Breaking habits Psychology

• How many times have you decided to break a habit then failed to do it?
• How many times have you said that you will change, then a few days later, you returned to your old habits?
• How many times have you felt so guilty because of making a bad habit, then a few weeks later, you did it again?

If your answers were yes, then know that you are not an exception because most people make the same mistakes, preventing them from quitting habits successfully.

This article will help you change your behavior by informing you about a fatal mistake that can prevent you from breaking bad habits.

Guilt is not enough when it comes to breaking habits

The problem with guilt is that it fades away quickly as time passes. If you tried to break a habit because you feel guilty, you would succeed in doing so as long as guilt is still present, but as soon as guilt disappears, which usually happens in few days, your bad habit will return.

Guilt is a powerful emotion, and that it can be used to maintain a healthy relationship.

By not shouting at your spouse when he shouts at you, he will feel guilty, then a few minutes later, he will say sorry. So guilt can be useful when you want to motivate someone to do a task once, but when it comes to permanently stopping a bad habit, guilt won’t work.

If you want to break a habit, then you must know that guilt is not enough. Instead, you should look for the root cause behind the habit. If, for example, your bad habit is anger, then you must find out what goal you are trying to reach by becoming angry.

Are you protecting your ego? are you angry at life and just projecting your anger on others? As soon as you discover the root cause behind the bad habit, breaking it will be easy.

Deciding to quit is not enough to break the bad habit

When someone decides to quit smoking, he usually tears the last pack apart, throws it out of the window, and stops smoking that day completely, But a few days later, when a friend smokes in front of him, he returns to his old habit in seconds.

Again if that smoker tried to understand the reasons that motivated him to smoke in the first place, then breaking his habit might become an easy task.

For example, some teens smoke to satisfy the need to be more masculine. If that teen found a way to feel more masculine, he might not even think about smoking again.

According to psychology, each bad habit serves an important purpose; if you found a way to attain that purpose without making the bad habit, then quitting it will be an easy task.