Understanding The Importance Of Positivity

It is widely accepted that positivity has an integral role to play across almost all areas of life. Positive thinking can help to improve mood and well-being, and positive reinforcement is by far the most successful way to teach a person (or even a pet) anything.

Much of the discourse around the topic of habits tends to focus on bad habits that people want to break. Whether it’s smoking, sleeping in on weekends, fingernail biting, or snacking more than is ideal, it’s all viewed in a negative light: this is bad, and it’s something that has to stop. Often, the language can extend even further and become inflammatory and alarmist: you have to quit your bad habits, or else.

The above is so common that most of us don’t even see it as problematic. However, bad habits are notoriously difficult to break, so perhaps it’s time to try and reverse the way we view and talk about habits entirely. If you have any bad habits you have been hoping to leave behind, here are three tips that can help to transform your thinking and – hopefully – pave the way for success.

#1 – Highlight the benefits of quitting the habit

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If you are, for example, trying to eat less sugar, then you’re surrounded by plenty of negative reasons to do so: eating too much of it can cause blood sugar issues, sugar has been linked to heart disease, and so on – the warnings are everywhere in society. However, while it’s important to take these points on board, threatening yourself into a good habit is inherently negative – which, as we’ve discussed, might not be the best approach.

Instead, think primarily about the reasons why you want to break that habit, and how your life will change for the better if you do so. This small change in thinking can stop breaking a habit from feeling like a negative, unpleasant experience, an act of denial, and reframes it as an inherently positive, exciting step towards a brighter future.

#2- See erasing bad habits as a process, not a sudden stop

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Bad habits do not appear overnight. No one wakes up one day and is, for example, addicted to cigarettes – the habit develops over the course of a number of years, becoming an integral part of a person’s life. To suddenly remove such a strongly-ingrained habit from their life will always be challenging; part of the way that they have behaved, for years, is coming to an end, and even if it is for incredibly positive reasons, it’s still going to leave a gap.

It may therefore be helpful to acknowledge the amount of time required to establish that habit in the first instance, and approach the cessation of that habit as more of a progression than a sudden, complete (and often very jarring) stopping point. For smokers, using the best vape starter kits can be beneficial in this regard, and similar options exist for other bad habits too – for example, if you’re trying to quit caffeine, then opt to drink less initially rather than stopping altogether. As time passes, further reductions can be made, and will feel far more like the next step in a long line of progress rather than a sudden, dramatic change – and should thus be more sustainable.

#3 – Elevate the good; overlook the bad

When seeking to break any bad habit, there will be an inevitable mix of good days (when everything goes as planned and the bad habit in question is avoided entirely) and bad days (when there is a slip). This rollercoaster can be difficult to process, and it’s very easy to overfocus on the bad days and brush off the good days as if they are not of particular significance.

However, the good days ultimately matter far more than the bad ones; these are the days that are shaping the rest of your life, laying the groundwork for complete freedom from your bad habit. The good days should be elevated and recognized; have a small celebration for every good day to honour your commitment, and what that commitment means for your future. The bad days, in contrast, should be reduced; blips that are of little importance to overall progress. You can learn the lessons from bad days (such as reasons why the slip happened and how the same can be avoided if they arise again), but don’t linger: think of all the days where things went well, and get back on track as soon as possible.

The points above may help to harness the power of positivity when trying to break bad habits.

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