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How to make your habits work for you and discard the harmful ones

What is a habit.

When an action is repeated often enough and becomes automatic in its response it is called a habit. There are good habits and bad habits. If a slouch is acquired through a painful shoulder brought about through an injury that would be a habit formed by an accident. But if we're learning to type and pressing certain keys over and over again until we're able to type automatically that would be considered a good habit.

How to Change Your Habits

You need to have habits. Without them life would be a never ending strain upon your nervous system. The right habit is our friend, a saver of time, effort and energy. A bad habit is a vice, and a hard task master. Habits are easy to form but once set and established are very difficult to break.

But there is hope. Let us assume that you're a chain smoker and for reasons of health must break that habit. You may have a strong will power and stop smoking because you will it so.

But in most cases the craving will remain and to ignore the craving will be too strong to ignore. Somewhere along the line you'll be tempted to take one sneaky smoke and then another and then you'll find yourself back to "square one" again.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. To successfully crack the solid wall of a habit; is to attack it gradually, consistently on one or more of the following fronts;

1. The "time-delay" attack.

Introduce a time change in the usual smoking routine. Start with a five minute interval between smokes. Make it five minutes to the second. When you have accomplished this time delay congratulate yourself and enjoy your cigarette. . Keep up this five minute interval between smokes, consistently, until it stops being a hardship and becomes the new habit, of lighting cigarettes five minutes apart. Lengthen the interval between smokes to ten minutes and then to fifteen minutes each. Only lengthen the time span when it has become a habit.

2. The "time-check" attack.

Use your clock or your watch as a reminder, to curb or confine your smoking to certain periods. Maybe it could be on the half hour and the full hour during the day. In the evening it could be the quarter hour or the three quarter hour. The purpose of this is not to turn you into a clock watcher but to give you a measure by which it will help you put in place a time element into your smoking schedule. The purpose of the "time check" attack is to interfere with your established smoking habit.

3. The "time-out" attack.

Set aside a certain period of time during your waking hours when you'll reject to light a cigarette regardless how strong the urge. . Let it be a "break" a "stay-away" time when you use your self-will, and place yourself under complete control for that period of time. The period selected is not as important as the deliberate step that you have taken to stand against the habit and your conscious effort to hinder your smoking routine.

4. The "interference" attack.

Change the usual mode and manner of smoking by introducing different interrupting factors. For instance, if you enjoy smoking best by sitting down or leaning back in your seat, get up and remain standing or start walking around the room while puffing away at your cigarette. If you are in the habit of taking long, leisurely puffs, change to short, nervous pulls at the cigarette. If you usually inhale stop doing it. The object of the exercise is to change your way of smoking from one cigarette to the next. Mix things up. Do it systematically, purposely, and consciously. To interrupt the old smoking habit you want to introduce as much confusion as possible.

5. The "substitution" attack.

Change brands of cigarettes, from a regular to a King size, to a filter type, to one having mint or menthol in it, to a brand milder or stronger. If that does not help much change to a pipe. Then, in between, pop a piece of hard candy or a stick of chewing gum into your mouth instead of a smoke. Give your lips and your mouth something else to do for the time being. Continue such substitutions until your system begins to accept them as part of the old smoking habit and eventually its hold upon you will be weakened.

These five ways of gradual frontal attack and deliberate interruptions with your set pattern of the smoking habit can be adapted to attack and interfere with any other non-desirable habit and prove just as effective in breaking its hold upon you.

With tenacity and belief in yourself make these "attack" techniques work for you to kick that habit.

I will leave you with a positive quote:

'Out of our beliefs are born deeds; out of our deeds we form habits; out of our habits grows our character; and on our character we build our destiny.'

- Henry Hancock.