3 steps to eliminate bad habits and build positive ones.

If you’ve tried to break a bad habit before, then you know it is not easy. This is because habits are ingrained in our subconscious and are often built over many years of repetition.

Whether we find ourselves bingeing on chocolate late at night, smoking cigarettes when we feel stressed or scrolling through Facebook as soon as we wake up, bad habits affect us all.

But the good news is, there are ways we can identify subconscious patterns and break the bad habits we’ve built up over the years.

Here is a 3 step process to get you started!

Step 1 - Score your habits

Grab a pen and paper. It’s time to take a look at your typical day and separate your daily habits into three categories: negative, positive and neutral.

This is a great way to become more conscious of any negative habits in your life so you know where to focus on improving.

Below is an example category chart to get you started:

Step 2 - Make the negative habits harder

Now that you know your daily habit patterns, you can select a few negative habits you want to focus on changing.

To do this, you need to find ways to make the habits harder to initiate. Once the habits become invisible, they won’t be as present in your subconscious.

For example, have you ever seen a TV advertisement showcasing a delicious new creamy chocolate bar? All of the sudden your mouth is salivating and you’re thinking of the quickest way to get your hands on that chocolate so you can satisfy your craving. If that advertisement didn’t exist, you probably wouldn’t have craved chocolate at that time.

Step 3 - Make the positive habits easier

Step 3 is the reverse of step 2. In order to incorporate new positive daily habits, you need to make them more obvious.

For example, if you want to develop the habit of running each morning, you could put your workout clothes beside your night table before you go to bed.

That way, the first thing you will see when you wake up is your workout clothes. This makes it easier to start your run than if you had to scramble up and search for your running clothes in the morning.

It isn’t easy to eliminate bad habits, but we believe you can do it!

Start by using these three steps to eliminate bad habits and create positive new ones. It isn’t an easy process; but the good news is that you don’t have to do it alone.

At PT Marbella we help our clients make lifestyle changes that actually last a lifetime. If you’re ready to eliminate bad habits and develop new ones, check out our online personal training plans today.