How to Break a Bad Habit and Replace It With a Good One

You don't eliminate a bad habit, you replace it.

For example, if you smoke when you get stressed, then it's a bad plan to “just stop smoking” when that happens. Instead, you should come up with a different way to deal with stress and insert that new behavior instead of having a cigarette.

Are there certain beliefs or reasons that are behind the bad habits? Is there something deeper — a fear, an event, or a limiting belief — that is causing you to hold on to something that is bad for you?

As my main man Steve Kamb says, “When you screw up, skip a workout, eat bad foods, or sleep in, it doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you human. Welcome to the club.”

All of the habits that you have right now — good or bad — are in your life for a reason. In some way, these behaviors provide a benefit to you, even if they are bad for you in other ways.

Because bad habits provide some type of benefit in your life, it's very difficult to simply eliminate them. (This is why simplistic advice like “just stop doing it” rarely works.)Instead, you need to replace a bad habit with a new habit that provides a similar benefit.

In other words, bad habits address certain needs in your life. And for that reason, it's better to replace your bad habits with a healthier behavior that addresses that same need. If you expect yourself to simply cut out bad habits without replacing them, then you'll have certain needs that will be unmet and it's going to be hard to stick to a rout... See more

So rather than beating yourself up over a mistake, plan for it. We all get off track, what separates top performers from everyone else is that they get back on track very quickly.

Recognizing the causes of your bad habits is crucial to overcoming them.