Q&A: How Do You Replace A Bad Habit?

Hi there. Throughout the year, I've received a lot of questions from my friends on Facebook. So we've decided to sit down and answer these questions and let me give you my thoughts and insights and experiences, and they may be helpful to you. And questions from one person may be a question that you might have asked yourself. So let's get started.

Dominique from Facebook asked Brian on the subject of habits. How long does it take to unlearn or replace a bad habit?

And.

And how would you go about it?

Well, habits are very important because 95% of everything you do is based on your habits. One of my friends used to say, the key to success is to form good habits and make them your masters, as opposed to bad habits. He also said this, which was very interesting. He said, good habits are hard to form but easy to live with. Bad habits are easy to form but hard to live with. So I've written extensively on the subject of habits. And what we know is that different habits take different periods of time to form. Some people may try to break the habit of smoking, and it may take them a month or six months or nine months. And at nine months and three days, they pick up a cigarette and it makes them throw up. They've programmed themselves out of smoking. They never smoke again. So, for example, as a good friend of mine says, you can develop the habit of not touching hot stoves in about one second. All you have to do is touch a hot stove and burn your hand, and for the rest of your life you will be in the habit of checking before you touch hot stoves. So you can develop habits from one second to one year or even longer. The key to developing a habit is called persistence, is you first of all make a decision. You're going to develop this new habit. You become very clear, and you develop a mental picture of yourself behaving with this habit as though you already had it. For example, let us say you eat too much. Then you make a habit of using a smaller plate, eating only enough to take the edge off your appetite, and then stopping and putting it away. Most interesting thing, by the way, about losing weight is if the food is not there, your appetite disappears. It's only when the food is in front of you. So when you have it taken away as soon as your appetite has been curbed, just. I call it an appetite killer. Sometimes you can do it with a handful of nuts. It takes the edge off your appetite, then remove all food. Soon it gets to the point where you don't even put it in front of you. And you start to get thinner and thinner. What you do is you make a decision to form this habit, and then you never make an exception. You practice the habit every single day. If you make a decision that you're going to do it, do it for 21 days, seven days a week. And if you fall off the wagon, start a new 21 days. If you slip for one day, bang back to 21 days. And you just keep hanging in there, just keep persisting. At a certain point, it becomes easier and easier not to do it than to do it. So ask yourself, what would be the greatest habits for me to have? Punctuality. Only 2% of the population have the habit of punctuality. That would be good morning exercise, getting up and exercising every morning. That would be good. Eating certain foods or not eating sugars or sweets. One of the fastest ways to take care of your diet is to not eat anything with sugar in it. So you say, what would be the habits that would help me stop procrastinating or get started on my major tasks immediately? Or plan every day in advance, or reading one hour each day to upgrade my knowledge and skills? So make a list of the habits, and then you say, which one of these habits would help me the most right away? And then what you do is you just pick one habit. Don't try to change more than one habit at a time. But imagine if it takes 21 days or so to develop a habit of medium complexity, and you were to develop one habit each month for 12 months. At the end of 12 months, you had 12 new habits. What difference would that make in your life? The answer is, it would totally change your life. Now people say, well, I couldn't do this, I couldn't do that. I mean, that's so difficult. I've tried all these years to do it. What happens if you join the army or you join the Marines, or you join the Navy and you go through boot camp and you go through basic training for six or 12 months, they drill you and grill you and train you in new habits so that at the end of six or 12 months, you have a whole series of new habits of behavior, of cleanliness, of response rates, of activity, action planning, getting up, going to bed is within a few months, you're a totally different human being by simply daily repetition. Seven days a week so you can do it to yourself. Put yourself through your own boot camp, decide, I'm going to develop this habit, and pick one habit that will help you the most. Don't try to change the world. Just pick one habit and prove to yourself that you can develop one new habit. Once you know that you can develop one new habit, then you know you can develop any habit you want. Good luck to you. Now, I've given you a couple of ideas. So the most important thing that you can do is to take action. So what one action are you going to take as a result of these key ideas that I've just given you? Whatever it is, jot it down and let me know. Remember, one action that you take that you would not have taken in the absence of this discussion can change your life forever.