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As humans, we’re creatures of habit and routine. But, while some habits are good for us, others can negatively impact our mental and physical health.
There’s never a bad time to work on developing positive habits or breaking old ones. Yet, it’s worth remembering that altering your behaviour isn’t something that happens overnight – it will likely take time and determination.
The good news is that watching your life become steadily better as a result of the effort you’re putting into working on yourself can be incredibly satisfying. And once you start reaping the benefits, you might feel compelled to make positive changes in other areas of your life, too.
Unhelpful habits you’d like to change or quit could be anything from smoking or drinking to spending too much time on your smartphone. While habits to adopt could include regular exercise, reading more, or getting up earlier in the morning.
Often, leaving a negative habit behind and forming a positive one go hand in hand, as breaking a negative habit is often easier if we have something positive to replace it with.
If you’re looking to start or continue your personal growth, read on to find out more about how to break unhelpful habits and form positive ones.
What are habits, and how are they formed?
A habit is a behaviour that we repeat regularly or routinely and have ‘settled into’ – so much so that we usually do it subconsciously.
Many habits are formed early on in life, such as brushing our teeth before bed or eating dinner in the evening, while others might develop in response to different situations. Often, these habits can remain even after the situation that created them has passed.
For example, we might develop a drinking habit during a particularly stressful time, but continue drinking even after the original cause of the stress has been resolved. Or, as we saw during the COVID-19 lockdown, many gym-goers got into the habit of running outside or doing home workouts while gyms were closed, but stuck to them even after gyms reopened.
Experts say that habits are formed during a three-part psychological loop, which begins with a trigger (for example, feeling anxious) that prompts us to act (usually something we feel will relieve that anxiety), and leads to a reward (feeling less anxious).
It’s this reward factor that leads us to continue a behaviour. If we repeat this action enough, it’ll become a habit, which means our brains will work out how to carry out this action in ‘autopilot mode’. The result is that we become more efficient at reaching the reward.
We’ll then typically find ourselves acting with little or no conscious thought, which is when we know it’s become a habit.
How long does a habit take to form?
The length of time a habit takes to form often depends on its complexity. For instance, it’ll take less time for a habit like putting your seatbelt on when you get in the car to become routine than something like getting up an hour earlier – as starting to get up earlier often takes additional determination and willpower.
This means that the best way to form a habit is to keep at it until you realise you no longer have to force yourself to go for a run, or put your phone down without endlessly scrolling first.
Often, you won’t even notice that a behaviour has become a habit because it happens so gradually.
8 tips on how to break negative habits and develop positive ones
1. Identify unhelpful habits and their triggers
The first step in changing unhealthy or unhelpful behaviour is to identify and acknowledge it. Then work out what triggers it in the first place. It can sometimes be difficult to admit that a behaviour you repeat regularly is damaging your health, preventing you from moving forward, or getting in the way of enjoying life.
It can also be uncomfortable to reflect on what triggers the habit in the first place, as this can sometimes show us larger issues in our lives that need addressing. However, once you identify your triggers, you can take steps toward removing them from your life and developing new, healthier habits.
For instance, if you realise that you have an online shopping habit brought on by stress and anxiety, the next step would be to start looking at how you can reduce these feelings, so that you don’t feel the need to shop online to feel better. You could also consider what you could do instead of shopping to manage any feelings of stress and anxiety if they do arise.
2. Explore positive habit(s) to adopt
Not everyone who’s looking to form a new habit is trying to replace an unhealthy one. You simply might feel that incorporating some mindfulness or meditation into your routine could help you feel calmer and more connected to life. Or, maybe you used to enjoy reading and would like to get back into the habit.
If you’re looking to break a negative habit, it’s often much easier to replace this habit than to concentrate solely on eradicating it from your routine. Breaking a habit requires a lot of conscious effort, so having a positive alternative to turn to can be a real help.
For example, a person might find they turn to sugary or fatty foods when they’re feeling low because this offers them comfort and distraction. Instead, they could start writing their feelings in a journal, going out for a walk, or listening to music when they feel this way. It’s much easier to fall back into a negative habit without a positive alternative to turn to instead.
Try noting down a few behaviours you could use as an alternative to whatever unhealthy behaviour you’re trying to avoid. When replacing a negative habit, it can sometimes take a bit of trial and error to find something positive that sticks, but once you do, it’ll be much easier to turn it into a habit.
3. Cut out as many triggers as possible
If you’re trying to break an unhelpful habit, it can also help to work on cutting out as many triggers as possible. For example, if you’re looking to break your coffee habit, but are struggling because you’re exhausted by an overwhelming work schedule, then perhaps it’s time to look at whether you’re taking on too many hours at work and not getting enough rest.
Or, if you find yourself feeling anxious and biting your nails every time you scroll through the news on your phone, maybe it’s time to limit the amount of news you expose yourself to each day.
Often, negative habits can be key indicators of larger issues in our lives. Tackling these can help boost our happiness and well-being in the long term and prevent us from developing new unhealthy habits.
4. Start by setting manageable goals
When we decide to change our lives for the better, it can leave us feeling optimistic about the future. This, although positive, can sometimes cause us to try to tackle all of our goals at once to get faster results.
While this isn’t a bad thing, it can sometimes leave us feeling as though we’re standing at the bottom of a mountain, wondering how to start climbing. This can be overwhelming and might lead us to either stay at the bottom or begin climbing, only to slip and stay wherever we land.
To make sure we continue climbing and working towards forming new, positive habits – or reducing negative ones – it can help to take things at a manageable and sustainable pace.
For example, if you’re looking to read more but find it tricky to stay focused on a book for long periods, committing to a 900-page novel might not be the best place to start.
Instead, try starting with a 200-page novel on a topic that interests you. This will help keep you engaged and won’t leave you feeling overwhelmed. It can also help to try reading two or three pages a day, rather than telling yourself you need to finish an entire book within a few days or a week. Chances are, it won’t be long before you naturally feel yourself wanting to read more than just a couple of pages at a time.
Or, if you’re looking to make exercise a habit, consider starting with 10 minutes a day and building it up slowly. This way, you’re less likely to experience burnout and more likely to create a sustainable, long-term habit.
5. Surround yourself with like-minded people striving for similar goals
It can be much easier to stick to a new habit or quit an unhealthy one if we surround ourselves with like-minded people who share similar behaviours.
For instance, if you’re looking to be more active, surrounding yourself with people with similar fitness goals and interests can help you stay on track and make repeating these behaviours easier. You could even buddy up with a friend or family member and commit to motivating one another to exercise on certain days every week.
Similarly, if you’re looking to stop a behaviour, such as smoking, then spending a lot of time with someone who smokes can make kicking your habit more of a challenge.
While it’s not always possible to avoid people who have habits you’re trying to give up, it can sometimes help to let them know your goals, so they can avoid doing anything that might trigger you – like offering you a cigarette or smoking around you.
6. Remember that habits are learned behaviours that can be changed at any time
It’s easy to see breaking a negative habit or developing a new, positive one as a journey to becoming a new person entirely. This can sometimes add pressure to the process and hinder your progress.
The reality is that you already have it in you to be someone with the positive habits you’d like to develop, or someone without the unhelpful habits you’re looking to drop.
For example, if you’re trying to give up smoking, then it’s a case of returning to being a non-smoker (which you’ll have been at some point in your life). While this is often easier said than done, it can be comforting to remind yourself that you know you can live without certain behaviours, because you’ve done so in the past.
When it comes to forming new, helpful habits, it can be useful to view the process as simply expanding or adding to the positive habits you already have – no matter how large or small these are.
For instance, perhaps you find cooking healthy meals from scratch a bit of a chore, but are keen to turn it into a habit. So, rather than thinking that you need to become a new person to achieve this, try to look at all the other positive habits you already engage in daily or weekly.
Perhaps you’re great at getting up early in the morning, or maybe come rain or shine, you’re out twice a day with your dog, making sure they get the exercise they need. Your current positive habits can help you realise you’re capable of a whole host of other positive habits, too, without completely changing who you are.
7. Visualise success, and be kind to yourself if you hit a few bumps along the way
One of the things that often puts us off breaking negative habits or forming new ones is convincing ourselves that we can’t do it. Then, if we have a setback, we beat ourselves up and worry that our hard work was all for nothing.
These thought processes can be demotivating and cause us to lose self-belief and start doubting our abilities. As a result, we may steer away from positive habits and/or continue engaging in old, negative ones.
However, spending a few minutes each day visualising yourself succeeding can be powerful because it increases confidence and helps us believe in a positive future outcome. The more we believe in ourselves and our ability to achieve what we set out to do, the more likely we are to put the work in and keep repeating it until we reach our goals.
8. Repeat, repeat, repeat
The only way to form a new habit or replace an old one is to keep repeating the action you’d like to make a habit.
It’s not uncommon for people to become disheartened if they feel they’re still having to put conscious effort into the action after a while, and assume that the process isn’t working. But, often, a habit is formed very steadily, and we might not notice it’s even happening at first, so it’s important to keep at it.
It can also take time to completely let go of negative habits, even when replacing them with positive ones. You might find yourself having moments of weakness, where you feel tempted to return to your habit, and you might even give in at times.
If this happens, try to accept it and move on, while continuing to practise your new, positive habit. Changing old habits is entirely possible, as long as you don’t give up.
Final thoughts…
We all have habits – both good and bad. However, it can be helpful to look at areas of our lives where unhelpful or unhealthy habits are preventing us from reaching our full potential and getting the most out of life. Or, where developing additional, positive habits could enrich our lives and improve our health and well-being.
Developing new positive habits is especially important during more difficult and stressful times. Because habits are repeated so regularly that they become unconscious, they have the potential to significantly impact how we feel day to day – whether we’re inherently aware of their impact or not. So, thinking about how we can make these habits as positive as possible can only be a good thing.
For further reading, check out our healthy mind section.
Are you going through the process of breaking an unhelpful habit or forming a new one? What’s your experience been like so far, and what habits are you looking to change? We’d be interested to hear from you in the comments below.
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