How To Permanently Improve Your Life (3/3)
Forming New Habits Successfully
- Replace your bad habit with a good habit.
- Use visualisation to develop a good habit.
- Monitor your progress with a habit plan.
Now that you have completed the preparatory stage, it is time to begin reprogramming your bad habit. So let’s get started.
Replace Your Bad Habit With A Good Habit
One of the keys to successfully stopping a bad habit is to find a suitable replacement for it. Without a replacement habit you will continue to think about your old habit, and feel as though something is “missing” in your life.
By selecting a new habit you will not only fill this void, but will also add a beneficial new habit to your life.
So decide right now what new habit you would like to incorporate into your life, that you can use to replace your bad habit. Write this down by completing the following sentence.
The new habit I will use to replace my old habit is…
Now list as many benefits as you can which your new habit will bring to your life.
Benefits my new habit will bring into my life…
What Actions Will You Take To Replace your Habit?
In order to successfully incorporate a new habit into your life, you need to think about and plan the actions you will take to replace your old habit.
Such things could include changing your environment, changing the things you buy or changing the people you associate with on a daily basis.
Note : What actions you take will largely depend upon whether your habit is initiated by situational triggers (i.e. certain places cause you to act out your habit) or circumstantial triggers (i.e. certain events or experiences in your life cause you to act out your habit).
At this point you must be willing to make some kind of change in your life, because if you continue to do the same things you will most likely continue with your old habit.
I will replace my old habit with my new habit by…
Visualise Successfully Replacing Your Habit
The next step to overcoming your bad habit is to visualise what you have just done in the previous two steps. First, close your eyes and make a mental picture of you acting out your bad habit.
While you are picturing yourself doing this, think about what caused you to act out this habit and the resulting negative effects that habit is having on your life.
Take your time and really experience this visualisation.
Now that you have visualised your old bad habit, you have helped to strengthened your conscious awareness of that habit. The next step is to visualise the good habit you have selected, and the actions you will take to replace your bad habit with it.
Close your eyes again. Picture the situational or circumstantial trigger that usually causes you to act out your old habit. Now think of the replacement actions you came up with, and then picture yourself as acting out your new habit.
Once you have done this remember to think about the benefits your new good habit is going to bring into your life, by projecting yourself into the future.
The more emotions you can associate with this visualisation, the greater the affect it will have. So try to feel really good when you picture yourself acting out your new habit, and the benefits that habit will bring.
Some people may consider visualisation to be unimportant, and may be tempted to skip this step, or rush through it. Please do not do this, as visualisation is an extremely powerful way to re-programme the mind because the brain thinks in pictures.
Since the brain is responsible for your habits in the first place, you therefore need to use your conscious mind to re-programme your subconscious habits, and you do this through visualisation.
Make A Habit Plan
Now that you have decided upon a good habit you will use to replace your old bad habit, and the course of action you will take, the next step is to monitor your progress.
A new habit takes roughly 21 continuous days to become established, and a total of 90 consecutive days to become deeply engrained in the subconscious.
Therefore in order to make a lasting change in your life, you need to continually monitor your progress during this period.
If you click on the link below, you can download a 90 day habit plan that you can use to monitor your progress. It is in excel spreadsheet format, and is what I personally use.
Download The 90 Day Habit Plan Chart
How To Use The Habit Plan
Once you have downloaded the habit plan, print two copies of it. The first copy is what you are going to be using tomorrow, when you replace your old habit with the new habit you have chosen.
For each day that you successfully act out your new habit (and not your old habit) give yourself a tick for that day, starting with day one. For each day you act out your old habit, give yourself a “X”.
Your aim is to get 21 consecutive ticks. Once you have accomplished this, you have established your new habit.
Do not worry or become discouraged if for one day you go back to your old habit. The reason you are using the 90 day habit plan to get 21 ticks is to allow for some room should you return back to your old habit.
Some people may be able to get 21 and then total 90 consecutive ticks on their first attempt, and so may not need two sheets. Whilst other people may struggle and have days with lots of X’s.
So just remember that this process is different for everyone, and will all depend on how deeply engrained your old habit is and how strong you have made your conscious mind.
But it really doesn’t matter how quickly you are able to get 21 and then total 90 consecutive ticks, that’s not the point of this exercise.
The point is to get you consciously thinking each day about your new habit, and strengthen your desire to incorporate it into your life.
This is why you should not become disappointed or discouraged if you “slip up” one day. Just make a promise to yourself that you will succeed the next day.
After you have 21 consecutive ticks, continue to track your progress until you have 90 consecutive ticks. At this point your new habit will have become deeply engrained within your subconscious mind, and you will now be experiencing the benefits of those habits.
Note : When tracking your progress it is absolutely essential that you are honest with yourself and do not cheat. If on one day you go back to your old habit you must give yourself a X, and start counting again from day 1.
If you manage 21 consecutive ticks and on day 43 you go back to your old habit, you must begin again at day 1.
Techniques To Help With Your Habits
Use the following steps to assist you begin your habit plan:
1 – Remove anything from your life that is not helping you to change your habits, or making it difficult for you.
2 – Take note of the things that are working for you, and use them to your advantage.
3 – Add new things to your life that will help you to overcome your habit.
Final Tips And Advice On Stopping Your Habit
The first 3 days are going to be difficult, and as a result you are going to experience some degree of psychological discomfort. Exactly the same thing you experienced with the exercise you did in the first article.
It is during this period that your conscious mind will need to remain strong, as the subconscious will try to make you go back to your old habit.
Use Visualisation
Use the visualisation process (for your new habit only) in the morning when you wake up for these 3 days, as this will help you to remain in conscious control of your new habit and increase your desire to incorporate it into your life.
If you want to continue the morning visualisation after the 3 days, please do so as it will make permanently overcoming your habit a lot easier.
Watch Out For Situational & Circumstantial Triggers
Make sure you avoid (if possible) the situational or circumstantial triggers that normally cause you to act out your old habit, especially during days 1-7. For example, if you are giving up alcohol, don’t go into a pub on day 2!
You will most likely find that after day 3 or 4 you won’t “miss” your old habit anymore, and start to feel as if you have successfully overcome it. Don’t be fooled!
Your habit will not be established until 21 consecutive days, and will not become deeply engrained within the subconscious until 90 days.
If you become complacent during this period, you may slip up and return back to your old ways. So always bear in mind that the subconscious will do all it can to get you to go back to your old habit, even if it means tricking you by making you think you have beat it. Be on your guard!
Use Positive And Negative Reinforcement
To help you reinforce your new habit you can use rewards or punishment to help you establish it. For more information about using rewards and punishment see the following article.
Behaviour Shaping Using Rewards
If you are finding the habit reconditioning process difficult and are getting lots of X’s with no ticks, then you most likely do not want to really give up your old habit, or you have not completed the exercises in enough detail.
If this applies to you after a few weeks (with no ticks) go back to the first article and start from the beginning.
Tomorrow you will begin day 1 of your habit plan. Remember to do the visualisation exercise as soon as you wake up, and ideally tonight as you fall asleep.
Just get through the first 3 days and you will be ok.
Good luck!
