Add New Habits to Crowd Out the Bad Ones

Yesterday’s post was about kicking a bad habit. But let’s face it: sometimes a habit just doesn’t want to be kicked. I thought long and hard about adding yesterday’s post as-is, because today’s post actually tells more of the story.

However, some people need to see it both ways, so I decided to break this into two parts.

The second part of breaking a bad habit is replacing it with a good habit. Nature abhors a vacuum, so when you drop something from your life, it is going to get filled pretty quickly. The best thing to do is to focus on a positive thing that you want to replace the old habit. This is more of what I like to talk about: focusing on the positive and attracting things into your life that you love and that will nurture you.

Sometimes you can make a goal that will leave little room for your old bad habits. For example, if you are no longer drinking sodas, a good goal to focus on is to drink more water, and maybe some herbal tea if you like. So for me, instead of focusing on, “I will not drink sodas,” which is NOT a good goal as the Universe doesn’t hear the words “no” or “not,” I focus on, “I will drink 4-6 liters of water a day.”

Many people, of course, will not drink that much water. This is an amount that I have found over the years works really well for me, especially when I am doing heavy weight lifting. You can drink a lot of water throughout the day. 2 gallons in 2 hours is way too much, and you can overdose on water, so spread it throughout the day and you won’t have any issues. Many people like to drink half their body weight in ounces each day. So if you weigh 160 pounds, you would drink 80 ounces. That is ten 8-ounce glasses throughout the day. There are four 8-ounce servings in 1 liter of water, so if you get a liter container you can fill it 2.5 times and that will be your water for the day.

By the time I get done drinking 4-6 ounces of water, I generally don’t have room for anything else, although I will sometimes have a cup of Dragon Eye Oolong Tea in the evening.

For other habits, it is important to find something that works to replace the feelings or the physical sensations around the habit. For smoking, some people chew gum because they have the habit of having something in their mouth. I knew one person who quit smoking by sucking on lollipops. Of course, you still have to get through the physical addiction as well, but it is important to also address the psychological and situational addictions, too.

If you always eat bags of potato chips while watching television at night, replace this habit with an evening walk with your family, a trip to the gym, or find a new habit such as knitting or sewing that will keep your hands occupied. It is extremely difficult to eat potato chips when working on a cross-stitch! One of my friends broke her habit of late-night snacking by making rules about where she could eat. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner had to be eaten at tables with no television or computer around. Any snacks could only be eaten standing up, and could not be eaten in the kitchen or in front of a television or computer. She told me she cut out her midnight snacking because she was so tired at the end of the day that she didn’t feel like standing up to eat! By replacing her old habits of where and how she mindlessly ate, she was able to build new positive habits around her food.

Not every habit need be replaced one-on-one. For example, the more new better habits you adopt, the more you may find yourself dropping old habits that no longer serve you. Decide what new habits you want to incorporate into your life today. Can you think of 2-3 easy things that you would like to do? These don’t have to be a long list of things you think you should do. Instead of pledging to start an exercise program, eat more veggies, and clean out your entire home this weekend, start with something fun such as spending more time with your significant other each day (this might replace some television watching) or taking a nice bubble bath tonight.

What habit did you decide to kick yesterday? What new habits will you replace it with? I’d love to hear your new positive goals that will replace your old habits!