Mindfulness - Making good habits

Dafne Cholet, Flickr

Getting rid of bad habits is important, but making new ones is just as critical. 

First, because you can't simply let go of a bad habit without replacing it with another, better one: facing the void is too hard, especially when the reason the bad habit exists in the first place is to cover some deep dissatisfaction. Personal anecdote: A dietitian I once consulted for advice on how to stop eating my emotions (I would go for sweets whenever I felt tired, stressed or bored) recommended that I find another pleasant activity to engage in, ideally an activity that would prevent me from eating sweets, such as going for a brisk walk, talking to a friend, or taking a bubble bath. 

Second, because good habits are the number one step toward structuring our life in a way that enables us to live according to our values, and reach our goals. Forget about your bad habits: the only way you will build a life that makes you feel good about yourself is by adopting good habits.

The thing is, implementing (and maintaining) good habits is hard. That's because it takes us out of our comfort zone... but I think it is also because we look at them from the wrong angle: we see good habits as things we "should" do... if only we were a "good" person. I have a different take on them: good habits are the things that ultimately make you feel good, physically and mentally. Therefore, good habits are a gift we give ourselves. NOT some sort of painful coercion.

Of course, going from theory to practice takes some time - and a lot of mindfulness. We need to reconnect with how we really feel. We - erroneously - tend to think that our bad habits are what makes us feel good: after all, spending, eating, drinking and the like tend to give us a "high" which we tend to confuse with actual happiness. Paying attention and being honest with ourselves is the only way to rediscover the true source of well-being. (No, bingeing on beer or chocolate cake is NOT it.)

We also need to take baby steps. It will be difficult, but the beautiful thing about good habits is that they generalize to other good habits: for example, my first yoga instructor used to say that when she started meditating, she automatically started eating healthier, even if she had not consciously planned to. I believe this is true for many good habits. (Smokers who start running have an easier time letting go of smoking.) I personally still tend to gravitate toward sweets when I am tired or dehydrated... so I make sure to sleep enough and to drink water throughout the day - those two good habits help me resist a bad one.

Which takes us to some of the good habits you might want to start forming. (I recommend starting with one, and only adding additional good habits one at a time, when the previous one is more or less "mastered".)


You could make it a habit to:

• Go to bed earlier
• Wake up half an hour earlier in order to squeeze in some exercise or some meditation (both wonderful ways to start a day, they energize AND make you peaceful at the same time)
• Eat a tall glass of water as soon as you get up, and carry a water bottle with you all day
• Include actual fruit with each breakfast (better than juice)
• Carry a healthy snack with you for sudden cravings
• Make sure both lunch and supper include a big portion of vegetables
• Walk or bike whenever possible (as opposed to taking the car)
• Do simple body weight exercises and stretches while you watch TV (if you watch TV)
• Do a quiet activity before bedtime, such as reading a book, writing a gratitude journal, or taking a bath

Whether I "feel like it" or not, I know for a fact that whenever I include those good habits in my daily life, I feel much better. Even if the rest of the day doesn't go quite according to plan, I know that I did at least a few things right, and I feel more motivated to make other right choices.

What new habit do you feel like making?


Mindfulness this Week


I will look at my daily schedule and see if I can tweak a few things in order to include more of the "right choices". I will NOT focus on my bad choices. I will trust that by implementing good habits, the bad ones will slowly fade away.

Tell us what you come up with.

Be part of the process: 


Submit your comments below

Become a follower of the blog/subscribe by email (top left corner of this page)

Follow me on Facebook (click here)

Follow me on Twitter (click here)

Mindfulness - Getting rid of bad habits

Schnappischnap, Flickr

Bad habits. We form them, we maintain them, we curse them. They make our life miserable yet we fail at getting rid of them.

Very few of us could claim to have complete control over what they put in their mouth or what they do with their time, energy and money. Outside, stronger-than-us forces seem to be at play. This is not without consequences for our health, well-being and overall enjoyment of life.

There is a whole market based on helping people get rid of their bad habits. Or, more aptly put, there is a whole market based on making money out of people's dissatisfaction with their bad habits. Most of us are desperately looking for a way to get our life back on track, and most of us are willing to open our wallet in the process, whether we purchase goods or services that offer the promise of a better life. Nutritional supplements, kitchen equipment, storage systems, various accessories, training equipment, programs... they seem to hold the way to our individual holy grail, so we succumb and, over a lifetime, pour hundreds or thousands of dollars into them. Look around yourself and at your credit card statement... most likely you will see things that you purchased in the hope of a better life. Has it worked? Have you lost the weight? Have you reached your goal, whatever it is?

There is also a whole market based on making money out of creating and maintaining bad habits - ask any cigarette or junk food manufacturer, or any casino or shopping mall owner. 

But if dishing out money isn't the solution to getting rid of bad habits, what is? To find an answer to that, we must first identify our most common mistake.

When tackling our bad habits, we tend to focus on the future: in the future I will get rid of this habit. Beginning tomorrow, or January first, or when I turn forty, I will (fill in the blank):

• eat healthy
• exercise daily
• stop smoking
• stop drinking
• consume less caffeine
• go to bed earlier
• only buy what I need
• save money/get out of debt
• get rid of a tic (e.g. biting nails)
• control my temper
• invest in good relationships
• get organized 
• stop procrastinating
• get started on that book I want to write
• meditate daily
• ditch video games
• spend less time on social media

After trying to implement change, and seeing that it failed, as it unfortunately most often does, we move to the next step: we try again. It usually fails again. A quick look at the statistics for smoking cessation or weight loss and maintenance will illustrate that clearly. 

Trying and trying might (if we're lucky) take us closer to our goal, it still doesn't tackle the root of the problem, which is: 

Why did we make that bad habit in the first place? 

There is always a reason. Our bad habits don't fall from the sky randomly - they serve a purpose. As long as the purpose is there, our bad habits will thrive. At best we will replace a bad habit with another. But we cannot hope to free ourselves from bad habits as long as we don't stop and think about their origins.

Before we even look at HOW we can change our life, we need to ask ourselves WHY we are not living the life we want to live, WHY we are not reaching our goals, WHY we keep self-sabotaging.

Before we look at the future, we must first determine what, in our past, contributed to the formation of the bad habit, and what, in our present, helps crystallize it, day after day:

What happened in my past that led me to adopt this habit? 

What happens on a daily basis right before I engage in the behavior?

Mindfulness this Week


When I find myself engaging (or about to engage) in a habit I am trying to get rid of, I will ask myself what preceded it:

What happened right before I engaged in the bad habit? What was going on? How was I feeling?

Is this a common pattern for me?

What, in my past, might be the source of this pattern?

Tell us what you come up with.

Be part of the process: 


Submit your comments below

Become a follower of the blog/subscribe by email (top left corner of this page)

Follow me on Facebook (click here)

Follow me on Twitter (click here)