a small tiny insignificant but powerful step each day. Commit fully, not half-assed. Commit by writing it down, and putting it up on your wall. Commit by telling a friend about it, and asking for help. Commit by putting it on Facebook, your blog, Be all in. I fought for happiness last couple of months, slowly, but them steps were always forward. There were hard steps for me but in our weakest moments we realize how strong we actually are.

Find a replacement habit. One that is healthier. One that fulfils the need. One that is easy. One that you can do after your trigger, instead of your bad habit. One that you enjoy and will look forward to. If you need to relieve stress, for example, consider walking, or push ups – Which I told a friend to do before asking out a lovely girl who finally said yes (push ups for the win!), or deep breathing.

You’re now ready to climb out of your trench. Remember, just a tiny step.

Notice your urge to do the habit. Pause. Don’t do the bad habit. Let the urge pass, then do your new replacement habit. Repeat, noticing the urge, letting the urge pass, not doing the bad habit, doing the good habit instead. You might mess up, but that’s OK. You’ll get better with practice.

Practice as often as you can, every day. You’ll get really good at it. Don’t worry about how long it takes. Keep doing it, one urge at a time. Know, Consider, Realize, Commit, and Find, Notice, Repeat, and Practice. These are easy steps that don’t take a lot of work. You can do them as you sit here, reading this post.

It’s never too late. – We can change our stars. 

Tagged: HabitslifelovefitnessExerciseTrainingGymlifepractise

Source: paradoxnutrition.com