“First we make our habits, then our habits make us.” -  Charles C. Noble

Let’s face it, we all have bad habits and habits can be very hard to break. It doesn’t matter if the habit you’ve acquired is overeating, smoking, talking bad about yourself or others, swinging your golf club too hard or even regularly getting agitated while driving (like I do)  changing our bad habits is something we would all like to be able to do but struggle to accomplish.

The problem with unhealthy habits is they can have a negative impact on both your physical and mental health. Bad habits can leave you feeling as if you don’t have any control over your impulses. While changing your habits can be challenging, having a plan can make the process a lot easier.

Here are 7 steps that can help you change bad habits into good ones:

1. Decide What You Want to Change

The first step in changing any habit is deciding on what it is you want to change. What is it that you are doing that you are not happy about? Are you smoking or biting your nails? Are you overeating or drinking too much alcohol? What habit do you want to change?

2. Determine Your Reward

When changing habits you need to determine what you’ll receive as a result of changing it. If you smoke it could be being able to breathe better. If you bite your nails it could be having nicer looking hands. When changing your eating habits, you might do this because you want to drop some pounds and feel better about yourself. What’s the reward you’ll get from your efforts?

3. Track Your Present Habit

For a week keep a journal and make note of the triggers that cause you to engage in the habit. Maybe you smoke at certain times of the day or around certain friends. Perhaps you bite your nails when you’re stressed or bored. Maybe you find yourself snacking a little extra in the late afternoon or right before a big meeting. Identify under which circumstances your habit is most likely to manifest itself.

4. Determine Your Why

A major presupposition in NLP is that all behaviors are constructive in some way, that every behavior has some use somewhere. In fact, in the right context every behavior has a use. You’re gaining a benefit or you wouldn’t be exhibiting the behavior at all.

Your behavior is satisfying some subconscious need. There is a very good chance that at one time your bad habit had some very positive aspects. You once smoked because it helped you to fit in with the crowd, you bite your nails because it relieved stress. You reached for a certain type of food because it comforted you. Figuring out the positive aspects of your habit will help you understand it. Although this is not a necessary step, understanding how your habit served you in the past can make it easier for you to change.

5. Find a Substitute Behavior

Another major presupposition of NLP is that people make the best choice available to them. Your bad habits usually don’t just go away. You have to replace them with more empowering ones. NLP practitioners believe that people will always make the best decision based on what’s “best” for the subconscious mind at that time. This means when changing habits you need to find a more acceptable alternative that satisfies the same need that was being met by the old habit.

You need to decide what you could do instead that isn’t harmful. Figure out what you could do instead that would be healthy for you. You if you eat, smoke or bite your nails to help you to deal with stress, what are some healthy alternatives? Practicing Yoga? Deep breathing exercises? Meditating? Squeezing a squeeze ball? Watching a funny movie? Calling a friend?

6. Start Substituting Your New Empowering Habit for Your Old One

This is where your detective work and journaling comes in. You know what is triggering your behaviors, now when the trigger happens begin substituting your new behavior for the old one. Now this will take a fair amount of attention at first, but by beginning to intentionally substitute your new behavior each time you’ll eventually cause it to occur instead of your old one. This may be challenging at first, but with practice, you can do it.

7. Measure Your Progress

Progress can be difficult to determine without measurement; if you don’t know where you are, how will you know if you’re moving forward or backward? Use your journal to keep track of how many times you engage in the old habit and how many times you engage in the new one. By measuring your progress, you accomplish two things:

• You get feedback so you know how successful you are. Also if you need to change something else your feedback will let you know.
• You receive the additional motivation of seeing your progress.

Be Patient with Your Progress

There is an old saying attributed to Confucius that goes like this, “It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.” When it comes to changing your bad habits just take it one step at a time. And forget about perfection. Complete perfection is perfectly unreasonable, but a little perfection can work wonders.

Another major presupposition of NLP is that we don’t fail. We try, learn from what doesn’t work and improve our approach with the feedback we receive. So don’t be upset when the inevitable slip occurs while you’re breaking your old habit. Just examine the situation dispassionately and determine a better solution for the next time. Even if it takes more time changing your habits than you’d like it to, you gain a lot simply by decreasing the frequency of the times you engage in the old habit.

If you are having a tough time with a particular habit ask yourself “Can I not engage in this habit for 5 minutes?” What you’ll find is, not matter what it is, in five minutes much of the urge will go away. Once you can get five minutes any time you’d like then focus on having one perfect day. In a short while the idea of one day without the habit may seem quite reasonable – and doable – to you. A string of perfect days is a lot easier to imagine than trying to be perfect for an extended period of time.

Still Struggling? Get a Mentor or Coach

In changing any habit your chances of succeeding will be greater if you have the help of a friend, mentor or coach that will keep you on track when your will power begins to wane. My girlfriend and I decided to help each other in changing a couple of habits. She told me she would cut down on her salt intake if I would change the way I react while driving So far it’s worked fairly well for both of us. I’ll keep you posted.

If you’d like more help, life and health coaches like myself can provide you with the both the strategies and motivation to help you succeed in making the changing you desire, quickly and permanently. If you’d like my help you can contact me at (858) 874-5988.

If You Really Want to Change Your Bad Habits – Start Today!

Changing to more positive habits can be challenging, but with the process you’ve been given above you can start eliminating your bad habits today. The key is to start and stay with it. What you’ll find is that with a little persistence in a short while your new, healthier habit will be a part of your routine. You won’t even have to think about it and you’ll gain a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Don’t delay – start today!

Wil Dieck is a life and health coach and the founder of Total Mind Therapy . You can sign up here to receive these positive thinking tips delivered by e-mail weekly