Analucia Trujillo Sanchez

Sister Russell
PC 101: Life skills
23 November 2019
Three essential steps to change bad habits
The three essential steps that people can do to start changing their bad habits are: identify the routine,
identify the triggers of bad habits and recognize their potential to make a plan in order to replace the routine.
Many of us often try to achieve different goals, such as: exercising regularly, eating healthy, organizing
our time, etc. However, it is a common problem that desire does not become action and it seems that we are
tied with invisible ropes that do not allow us to progress or achieve our goals. Those ropes are “the bad
habits”. Since it is impossible to untie a knot without knowing how it was done it is necessary to understand
how habits are formed because that will provide us the power to create or change our behavior.
Habits are routines that you have learned so well that they are stored permanently in your memory
waiting for the activator or the correct signal to activate it. Taking into account this we can use as an
example the bad habit of “giving up easily” in this case the routine is: tendency to give up easily in a
difficult situation. Many times, we tend to give up to the first obstacle we face because we feel unable to
overcome it and that may be the result of getting used to failure and resigning ourselves instead of fighting
to succeed. In order to change it we have to realize the great potential we have to achieve anything that we
want. In an April 2007 general conference talk entitled “we can change” Prophet Thomas S. Monson teaches
that; there are two fundamental reasons largely account for these attitudes changes. First, people have been
identified their eternal possibilities and have made the decision to achieve them. People can’t really long rest
content with mediocrity once they see excellence is within their reach and second, “the principle of love”. It
means that If we recognize and value our divine potential and identify the earthly and eternal blessings that
we can achieve as long as we strive as much as we can, the word "mediocrity" will not exist in our mind. It
is clearly good advice, since we need to be aware of our divine potential in order to reach it and not limit
ourselves.
After having identified the routine of the habit of "giving up easily," we need to identify the trigger for this
behavior. In this case, the triggers would be the "thinking errors", which are failures of judgment caused by
stress. They are wrong ways of looking at the world. Because of your distorted view, you tend to act in ways
that don't resolve the stress, but instead make it worse or add new stress. As a result, when we are under
pressure we tend unconsciously to stress and distort problems to make them bigger than they really are.
In the book “The power of the habits” published in 2012 Charles Duhigg explains that; When a habit arises,
the brain ceases to participate fully in decision making. Then, unless you deliberately fight a habit, unless
you find new routines, the pattern will develop automatically. I have seen that truth in my life when I had
problems or challenges, I used to give in to the first failure instead of struggling to overcome them. I used to
think that "if I could not do it before, I will never be able to do it" and that is why I was self-limiting, now
after overcoming my fears and fighting to trust myself more I realize the great potential I have to overcome
any obstacle and as a result now when I face a challenge my first reaction is not to give up and that is thanks
to identifying I had “thinking errors” and replaced them with good thoughts.
After having identified the routine and the trigger the last step we have to do is make a plan to replace the
bad routine with the good behavior we want, in the case of not giving up easily we can constantly pose
challenges to get used to them and develop our skills and talents to rely more on our potential and not feel
weak against the challenges. Strengthening my skills helped me to trust myself more and as a result now
instead of avoiding the challenges I face them.
In conclusion Habits are important in our life for that we must identify if we have bad habits to change them
and avoid affecting our earthly progress. Also remember that All of us have a potential that we cannot
imagine if we only trust our mortal perspective. You have to see yourself how God sees you in order to be
the best version of you.