So why is it so hard to form good new habits and why is it so hard to break old ones?
Well, one of the reasons is that bad habits give you immediate positive reinforcement. You get what you were looking for, you feel relief or whatever it is that …
So why is it so hard to form good new habits and why is it so hard to break old ones?
Well, one of the reasons is that bad habits give you immediate positive reinforcement. You get what you were looking for, you feel relief or whatever it is that that habit is giving you and they have a delayed negative outcome, and a good example would be smoking.
Well with bad habits. I can tell you one of the reasons why they're so hard to break is that you will have an immediate positive impact from a bad habit, from doing a bad habit, and you have a delayed negative outcome from that bad habit. So if you're a smoker, that cigarette is going to give you instant satisfaction. It's going to give you relief and it's not going to say give you lung cancer immediately. You're not going to see the negative effects.
Now, good habits. On the other hand, they have an immediate, almost negative impact and a delayed positive outcome. So say for instance, working out, working out is hard. You might enjoy it. Hopefully, you do enjoy it, but it is hard work, and you are not going to go from having a big old belly to six pack abs in one exercise so you don't see it right away.
And then if you're trying to create a new good habit, say working out, there is no negative impact of skipping a workout. It's not like you are in shape and you decide, you know what? I'm just going to skip today's workout and you instantly get fat. It doesn't happen that way. So these are things that make habits and forming good ones in breaking bad ones. So hard to do.
So there are three things you need to do if you want to break old habits and put new habits in their place, and the first thing is to come up with a plan. If you don't have a plan, you're not going to get anywhere that you want to go. You need to plan for the hard times because there's going to be times when you don't feel like working out or you do feel like having a cigarette. Whatever it is, you need to plan for that and what you're going t..
