Henry Vladimir Gutierrez Choque

Marchel Urbanozo

PC 101L Life Skills

26 June 2019

Changing bad habits

For most of people, it is difficult to accept their mistakes, but the toughest part is to

correct them because it would require some time. Habits are quite similar, changing them is

not an easy task. Three steps are be used in order to change bad habits: identify the routine of

the bad habit, establish a reward to diminish the feeling of doing it, and create a plan to

replace the bad habit with a good one. Following those steps, we can change practically any

bad habit.

Fist of all, to change bad habits, the first step is to identify the routine we want to

change. The first thing to do is to ask ourselves “why is it bad.”? By doing that we will

understand the importance and the impact in our lives. The second thing, is to set goals with

which we will know how we can identify another routine which can replace the one that is

bad for us. For example, if we eat too much, the goal of having a healthy life will have a great

impact. These two steps mentioned are the first to come to think of.

Second of all, to establish a reward to diminish the feeling of doing the bad habits

takes an important role. One way to do that is by experimenting a lot. Once the routine of the

bad habit is identified, the next thing to do is to try to replace this routine with another one.

For example, activities like socializing with friends, exercising, reading books are good way

with which we can experiment. Rethink the reward can also help us reflect whether or not the

experience feels pleasurable. In other words, we must ask ourselves if we are really getting

out of this bad habit. Then we create a loop using that question, which will lead us to the
conclusion that, it gets easier to replace the habit with something that will reward us in a

more meaningful way.

Last but not least, to create a plan to replace a bad habit with a good one, is done

implementation intentions. In April 2011 a publication entitled “Breaking habits with

implementation intentions: a test of underlying processes,” Marieke A. Adriansee estates that

implementation intentions “could be used not only to promote the initiation of a new, wanted

behaviors but also to break existing unwanting behaviors.” Implementation intentions could

be used to link a new, desired behavior to the situation that previously triggered the habitual

behavior. For example, if we eat snacks when watching TV, we can use this information to

formulate a counterhabitual intention which can be for example, if we are watching TV and

we want a snack, then we will grab an apple. By following that logic, we can implement good

ideas with just intentions.

To sum up, we create habits all the time. When we create negative habits along the

way it is hard to follow a logical process to correct them. That is when this three-step

procedure comes in handy, which can be done: by identifying the routine of the bad habit,

establishing a reward to diminish the feeling of doing it, and by creating a plan to replace the

bad habit with a good one.