Upgrading Your Body and Mind With Training and TechnologyBodybuilding, Brain Training, Martial Arts, Transhumanism, Productivity, Parkour... and More!
Categories
How to Kick Any Habit
How to Kick Any Habit
By Adam Sinicki
Most
of us have an unhealthy habit that we would like to 'kick'. In fact
most of us have several. You don't want to know mine – they're
disgusting and unusual and possible illegal in some countries.
These
collection of small annoying habits consist of the normal among us of
things like pressing snooze on the alarm too many times, smoking,
drinking too much, eating too much cake, biting our nails,
masturbating too much and picking our nose. We might also apologize
too often, bob up and down when we're watching television and pull
strange gurning faces when we think no one's looking.
In
short these habits conspire to waste our time, make us feel dirty and
disgusting, cause other people to lose respect for us and cost us
money. If we had the magical ability to prevent ourselves from
getting into these destructive habits and could break all
of
them, then we'd be
able to actually start being in charge of our lives and being more
successful.
The
good news you can kick a habit – any habit... if you do exactly
like I tell you. Imagine you're Neo and agents are coming and
Morpheus is on the phone – follow the following points to the T and
you'll be able to get out of destructive cycles and form new positive
ones. You'll actually turn your life around it's incredible. Here's
how to kick a habit:
How
to Kick a Habit
Set
a Target: You need a clear target in order to be able to
break any
habit. It's no good saying 'I will smoke less' because you won't –
you'll smoke the same and make lots of excuses. It's not well defined
so you can't break your word and that will mean you've got free reign
to do what you want. Instead then to kick a habit your target should
be 'I can only smoke three a day' or it should be 'I should stop
completely'. The latter is preferable. Now be completely rigid –
there are no
excuses.
That said though if you do slip up one day that doesn't mean you've
wasted all your good work and should carry on – you go straight
back into having the same goal.
Set
a Time Limit: This might seem counter-intuitive but don't
try to give
anything up forever. Not right away at first. The minute your brain
realizes you can never
have
anything again
you'll find yourself putting up resistance. It's just too big a
change for a lot of us. So instead tell yourself you're going to
'try' quitting for 30 days. This is how long studies show it takes to
break a habit, and hopefully by the time the thirty days are up
you'll have seen the benefits of your new way of life and will stay
this way. It just won't be as scary.
Know
Why You're Doing It: This is really important – in order
to kick a
habit or addiction you need to know why you want to stop and you need
to really
know
it. Otherwise when it comes down to crunch time you'll just convince
yourself to ease up. If you have some real solid reasons to not do
that, then you'll be stricter on yourself and you won't get stuck. At
the same time think about the thought pattern you normally use to let
yourself get away with your habit/addiction – for instance 'I
should sleep another hour anyway or I'm not getting my 8 hours sleep'
then think about how this is inaccurate and change this thought
process to 'however sleeping longer actually makes you groggier and
if I do I'll never fix my body-clock'. This is the old 'Cognitive
Behavioural Therapy' technique – changing your thoughts to alter
your actions.
Change Your Interpretation of Feelings: So you're now on
track to
changing your ways and knowing how to kick a habit. However breaking
a habit isn't all about thought, it's also very much about how you
feel and you will likely get a physical urge to conduct your old
behaviour. For instance if you're trying to cut down on cake then you
will get hunger pangs and a craving for sugar. Normally your body
perceives these as a bad thing and you'll find yourself trying to
rectify the problem. Instead think about these sensations as
something positive, i.e. 'I'm feeling hungry therefore I'm losing
weight/achieving my goal'. This way you won't need to 'alleviate' it
as such and overtime that will become your normal reaction to the
sensation.
Classical Conditioning: Another school of psychology that
can teach
us how to kick a habit is 'behaviourism' which is all about making
associations in the brain. Now normally you want to masturbate, so
you masturbate and then feel great. I know I do. Every time you do
that though you are reinforcing the behaviour and the thought pattern
– you got a reward so you'll do it again. Instead snap yourself out
of it (literally) and use a small punishment to change your way of
thinking. A great way to break any habit is to have an elastic band
around your wrist. Now if you were trying to stop masturbating, you'd
just pull that back and give yourself a short, sharp pain every time
you started having horny thoughts. That way you'd associate horny
thoughts with being a bad thing. At the same time the sharp pain and
shock would distract yourself from your previous sordid thoughts.
Question though: why would anyone want to stop wanking? It's great...
Tell People: You might not want to do this, but do. Tell
everyone
that you're planning on stopping and that you want their help no
matter what you say subsequently. They'll then turn into the gestapo
making and will hound you for any suspicious behaviour (no more going
outside for fresh air then). You'll also feel you need to live up to
your high ambitions and that failing is going to make you look bad.
Make it Easier to Stop Than to Carry On: To break any
habit you need
to make giving up easier than carrying on. For instance if your bad
habit is coming home and throwing your clothes on the floor in a pile
then this is probably because it's much easier to do that than to put
them away. Maybe the washing basket is always full, maybe it's
located somewhere inconvenient. Just simply get a bigger wash basket,
and then put that in the room near where you throw your clothes to
make it easy for yourself. Likewise if you're constantly failing to
get out of bed make your television turn on in the morning with your
favourite TV program. Suddenly it'll be harder to go to sleep than to
stay awake. For stopping smoking start smoking roll ups that you
don't like the taste of. For quitting Facebook block the site on your
computer. For giving up masturbating move the computer in the living
room and tell your family that they should be suspicious if you move
it back. Change your surroundings to make them conducive to breaking
the habit.
Think About the Root Causes: One of my mottos is 'attack
every
problem at it's root'. My other motto is 'freedom is the right of all
sentient beings' (no hang on that might be Optimus Prime...).
Basically anyway the point is that if you are currently smoking a
lot, or drinking a lot, then it might be that you're stressed. What
you need to do then is to address this point
rather than just
treating the symptoms. Otherwise your bad behaviour will just crop up
in another form. This might mean counselling, or it might mean a big
lifestyle change. Take the time though to find out what it is that's
causing your problem and then address that any way necessary.
Copyright 2012 The Biomatrix.Net
ALL Bodybuilding Questions ANSWERED FREE in the Biomatrix Forum
Project Superman
Cost: $9/£5
Format: Print
Categoy: Training
Germination
Cost: $0.99/£0.60
Format: Android
Categoy: Brain
Training
Think Like Sherlock Holmes
Cost: $9.50/£5.14
Format: Kindle
Categoy: Brain
Training
Categories |
How to Kick Any HabitBy Adam Sinicki
These collection of small annoying habits consist of the normal among us of things like pressing snooze on the alarm too many times, smoking, drinking too much, eating too much cake, biting our nails, masturbating too much and picking our nose. We might also apologize too often, bob up and down when we're watching television and pull strange gurning faces when we think no one's looking. In short these habits conspire to waste our time, make us feel dirty and disgusting, cause other people to lose respect for us and cost us money. If we had the magical ability to prevent ourselves from getting into these destructive habits and could break all of them, then we'd be able to actually start being in charge of our lives and being more successful.
The good news you can kick a habit – any habit... if you do exactly like I tell you. Imagine you're Neo and agents are coming and Morpheus is on the phone – follow the following points to the T and you'll be able to get out of destructive cycles and form new positive ones. You'll actually turn your life around it's incredible. Here's how to kick a habit:
How to Kick a Habit
Set a Target: You need a clear target in order to be able to break any habit. It's no good saying 'I will smoke less' because you won't – you'll smoke the same and make lots of excuses. It's not well defined so you can't break your word and that will mean you've got free reign to do what you want. Instead then to kick a habit your target should be 'I can only smoke three a day' or it should be 'I should stop completely'. The latter is preferable. Now be completely rigid – there are no excuses. That said though if you do slip up one day that doesn't mean you've wasted all your good work and should carry on – you go straight back into having the same goal.
Set a Time Limit: This might seem counter-intuitive but don't try to give anything up forever. Not right away at first. The minute your brain realizes you can never have anything again you'll find yourself putting up resistance. It's just too big a change for a lot of us. So instead tell yourself you're going to 'try' quitting for 30 days. This is how long studies show it takes to break a habit, and hopefully by the time the thirty days are up you'll have seen the benefits of your new way of life and will stay this way. It just won't be as scary.
Know Why You're Doing It: This is really important – in order to kick a habit or addiction you need to know why you want to stop and you need to really know it. Otherwise when it comes down to crunch time you'll just convince yourself to ease up. If you have some real solid reasons to not do that, then you'll be stricter on yourself and you won't get stuck. At the same time think about the thought pattern you normally use to let yourself get away with your habit/addiction – for instance 'I should sleep another hour anyway or I'm not getting my 8 hours sleep' then think about how this is inaccurate and change this thought process to 'however sleeping longer actually makes you groggier and if I do I'll never fix my body-clock'. This is the old 'Cognitive Behavioural Therapy' technique – changing your thoughts to alter your actions.
Change Your Interpretation of Feelings: So you're now on track to changing your ways and knowing how to kick a habit. However breaking a habit isn't all about thought, it's also very much about how you feel and you will likely get a physical urge to conduct your old behaviour. For instance if you're trying to cut down on cake then you will get hunger pangs and a craving for sugar. Normally your body perceives these as a bad thing and you'll find yourself trying to rectify the problem. Instead think about these sensations as something positive, i.e. 'I'm feeling hungry therefore I'm losing weight/achieving my goal'. This way you won't need to 'alleviate' it as such and overtime that will become your normal reaction to the sensation.
Classical Conditioning: Another school of psychology that can teach us how to kick a habit is 'behaviourism' which is all about making associations in the brain. Now normally you want to masturbate, so you masturbate and then feel great. I know I do. Every time you do that though you are reinforcing the behaviour and the thought pattern – you got a reward so you'll do it again. Instead snap yourself out of it (literally) and use a small punishment to change your way of thinking. A great way to break any habit is to have an elastic band around your wrist. Now if you were trying to stop masturbating, you'd just pull that back and give yourself a short, sharp pain every time you started having horny thoughts. That way you'd associate horny thoughts with being a bad thing. At the same time the sharp pain and shock would distract yourself from your previous sordid thoughts. Question though: why would anyone want to stop wanking? It's great...
Tell People: You might not want to do this, but do. Tell everyone that you're planning on stopping and that you want their help no matter what you say subsequently. They'll then turn into the gestapo making and will hound you for any suspicious behaviour (no more going outside for fresh air then). You'll also feel you need to live up to your high ambitions and that failing is going to make you look bad.
Make it Easier to Stop Than to Carry On: To break any habit you need to make giving up easier than carrying on. For instance if your bad habit is coming home and throwing your clothes on the floor in a pile then this is probably because it's much easier to do that than to put them away. Maybe the washing basket is always full, maybe it's located somewhere inconvenient. Just simply get a bigger wash basket, and then put that in the room near where you throw your clothes to make it easy for yourself. Likewise if you're constantly failing to get out of bed make your television turn on in the morning with your favourite TV program. Suddenly it'll be harder to go to sleep than to stay awake. For stopping smoking start smoking roll ups that you don't like the taste of. For quitting Facebook block the site on your computer. For giving up masturbating move the computer in the living room and tell your family that they should be suspicious if you move it back. Change your surroundings to make them conducive to breaking the habit.
Think About the Root Causes: One of my mottos is 'attack every problem at it's root'. My other motto is 'freedom is the right of all sentient beings' (no hang on that might be Optimus Prime...). Basically anyway the point is that if you are currently smoking a lot, or drinking a lot, then it might be that you're stressed. What you need to do then is to address this point rather than just treating the symptoms. Otherwise your bad behaviour will just crop up in another form. This might mean counselling, or it might mean a big lifestyle change. Take the time though to find out what it is that's causing your problem and then address that any way necessary.
Copyright 2012 The Biomatrix.Net
|
Cost: $9/£5 Format: Print Categoy: Training Cost: $0.99/£0.60 Format: Android Categoy: Brain Training Cost: $9.50/£5.14 Format: Kindle Categoy: Brain Training |
