BREAKING THE HABIT It’s easy to focus on the negatives and what’s wrong with our behaviours, but to ensure real, lasting change, perhaps it’s time to allow kindness to lead the way... Writing | Shahroo Izadi
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t’s natural to give a lot of thought to the negatives of our habits – after all, they’re often the reason we want to change. But focusing on how our behaviour patterns are serving us to stay the same, can help us to gain far more useful insight. It can be helpful to reframe a habit that’s become a problem for you as a solution, instead. That
way, you can not only understand (with compassion and forgiveness) why you’re finding it so difficult to change, but you can also consider what other habits you’d like to introduce, that could do a similar job for you. As a behaviour change specialist, one scenario I’ve seen a lot is when someone isn’t happy with their habit of drinking a couple of glasses of wine in an evening, and beats themself up for not having changed, despite knowing it’s not good for their health. Instead of imposing punitive, harsh new drinking rules, which rely on you staying motivated to avoid the negatives, I instead recommend first asking yourself why you’re drinking it in the first place? Consider how it serves you, or has served you in the past. You might identify that it helps you to mark the end of a working day, or serves to release stress in the short-term. Without judgement, consider what other long-term coping strategies could help with stress, and practise turning to those more frequently instead. >>> May 2020 • happiful.com • 51
