So many of us have wanted to change things in our life that we were not too happy about. Maybe it was a bad habit, a routine that no longer worked for you, or just bad choices that you seemed to make over and over again. Whatever it is, focusing on it does not help. Actually, the opposite begins to happen. You think about it more.

Habit Mistake #4: Trying to Stop Old Behaviors Instead of Creating New Ones

It is almost like the illustration do not think about a pink elephant. That is exactly what pops into your mind. We mistakenly think that if we can just grit our teeth, try hard not to think about our bad habit that it will somehow just go away. That is the wrong approach all together. Instead place your mind and thoughts on something else. Every time you are tempted to do ____________ (bad habit), decide instead to do _______________ (new habit).  I promise you that if you do this enough you will see faster change than if you just tried hard to stop doing something.

Anytime we remove something (whether good or bad) from our routine, our brain begins struggle because it wants to “run the old script.” Remember that your brain has one goal: to be as efficient as possible. This means that it wants to run the bad habit anytime that it can. There are certain “trigger” that cause us to run the old script that we want to be aware of. For example, stress and fatigue is a contributing factor to keeping people from overcoming their bad habits.

Image by SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent) via Flickr

When you remove a bad habit by using avoidance, your brain has nothing for it to focus on. Temptation then increases because the brain has no script to run.  When you have a good, healthy alternative the brain has something to latch onto. Sure, you are still faced with Habit Gravity in the beginning, but that will wear off soon enough. So, stop trying to focus on avoiding old behaviors and instead create new ones in their place.