Game changing way to kick a bad habit

Jul 17, 2020

 by McKayla King-Mason

A little while ago I realized I was getting into a pretty deep rut that was going to turn into a bad habit if I didn’t do something about it.

It was during the beginning of the Covid-19 situation, and I found that I was starting to eat foods I normally avoided and snacking out of boredom. 

Honestly, I was surprised at how fast it happened. 

I think a LOT of us were sliding into not-so-productive behaviors then. I’m just grateful I realized it before it got out of hand!

Fact: Getting out of that rut was a LOT harder than I expected it to be, and I knew I had to get strategic and tactical about it.

Everything that was going on in my life at that point supported staying in the rut and doubling down … I’m talking about stress, extra time on my hands, you name it!

Here’s what I did to kick it:

I KNEW I had to make a radical change to remove the temptation. 

For me, that meant shaking up my routine by getting really BUSY with something else, so there was no time or energy to get seduced back into my rut. 

That meant I worked on new programming for my clients and started scheduling out my day. 

And do you know what? Once I got started, it wasn’t that bad at all. It was actually fun. 

In the book Atomic Habits, James Clear writes that one of the best ways to break a habit is to reduce exposure to temptations – removing anything that prompts you to do it. 

Then, once those cues are gone, you can reframe your mindset by looking at the benefits of NOT doing the action. For me, that meant substituting other things that gave me tangible results!

It’s a pretty irresistible combo!

Just some food for thought, especially if you have picked up a habit or two over the past few months that you’d like to kick.