Griffin Speaks

BREAK A BAD HABIT

A habit is according to Webster a “customary behavior pattern.” Some say that a habit is anything that we do so frequently that it becomes almost an involuntary response. If it is a desirable involuntary response such as “putting on one’s seat belt as soon as one enters an automobile, then it is considered a “good habit”. On the other hand if it is an undesirable response such as “smoking a cigarette immediately after a meal, then it is a “bad habit”. The best way to break a bad habit is one step at a time. 

If you are like most people you would like to replace your bad habits with good habits. My suggestion is to focus on changing one bad habit at a time. You must understand why you are changing the bad habit. It will take about 30days to break any bad habit. Keep it simple. Develop a new good habit. Change your environment. An example of changing your environment would be, if you are trying to stop drinking then don’t stop at the club after work and sit in the bar. If you are trying to quit eating junk food then don’t buy junk food for the house. Chart your progress. Convince your spouse or friend to join you in your efforts. 

Most people form habits good or bad to fulfill a need. Once you break a bad habit the need will still be there. You will still need a way to fulfill those needs. If you go home every night and smoke and drink to relax then you will still need to relax when you go home once you break that bad habit. You will need to find an alternative way to relax. Some suggest that having sex for six to eight hours a night will relax a person or kill them. That may be on the extreme side of things. I suggest that you read a good book until you fall asleep. Just substitute better behaviors. 

You must realize that you have a choice. A very dear friend of mine, Mrs. Fannie Bingham, Tuskegee University’s oldest living graduate before she died in 1997 at the age of 101, had this advice to give: “There is a force that guides man here, and if you get with the right force, it will give you power as you go. Your life is what you make it – you can make it great or you can make it small. The choice is yours.”

In the words of my dad, “If these gas prices get any higher I am going to buy me a horse!”

Greg Griffin is a free lance writer. You can read his previous articles by visiting his web page at www.greggriffin.com or write to him at P.O. Box 250194 Montgomery, Alabama 36125-0194. 

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