🚶‍♂️ How to get rid of bad habits and start a healthy lifestyle 🌿

1 Assess your habits

According to researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), each habit consists of three parts, which are called a habit loop. Famous journalist and writer Charles Duhigg writes about it in his book The Power of Habit. The cue is what triggers the habit. Example: a notification about a new message. The habitual action is your action itself. Example: we open an email. The reward is the benefit we get from this action. Example: we find out what is written in the message. If the reward has positive reinforcement, we will want to repeat this loop the next time we see the corresponding cue. After many repetitions, it will become a habit. It is very useful to evaluate your habits in this way. You can track what provokes the habitual action, what this action consists of and what reward it brings. By breaking your habit into its component parts in this way, you can change it and make it work for you.

2 Find replacement habits

You've probably noticed that it's hard to break habits. Try replacing your habit with another one. Let's look at an example: people smoke when they're nervous. In this case, simply quitting smoking won't work. Instead, you need to find another way to deal with stress and incorporate it into the old habit loop. Old loop. Sign: stress → Habitual action: smoking → Reward: calm. New loop. Sign: stress → Habitual action: walking → Reward: calm. The sign and reward remain the same. Only the habitual action changes. Of course, quitting smoking is much more difficult. But if you experiment with different replacement habits, you'll increase your chances of success.

Examples of replacement habits

Here are some ideas on how you can use replacement habits to improve your life.

• After you wake up, try not to doze off. Instead, think about what you are grateful for in life. Remember at least three things.
• When you want to relax, don't turn on the TV. Instead, read a good book.
• Don't waste your time if you're standing in line or stuck in traffic. Practice mindfulness.
• While walking or running, don't just move from point A to point B, but also listen to some educational podcast. – Listen to audio books while doing chores.
• During your break at work, don't read the news, let your brain relax. Meditate instead.
• Prepare something healthy for a snack instead of the usual chips and chocolate bars.
• Always take the stairs, not the elevator.
• When getting ready for bed, turn off your phone and write down in your journal what happened during the day.

These small changes won't have much of an impact on your life. But if you start incorporating them into your routine systematically, together they can have a significant impact. They will help you start changing. Once you start, you won't be able to stop. It will start a chain reaction that will positively impact all areas of your life.

3 Sign up for a “toilet course ”

Replacement habits don’t have to be huge to have a positive impact on your life. One of the funniest examples of useful habits is “toilet courses ” mentioned in MJ DeMarco’s book Get Rich! “Never sit on the toilet without a useful book,” he writes. If we combine 15 minutes spent on the toilet every day with reading, we will accumulate about 90 hours of useful time in a year. Think about how much you can learn in that time if you watch educational videos (for example, YouTube channels like Big Think, ASAP Science or The School of Life) or read interesting books and articles.

4 Start with one small habit

If this idea interests you, try replacing one of your habits right now while you're inspired. In the next 10 minutes, do the following:

1 Choose just one replacement habit. If you try to replace several habits at once, you will most likely fail at all. Don’t overload yourself. Review the list of habits above again. Perhaps it will give you an idea of ​​what you want to change.

2 Create a rule for implementing your intention. Formulate your goal using the “if-then” structure. “If” is your sign, and “then” is your habit. For example: “If I sit on the couch, I will read a book.”

3 Set a reward. Rewarding yourself for small victories is a great way to reinforce good habits. A small reward that will help you get used to a new action can be anything. For example, tracking a new habit in a special app (Coach.me or any other).

4 Change your environment. Make it as easy as possible for you to do the new action you want to turn into a habit. For example, put an interesting book on your bedside table and put your phone away.

5 Repeat your new habit. This will help it become stronger faster.

6 Evaluate your progress. Spend 15 minutes a week doing this. Think about whether you did the new habit every day. If not, ask yourself what stopped you. Don’t think of this as a failure. It’s just information that will help you change your approach to the habit next week. The most important thing is to do the new action every day. Of course, at first you’ll have to force yourself, but over time it will become easier. Change one thing today. Once that habit takes root, change something else. And another. Over time, you’ll start to think and act like a completely different person.