Breaking Unhealthy Habits

At this time of year, people tend to be losing track of their New Years resolutions. The reason is most likely due to a person’s everyday habits. Some work well, like making sure you brush your teeth when you get up and before you go to bed. Others are not so good, like missing a meal and then binge eating later in the day.

No matter what your bad habits are, the only way to achieve true success is to make sure you break those habits permanently.

Here are some of the most common bad habits I see my clients making on a daily basis, just to name a few:
Can’t stay away from fast food
Can’t stay away from alcohol
Watch too much TV
Spend too much time on the web
Most people don’t realize the true damage they inflict upon themselves. A research study from the University of Alberta shows that while people know about the obvious bad habits, such as smoking, they don’t truly understand the problems associated with binge eating, for example.

Unfortunately, there is virtually no information being publicly announced regarding the true detriments of something like overeating. Sure cigarettes have warnings and we see commercials everyday that stress the downfall of not kicking the habit, but think about it.

Many smokers smoke because they are truly stressed out from being workaholics. In America this is considered to be an honorable trait. AND many people smoke because they think it will keep their weight in check. So they rationalize by claiming that by doing so they are adding at least a little benefit to their lifestyle.

Let’s take another thing we all know to be true but completely ignore. How many times have you heard, “I am just getting a base tan so I don’t get a sunburn.” Like we all don’t know that ANY long term exposure to the sun is bad. SO we make it sound good by saying we are preventing the ultimate poor choice of getting sunburned?!

The bottom line is that many times the rationale is socially acceptable. But that still doesn’t make it right.

So, WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO?

Many times adding a positive change will truly take care of ridding yourself from the negative. For example, if you cut down on TV… you probably will cut down on snacking. If you start a running program, then if you smoke, you will probably quit or at least cut down. They simply go hand in hand, right?

The bottom line is that you need to recognize what the bad habit is that is causing you to not succeed. Now pick something that will replace the bad habit or at least make the bad habit more
challenging to be appeased.

Then and only then can you eliminate the things that sabotage you. When that happens… the skies the limit!

Til next time....