Sometimes, I want to break a bad habit. So, there’s some “poem” that goes inside my head, there’s a “story” I like to tell myself.
I heard a lot of times that assertions like these work very well to break a bad habit:
- “I’m better than this. I can overcome this. I have the power in me. I am the master of my behavior.”
- “Think of the future! The advantages of giving up this habit are so big! Look at me, two months from now, one year from now, five years from now. I’ll be [habit ABC]-free!”
- “What would the future me say of my bad habit of today?”
- “When I was little, did I imagine myself doing this?”
- “What stops me from achieving my goal, of being [habit ABC]-free?”
- “habit ABC is evil”.
- “Don’t postpone giving up the habit! Give up [habit ABC] now!”
- “What would others say of my habit?”
For my experience, I found a much more powerful assertion. A single one, simple & easy:
- “I don’t even enjoy this!”
It’s very negative, and it manages to cut any enthusiasm I have in having a bad habit. For example, eating some tasty junk food. If I say to myself “I don’t even like this cookie”, I come to realize that, actually, I don’t even like it. Just by using the assertion forces me to come up with some additional questions (“Do I like this? Is it good for me? Should I buy the cookie?”), and, generally, it’s much easier to break a habit with this question.
