Getting Rid of a Bad Habit

I used to think that how you got rid of a bad habit was that you just stopped.  Slam on the brakes.  Try to avoid the whiplash.  Then get out of the old car,  get a new car and drive a different direction. 

For the first half of my life that was the method I tried over and over.  It did NOT work.  Some other driver seemed to be driving my car.  I felt like a loser. The more I tried the method and it didn't work, the more I was sure I was a loser.  I found myself back in the old car like a night terror.  New Year's Resolutions, daily resolutions - nothing but failure.

Only in these new years have I finally found resources so I could learn about how to get rid of a bad habit.  It's not that I didn't dig but what I found didn't work. What I turned up was, do something for 21 days and you will have formed a habit.  I couldn't do something for 21 days.  One to three was my pattern.  Put a rubber band on your wrist and snap it when you do the bad habit.  I couldn't remember to do it. 



Here are the basics:

1)  I had to have a good habit to replace the bad one. 

2)  The good habit had to be one I truly wanted - not just something I thought I "should" want.

3)  I had to start ridiculously small.

4)  I had to have lots of support from the people around me.

5)  I had to make sure I understood what the bad habit was doing for me.  I believe everything we do has purpose, but often the purpose is unconscious.  For example, when I stopped smoking I learned that part of the reason I smoked was because I felt sophisticated and I saw non-smokers as kind of boring.  That had to change.

6)  The new habit needed to be in place every single day.

7)  I needed to reward myself for the progress I made and stay off my case when I had a slip. 

8)  I learned to start over and never, ever, ever, give up.