We’re all trying very hard to cultivate good habits in our everyday lives. We try to drink enough water, watch our meal portions, shop from sustainable brands, and do our best to exercise daily. All of this is absolutely wonderful and we should continue doing all of them.
But there’s the other side as well–toxic habits. As much as we’d like to only have good habits, we all have a few bad ones that are not helping us be our best selves. It could be something as innocuous as drinking a diet coke everyday to something more obviously bad like chain smoking.
How do you get rid of toxic habits? Like all habits, it takes time and effort. We’ve assembled a few steps you can follow in order to be able to ditch your bad habits (hopefully for good).
1. Admit you have toxic habits
My mother has always told me that the first step towards fixing anything is to acknowledge that there is a problem to begin with. Many people find it difficult to admit that they have toxic habits. If you’re going to pretend that everything is fine, you will never get around to addressing your issues, let alone fixing them.
Acknowledge that you have a problem. It’s not easy to do but it is the first crucial step towards making it things better.
2. Recognise your triggers
Whenever I am stressed out, I want to sleep. It’s how I avoid facing my problems. It once reached a point where I slept for more than 12 hours a day. Sleeping became my toxic habit. Then I learnt to identify that a stressful situation made me want to go straight to bed. I had to face it head on.
It took some time but I would force myself to deal with the situation no matter how uncomfortable it made me. I slipped every once in a while (and went straight to bed) but all-in-all, I’ve stopped escaping my problems by going to sleep.
Similarly, find your own triggers, recognise them, and then work towards making sure that those triggers don’t make you indulge in toxic patterns of behaviour. You will fail a few times but eventually, you will get there.
3. Baby steps
Make a plan for the future. Don’t expect to just wake up and be able to beat your bad habits. Baby steps is what it will take. Go one day at a time and slowly, but surely, you will reach your goal.
4. Ask for help
Most of the time, we won’t be able to beat our toxic habits on our own, especially when it comes to addictions like smoking or drinking. It’s not a shame to ask for help from family, friends, and professionals.
Join a rehab for your addictions, seek the services of a therapist to be able to understand why you do what you do, and/or speak to your family and friends about it.
Toxic habits hold us back in life. It’s important to be able to beat them. It’s okay if you can’t do it alone. Help is always around the corner.
