How To: Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”
― Lao Tzu
The first step to living your best life is to check your habits. Bad habits weigh us down, good habits lift us up. When it comes to our success at work, the habits we have in all areas of life affect our potential. In this post, I’ll be discussing the kind of habits that make us more productive and hacks for making good ones as well as tips for breaking bad ones. Before we start though, understand this:
Progress over perfection.
No one expects you to nail your new habit right off the bat. If you miss a day or two or a week, know that recognizing your shortcoming and starting again IS an accomplishment! Reward your effort, not perfection.
To begin, let’s discuss what kinds of habits help us become more productive. In my experience, these are foundational to success:
Expressing gratitude: whether in a journal or meditation or verbally aloud, expressing gratitude is an important habit in that it helps us find the positive in things.
Mindfulness: the entire point of meditation (in my opinion) is basically mind control. We’ll never be able to change habits if we don’t even have the wherewithal to recognize them. Meditation teaches us how to observe our thoughts so that we can redirect them!
Movement: Obviously moving our bodies is essential for producing endorphins (happy hormones) and keeping us motivated instead of stressed out and discouraged.
Hydration and Nutrition: not so much a habit as it is a lifestyle, maintaining the gut biome is essential for optimizing our production of serotonin. If you want to feel confident about new habits, avoiding anti-inflammatory foods and staying hydrated is a huge shortcut.
Now that we know which habits to start with, let’s discuss how to implement them.
First, know that anything worth having is not easy. The hardest new habit I learned to implement was meditation. It took me two years to do it consistently and since 2020, I have very rarely missed a day of meditation. Here’s how I made that action (and others) into habits.
Habit Stacking: It’s all about triggers. The best way to start a new habit is to build it into your existing routine. Take a habit you already do every day (brushing your teeth for example) and follow it up with a simple one you want to do every day (meditating for 3 minutes.) Like Pavlov’s dogs, you’re training yourself to want to do something because it’s triggered by something you already do.
Brain-Heart Coherence: Arguably the most important and effective way to build a new habit is to visualize and feel what it’s like to be the kind of person who has this habit down-packed. See Joe Dispenza for reference and try out this meditation from him. (Yes, his voice is a little funny but just let it happen.)
Build Momentum: Confidence comes from keeping promises to ourselves (per Ed Mylett) so start with something small and once you’ve built some confidence around your ability to implement a new habit, try adding something more challenging
Keep Track: So I have a checklist that I refer to every single day with around 8 habits I’m implementing. Some I already do (like meditating) and some I’m really trying to work on (like drinking a gallon of water each day). Just looking at this list reminds me of what I’m trying to accomplish but more importantly, every time I get to check something off I feel rewarded. I get a hit of dopamine! So I recommend writing your list and setting a goal of checking at least 5 things off every day. Maybe it’s just the easy ones for a while and when you get some momentum, you might feel more inclined to try the harder ones. Either way, you’re feeling confident because you’re keeping your promise to hit at least 5!
Find Accountability Partners: You are the product of the five people closest to you (or whatever that saying is) so surround yourself with people who have what you want. Find ways to practice your habit in the community. A few mindfulness retreats and some friends sent me great meditation videos got me on track to meditate every day!
Part of starting new habits is breaking old ones.
If you want to get into the habit of reading before bed, you’ll probably have to quit the habit of watching TV all night. For me, the hardest habit to kick was smoking weed. I knew for years that I wanted to stop but I could never bring myself to do it for longer than a week.
Here are a few key components that led to me finally breaking this habit…
Acknowledge and understand why the habit feels “bad”. While smoking weed cured my anxiety in the short term, it caused more anxiety in the long term. It made me feel lethargic and unlike my true self. I felt like I lost my personality and my drive, which I would later feel guilty about and beat myself up over. Despite my excuse that it helped me de-stress, I realize that the negatives outweigh the positives and have committed to preserving my self-esteem and finding other ways to destress.
Recognize the triggers and see how you can supplement the feeling. Shifting gears real quick, I love the way alcohol feels in my stomach before a meal so I’ve swapped that out for kimchi! It gives me the same feeling without the negative side effects.
Be patient, don’t force yourself if you’re not ready – but hold the belief that the time will come and when you’re ready, you’ll be able to.
Confide in people. Take the taboo out of your bad habit, break the shame cycle. It’s human to have bad habits but shaming ourselves in silence only makes things worse.
So much of our success comes from mindfulness. If we can become aware of our good and bad habits, we can shape our lives to fit the dreams we have!
Once you get a little momentum going, I promise, habit-making/breaking just gets easier and easier. Be patient with yourself, talk kindly to yourself, and soon enough you will get where you’d like to be.
Remember that negativity only makes things worse (maybe that should’ve been the first habit: FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE). I hope this helps you!
Leave comments if you have anything to add!
