Tips on how to break a habit (Part 2)

This is the continuation from part 1 of How To Break A Habit.

Use the marathon metaphor

When running a marathon, every step that you take brings you closer to the finish line. The same goes for breaking a habit. Every day, every hour, every minute that you go through without succumbing to the habit brings you closer to your finish line of breaking the habit.

As described in the 30 day challenge, the closer you get to reaching 30 days without doing the habit, the closer you are to breaking the habit. What a waste it would be if you went through 20 days refraining from the habit but on the 21st day you just couldn’t control yourself. It is the same as running a 15 mile marathon and giving up after you have already ran over 10 miles.

Whenever you think of how to break a habit, remember the marathon metaphor and it will motivate you to keep going when you face moments of weakness and hesitation.

Use hypnosis, NLP and meditation

The use of hypnosis, NLP and meditation are very good supporting resource for helping to break a habit. There are plenty of hypnosis CDs or tapes out there that specifically addresses the breaking certain habits such as smoking, losing temper, drinking and others.

If you practice meditation regularly, you can make breaking the habit part of your meditation process. During the meditation, focus on removing the bad habit from your being. See the bad habit leaving your physical and metaphysical body.

NLP techniques can also be tailored to help in your quest to break a bad habit. NLP methods such as submodalities, anchoring and time line are especially suitable for this purpose. Just be creative and change the context of it to breaking the habit.

Installing beliefs to support the new behavior

Just as influential as habits are the beliefs that we have. In fact, it can be said that beliefs are actually a form of habit. Beliefs are essentially thoughts that you habitually indulge in so much so that it developed into a belief.

Changing your beliefs about a habit helps to break the habit. When you believe that you can break the habit, that you’re not addicted to it, that you are able to refrain from it, then half the battle is already won.

Without having the belief you’ll just give up before even making an attempt to break the habit.

How do we get the beliefs? We do that by giving ourselves references to support the belief. For example, was there a time when you were able to successfully refrain from the habit? If you have then that is a reference that breaking that habit can be done. Have you shown strong willpower in the past? If yes then that’s another reference. Have other people broken that habit before? If yes then that’s another reference.

Anything that supports the belief that you can indeed break the habit is a reference that you can use. Come up with as many references as you can. The more references, the stronger the belief.

Final Thoughts...

Use these tips on how to break a habit and start getting rid of your bad habits. Remember, as long as you have the willpower and the right strategy, breaking a habit can be achieved.

Self Improvement Mentor is not just about sharing tips for increasing productivity or becoming smarter. Rather the information here approaches self improvement through total alignment and integration of the whole being to support the outcome. True lasting success can only exist when the soul, mind, body and emotions are aligned.

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