9 Tips For Kicking A Bad Habit For Good

9 Tips For Kicking A Bad Habit For Good Four years ago, I was faced with a choice. I was dealing with some debilitatinghealth issues. The diagnosis indicated that I was headed towards developing Type IIdiabetes. The path of treatment was clear I could go on drugs or I could meister my diet. I wasnt willing to managethe side effects of the medication, so I decided to alter my food habits.Since that day, I stopped eating sugar and refined foods, which was nota small or instant decision to make. Over the years, my health slowly improved, and the threat of developing diabetesdisappeared.The key to all of this was radically and permanently changing my eating habits. This wasnt a diet for vanitys sake . I wasnt allowed cheat days. I had to alter and rebuild the way I shopped for, prepared and consumed food. I had to develop a totally new support structure around my food choices.Part of my process was learning about the behavioral research around changing habits and maintaining new ones. Whether youre considering making a diet change, trying to quit smoking or working on checking your social media less, knowing the mechanisms around changing habits can help support your success. Here are nine key tips to consider if youre thinking about changing a habit permanently1. Decide that the benefits to the new habit outweigh your current state. For me, I knew a lifetime of medication wouldnt be the future I wanted. I also wanted my health back, and I set the behuf that I would reclaim that health no matter what it took.Making that clear distinction with a firm goal in mind was critical to helping me stayon track. Achievinng that future state of being has to motivate the new change.2. Make a plan to changeone habit at a time.Making just one permanent habit change is a difficult task. The research is clear. By changing one habit at a time, you might find yourself with an 80% chance of success. That rate falls sharply when you add more than one habit change at once. So choose one thing to change and stick with working on it. 3. Know your old cues and choosenew ones. BJ Fogg at Stanford University and Charles Duhigg, author of the book The Power of Habit, both point out the dynamic around habits that include cue, routine and reward. Know what cues might trigger the old habit, and intentionally chose new ones to distrupt the tendency of repeating the old habit.4. Have an accurate expectation for the time it will take to adopt the new habit. While 21 daysis the number commonly thought of as thetime it takes to adopt a new habit, the science tells another story. A study done in 2009 byUniversity College London psychologist Phillippa Lally found that it could take as little as 18 or as many as 245 days to change a conscious habit into an automatic one. The average number of days was actually around 66 days for a habit to become semi-automatic. She also found that missing a day has no effect on the success of adopting the new habit. Which leads us to the next point5. Focus on consistency.Dont judge your wertzuwachs at the beginning. As Lally and others have found, even if you dont perform the new habit every day perfectly, making the attempt will still support the likelihood of adopting the new habit as a permanent one. The idea of falling short of perfection or 100% success can actually have a harmful effect on building up the new habit.Its about being consistent, not perfect.6. Celebrate all victories, especially the hard-fought breakthroughs. Building and keeping a sense of positive momentum can help support a new habit change in a big way. Behavioral scientist refer to these developmental stepping stones as approximations.Finding ways to positively (and visibly) celebrate victories can be a way to help keep the momentum going and cement the shift in habit.7.Build a system of positive and encouraging accountability and support.Optimism and support are critical to permanently kicking and replacing habits. So is friendship. 8. Think ab out how success will feel at the end.Let that feeling of success motivate you to keep moving forward. Thinking about how the end result will feel is particularly important at those times when you feel like you are backsliding or hitting a wall with your progress. Remember, it might take a much as two months for the newly adopted habit to become automatic. Thinking about the future success can help you through more challenging times.9. Let new rewards crowd out old habits. Punishment as a motivator for behavioral modification isnt effective, which is why restricting against an old habit might not be effective. Instead of restricting, consider rewarding yourself with something that could entirely displace the old habit. This is sometimes referred to as an incompatible behavior. So when I decided to stop eating sugar, I would reward myself with a walk or 10 minutes of knitting. It was critical that I replaced my reward system with something that was not food-based, therefore short-circ uiting and displacing the potential for backsliding.--Tanya Tarrhelps people connect with the power of collaborative negotiation and burnout recovery. Since 2000, she has supported executive leaders in government and public education, and managed political and advocacy campaigns across the US. Tanya hasa masters of science in performance measurement from Carnegie Mellon University and is acertified health coach. She is currently writing a negotiation manual for introverts.Fairygodboss is committed to improving the workplace and lives of women.Join us by reviewing your employer