A habit is a habitual act formed from thought and identity.
The action you performed before it became a habit started from your thought. Before building a cleanliness habit, it started first with a thought of cleanliness, then when you start taking actions of cleanliness, you then accept it as part of your identity. You have to accept that you are a clean person.
This is how you build and break habits:
1. Accepting it as part of your identity
2. Focusing your thoughts on the habit you want to build or break
3. Building systems and taking action toward the habit you want
4 Things you must do
1. Start the habit first in your mind: Romans 12:2 KJV says: And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
The person who wrote this Bible verse knew what it takes to build and break habits, which is to think about the habit, meditate on the habit, and accept the habit in your mind. We all know that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. What thinking about it does to you is that it creates a consciousness in you that makes you aware of the habit. When you become conscious, it makes it very easy to take action in building and breaking the habit. Then when you make the action habitual, it turns into the habit you want.
2. Set up boundaries or systems that keep you within the habit you want to build or break: Sometimes the reason we cannot break or build habits is because we do not have boundaries and systems. For example, someone who wants to stop smoking keeps himself in the company of smokers, someone who wants to stop pornography still does not browse in safe browsing mode that restricts bad websites, or someone who wants to keep good saving habits does not have any system that helps him save money. We have many scenarios like that. Our systems keep us within what we want to build or break.
You should start setting boundaries, systems, and surround yourself with people who keep you within the habit you want to build or break.
3. Change the way you think: If you want to change a man, you only need to change the way he thinks. We need to learn this in building and breaking habits. We might be approaching the habit we want to build or break with the wrong mindset. What do we do in that situation? We change our mindset. As humans, we use the trial and error method.
What is the trial and error method?
Trial and error is a problem-solving method where you try different options until you find the one that works. It is common in learning, experiments, and everyday decisions.
Once we find the right method, it sticks in our brain and is registered, so that next time we become conscious, we know the right action to take.
4. Taking action: This is very vital. Taking action is what we call an act, and what we act on habitually is what becomes a habit. When building and breaking habits, we must act in accordance with that habit. Action is like programming a machine that serves a single purpose. First, we start by writing some codes. The actions we take each time are codes we send to our brain to build that habit. When the code is executed, the machine begins to perform the action on its own. Once our brain processes our actions and registers them in our subconscious mind, then a habit has been formed.
In conclusion,
We build and break habits by making our mind the basis of the habit we want to build, accepting the habit as our identity, taking necessary actions, and lastly setting up systems and boundaries that keep us within the habit we want.
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