Everyone has a bad habit or two that he or she would like to be free of. It could be smoking, eating too much, talking too much, watching TV, living with too much clutter, you name it, it could be a bad habit for someone.

Of course, it’s only a bad habit if it interferes with your health, safety, sanity or well-being – or that of others. It could also be that you have a habit you’re not even aware of. In that case, you’ll need to ask people you trust if there’s anything about you that might be worth looking into more or changing. If they care about you, they’ll be honest, as long as they feel you’re asking with an open and willing heart. If you get mad at them for giving you an answer you might not want to hear, you’ll alienate the person or people who might be your biggest champions.

Breaking bad habits isn’t impossible, but there are some defined steps that you’ll want to follow in order to let a bad habit go.

So the first step is…

1. Deciding you really want to rid yourself of a bad habit. If the answer isn’t a heartfelt, resounding, “Yes!” you may not be ready to let a bad habit go yet. We’ll assume that you are for this article.
2. You do – you really do! Yeah for you! Now you need to understand the “why” behind your desire to let a bad habit go. It helps to stick with positive statements. For example, say you wish to quit smoking. Your list could start with:
   • So I live long enough to see my daughter get married.
   • So my clothes and hair don’t stink.
   • So I don’t develop those little lines around my mouth that tell the world I’m a smoker.
   • Etc.
3. You have a choice. You can choose to follow through with your desire to quit your bad habit. Every day you can choose whether to continue your fight to quit or give in and give up. It’s all up to you.
4. Get in action! While quitting offending habits cold turkey works for some people, it doesn’t work for all. You much evaluate your style of accomplishment and decide on a framework that will support, not derail, your efforts to lose a bad habit.
5. Solicit help. When you’re working toward a big goal, such as ending a bad habit, it helps to not keep it to yourself. Tell someone who can be your champion and cheer on your efforts. Don’t, however, tell anyone who will be a naysayer or detractor. If they can’t believe you can do it, how can you?
6. Don’t beat yourself up if you backslide. Nobody’s perfect and I’m betting you aren’t either. This means you might slip up once in a while. Oh good. You’re human. The trick is not to let yourself get down about it or beat yourself up. Acknowledge that you had a moment of weakness, assess how it happened (what was going on, what might have triggered it) and learn from the experience. The next time you feel tempted, you can use this initial event as a reminder of what not to do.
7. Create milestones for your successes. If you’re not going cold turkey, but setting up a stair step approach to reducing and then eliminating a bad habit, set up rewards along the way to keep your motivation up. Without rewards, you may become frustrated because the end result is still out of reach. Acknowledging that you are making progress could be the key to you being ultimately successful. Besides, it’s fun to have a reason to celebrate.

Stay positive, acknowledge you’re human and keep plugging away at that bad habit. Sooner than later you’ll look back on your efforts and feel that total sense of satisfaction that only comes from a job well done.

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