5 Techniques for Forming, Changing, and Breaking Habits
Being mentally strong is not enough!
The donut is screaming “EAT ME!”. You resists as you tell yourself “Not today! You are stronger than that.” and return to working on the computer. Around 2 PM, you put you teeth in the cake and tell yourself it is okay as you have been working hard and deserve it. Despite of this, you know you have once again given in to one of your bad habits…
You have almost certainly been in the scenario described above or something similar. Like me, you have probably also wondered why you end up giving in despite best intentions and concrete effort. You have most likely also wondered how to get rid of a bad habit and build a good one.
In short, a habit is a sequence of actions that is repeatedly started by an external or internal trigger. Internal triggers are thoughts or feelings such as the sugar craving described above. External triggers are cues in the environment that start the habit sequence, e.g., seeing the cake on the table.
In habit management, we want to be able to:
- Form a new positive habit from scratch.
- Change a bad habit into a better one.
- Break a bad habit without necessarily replacing it.
