Ask a smoker, an alcoholic, or any addict the number of times they have tried to beat their addiction. Ask a truck driver the times they have used truck driving skills on a personal car. Habits, good or bad, are difficult to break once formed. Once a behavior is repeated many times, the brain records it as a preferred habit. It responds by autosuggesting the behavior every time it is asked to pick a habit from the many behaviors stored in the brain. The brain’s autosuggestion ability is the reason many people struggle to break habits and develop new ones. If you are struggling to break or develop a habit, I suggest you start by changing what you see, your way of doing things, and your identity. Let’s investigate these principles to understand why they work well in breaking bad habits and forming new ones.
Changing what you see
The desire to break a habit starts when we are disappointed by what we presently SEE in our lives. Our disappointment is us communicating a desire to SEE our present situation changing into something that brings us joy. The ONLY way out of what we currently see is SEEING the outcomes we want.
Our brain possesses the ability to see things we do not see presently. If you want to break free from smoking, you must see yourself someday as a nonsmoker, if you want to lose weight, you must see yourself with the body weight you want, if you want to be successful, you must see yourself as a successful.
Beating the habits you have and forming new ones begins in the brain before we can manifest them physically. Seeing what could happen stirs excitement, creativity, and the possibility of achieving what you want. When you see what you want, your brain automatically aligns you to the path that leads to your desired goal.
You MUST build a habit of seeing your future results every day otherwise your present situation will discourage you. Your brain requires little energy to develop the seeing habit, leverage this advantage to see your results every time. Spend a major part of your day seeing yourself possessing the results you want, write them in a journal, and read your journal daily. If possible read about the outcome you desire every time. Seeing your outcome can bear no fruit if you do not combine it with the following principle.
Changing your Habits and Systems
Immediately your brain sees the outcome you desire, it begins suggesting ways to get you to your dreams. Your brain’s suggestions are in other words called habits and systems. This immediately tells you that you should channel your energy from breaking bad habits to building new ones.
The brain develops a neuron connection when you do something new. The connection between the neurons strengthens when you do the same thing several times. When we stop doing the habit, the connection weakens. You MUST use this brain’s ability to break free from bad habits. Weaken bad habits neuron connection by ignoring them and creating new connections for the good habits.
Once you determine the good habits you want, you must develop a system to stop you from rebounding to bad habits. Your bad habits are stronger than your desire for good habits at the beginning of your journey. The system keeps you focused on the good habits. The first system you must strongly establish is continuously seeing your desired self, as we saw in the first step. The second system is building a daily routine that strengthens your new habits. The third system is creating room for adjustment and creativity. The first and the second system introduce you to the new world of your good habits and the third system opens you up to the possibilities in the new world.
The third system also grounds you in the new world and stiffens your character. Seeing the outcomes you desire and building habits and systems, do not guarantee sustainability. It is possible for your bad habits to resurface, not unless you change the final step.
Read: Habits of Confident People
Changing your identity
Your identity is a combination of your beliefs, values, desires, and goals. Whether you know it or not, your habits stem from your identity. The bad or good habits show us how you identify yourself. We do not have to do much to know you, your habits say everything about the real you.
It is natural for you to love the habits you have. Your disappointment proves your habits are founded on a counterfeit identity. The first step towards knowing your true identity is asking yourself why you do what you do and if the reason you do what you do is the real you. Once you find the counterfeit identity, reject it with your heart and accept the true identity you find.
Changing what you see and building new habits and systems is a mechanical method for weakening neural connections. It is exhausting and draining to entirely depend on these methods to break bad habits and develop new ones. Using the two methods alone is like cutting a banana tree and leaving its roots. The tree will grow again and again even when you cut it when it’s one inch tall.
Changing your identity removes all bad habits and neuron connections. It can take seconds to break free from all bad habits once you remove the source of the habits. Changing your identity is like cutting the banana tree by its roots. It will never grow again. Identity change involves starving the fake identity and feeding the true one. The true identity comes with the habits you want. Your responsibility is to strengthen the new habits using the first and the second principles.
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