Smoking, overeating, nail biting, or wasting away the hours on
YouTube; whatever your bad habits may be, there’s a good chance you’ve
tried to give them up at one point or another, and perhaps you actually
managed to ditch the offending behavior after a few months of exercising
some extreme willpower.
But if you tend to find yourself
raiding the pantry for chocolate chip cookies just two hours after you
solemnly pledged to eat more healthily, you’re not alone.
According to
research from the
Journal of Clinical Psychology,
approximately 54% of people who resolve to change their ways fail to
make the transformation last beyond six months, and the average person
makes the same resolution 10 times over without success.
So why is it so hard for us to make lasting changes to our behavior or attitudes?
Psychological scientists believe that the key to kicking bad habits
lies in understanding our mental patterns and working with the brain
rather than fighting against its natural processing system.
So next time you’re trying to turn over a new leaf, give some of these psychology-based tricks a go.
1. Figure out why and when you’re doing it.
There's usually an underlying reason for your bad habits, such as
boredom or stress, and if you pay attention, you'll notice that all of
your vices are tied to certain situations or routines.
These
bad habits generally also reward you with something: smoking rewards you
with stress relief, and wasting time on the Internet temporarily
rewards you by diverting your attention.
Identifying how your
vices are rewarding you, as well as when they occur is the first step to
eliminating them from your life entirely.
For instance, you
may notice that you drink more alcohol when you’re around certain
people, or maybe you tend to overeat when you’re home alone. Knowing
what triggers certain behavior can help you to come up with the right
strategies for changing these unhealthy patterns.
2. Find a replacement habit.
Research shows that it’s far more effective to replace a bad habit with a better one than to simply cut out the old habit.
Why? Replacing a habit takes less mental effort than completely eliminating it, and believe it or not, willpower is actually a
limited resource.
Once you've figured out how your vices are rewarding you, you can
establish new habits that will reward you in similar ways, but without
the same negative side effects, or at least fewer side effects.
For example, if you need to improve your diet, making an effort to
snack on fruit instead of junk food would be a lot easier than not
eating anything at all, and replacing your smoking break with another
less damaging activity, like eating a small snack, would be more
effective than doing nothing at all.
3. Don’t try to suppress your thoughts.
When trying to kick a bad habit, people often attempt to think about
everything but that one activity, which of course, causes them to think
about nothing but that one activity.
Why?
Studies show
that when we try to suppress thoughts, they actually come back
stronger, because our subconscious doesn’t differentiate between “do”
and “don’t” and will inevitably fixate on the one thing we’re trying so
hard to ignore.
Psychologists
have dubbed this phenomenon “ironic process theory.”
So, for instance, if someone tells you not to think about pink
dinosaurs, you will immediately begin to think about pink dinosaurs. If
you tell yourself not to think about having a smoke, all you’re going to
be able to think about is going for a smoke, and you’ll start seeing
the temptation everywhere.
4. Make changes to your routine or environment.
New situations make you more conscious of your behavior and choices, so
changing something in your routine or environment, even if it isn’t
directly connected to the habit you are trying to break, can make it
easier to welcome new habits.
This is why big changes like
moving to a new city or ending a relationship are often accompanied by
smaller changes, like exercising more frequently or following a new
diet.
One study published in the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
found that a new environment can remove the automatic guides for
performing certain habits and help people to make new or different
decisions about their daily routines.
Even small changes can
make a big difference. For example, if you tend to overeat while
watching TV, make an effort to sit at the table and turn off the
television during meals so that you can be more conscious of your eating
habits.
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