How to Break a Negative Habit?

It's really difficult to change a behavior that has been forming for a long time. Your mind remembers stable patterns and pushes you to react to triggers with the corresponding routines. These patterns are hard to forget completely.

But you can minimize the possibility of resuming your unwanted habit by working on its key elements:

• Cue (trigger) — Recognize cues that set off your unwanted routines and remove them from your daily life.
• Routine (your reaction to a cue) — Make it as difficult as possible to react to an unwanted trigger.
• Reward (pleasant feedback that you receive for the routine) — Recognize the unpleasant emotions that result from your unwanted habit.

Here's a simple example:
Habit — I smoke 5-10 cigarettes a day.
Cue — I've noticed that I smoke most often when I'm bored at work.
Routine — As soon as I feel tired, I go to the smoking room.
Reward — Smoke breaks help me recharge my mind.

1. To break this negative habit, I should try to change up my work tasks as much as possible in advance, or maybe ask for more challenging work. That way, I'll get bored less often and minimize the impact of my cue.
2. Then, I should make my routine complicated. I'll make it hard to smoke by not keeping cigarettes in my pockets or bag.
3. If I smoke a cigarette, I'll listen to a song that really annoys me (like an anti-reward).

Moreover, you can try to replace your unwanted habit with a positive one. But start by clearly recognizing all the elements of your habit, and you will succeed.