How to kick your Bad habits

Nearly all of us have bad habits we want to kick. Perhaps we’re overweight or want to rid ourselves of nicotine addiction. For many of us, though, it’s hard to change.

One survey, conducted in the 1980s, at the University of Scranton, found that out of 213 people, 60 percent weren’t able to stick to their New Year's resolutions. So what can we do to break free of these habits?

First, recognize the habit you want to kick. The consequences of bad habits are often more obvious than the habits themselves. It’s easy, for example, to recognize that you’re overweight, or, if you’re a smoker, that you’re out of breath.

To find them, you can use mindfulness, the conscious recognition of what you’re doing in any given moment.

Mindfulness takes a little practice. You can start with the following exercise:

Relax your body and sit comfortably in your favorite chair. Then, give your focus to one thing, such as your breath. As you sit, be non-judgmental and open-hearted with yourself and compassionate toward your thoughts and feelings.

This is the first step toward dropping your bad habits, as the more mindful you are, the more aware you’ll be of what you’re doing, including your habitual actions.

Another great approach working on your self-control.

Self-control is like a muscle; it strengthens through training. Merely trying to break a habit can help.
When you get frustrated, bear in mind that we sometimes tend to overestimate our ability to control ourselves. Say you want to quit smoking. Just trying to stop will be good for your willpower. Once you know you can go one week without nicotine, for example, you can try going for two.

Here are some other basic ways to get your habits under control: monitoring behavior, by, say, keeping a food diary; distraction, like chewing gum instead of smoking a cigarette; and changing your environment – for example, moving to a new, non-smoking apartment.