It can be so doggone hard to break a habit. Many times putting in your effort just leads to frustration, exhaustion, and defeat. Why? If you look down deeper, your habits force you to respond on autopilot.
How are you speaking to yourself as you attempt to change your habits? You may not be aware of the negative emotions that come up as you wrestle with these habits. If we can adjust our behavior, we can create new habits. In new habits, you alter core beliefs that emerge through behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and in your body.
So, what can we do about it? Well, it is time for our wonderful tool and tips, where we provide strategies for implementing all of that great information you heard during the interviews. Let us get to it:
Tools & Tips to Break Bad Habits and Create New Growth
1. Embrace a Larger Understanding of Habits
As you turn to address your habits head-on, take a step back and consider the bigger picture. The power of this is that when you can identify how your beliefs, emotions, thoughts, and body interacts with one another during a habit-forming behavior, you can address the root cause of the habit. This understanding also identifies a healthy level of expectation for personal growth and building healthy habits.
It may help to imagine creating habits like a growing pear tree. The roots are your core beliefs, the trunk is your body, the branches are your thoughts, the sap is your emotion and the pears are your behaviors. With this metaphor, you can see how many aspects of your experience and who you are playing into your behaviors or habits.
2. Utilize Healthy Expectations to Gain Grace
Grace means you are willing to be patient, kind, and compassionate with yourself. In this grace stage, you stop beating yourself up for past failures. You change how you speak to yourself. Instead of negative self-talk, you give yourself affirmations, cheers, or accolades for growth in any capacity. Imagine how powerful this will be as you strive to form new positive habits.
With grace, you have the power to stop being angry with yourself. After all, what happens when you remain angry with yourself? You beat yourself up or focus on the things you should have done. Anger can deplete your energy so you no longer can change your behavior. Anger can physically affect your body.
Remember, God turns away from anger. In Hosea 11, the scriptures reveal God’s love, care, tender mercy, protection, and guidance to the Israelites. However, the more He called them to be near Him, the more they fled and worshiped other gods. Unfortunately, we can easily do the same when we choose society’s standard for our lives instead of God’s.
God was about to make their lives extremely difficult. However, in verse 9 God reveals that he would not vent his full fury of anger. He would not destroy his people. God would not address the Israelites’ behavior in His rage. God understood that anger does not produce the change
needed by the Israelites’. Therefore, like God, let us understand that anger does not bring about healthy change.
3. Clothe Yourself in Forgiveness
Instead of being angry or impatient with yourself, clothe yourself in self-forgiveness. As you continue to release old habits to bring in the new, forgive yourself when releasing the old becomes difficult.
Self-reflection can lead you to self-forgiveness. Begin by asking yourself the following questions:
- When I do not forgive myself, do I change the situation?
- What happiness do I stop pursuing because I cannot forgive myself?
- Does not forgiving myself help others around me?
Answering these questions will shine a light on what it costs to withhold forgiveness for yourself. Also, you may need to ask yourself these questions multiple times to address unforgiven thoughts. Spend time reading scriptures about God’s forgiveness. Some scriptures you can reference are Isaiah 55:6-9, Psalm 32:1-7, Matthew 6: 14-15, Ephesians 1:7-8, and Micah 7:18-20.
4. Take Notice of Disruption
Let us go back to Hosea. God changed from being angry; however, the Israelites were still entrenched in unhealthy behavior. Therefore, in Hosea 11:10, God states that He will roar like a lion to grab their attention. In His roaring, His people will fear Him and change their direction.
God’s roar was a disruption in the Israelites’ lives. The disruption slapped them out of their behavior. The Holy Spirit reveals our limited beliefs and uses disruption to guide us back to healthy behaviors. Spend time identifying life experiences that disrupted your life.
5. Open Yourself to Others and God
Connecting with other believers helps us pursue healthier behaviors. They assist in mirroring
God’s truth in our lives. To get here, you must be humble, vulnerable, and willing to receive feedback. Place yourself in situations where you are learning from others. The more you realize that you do not have all the answers, the more you will be open to learning and receiving feedback.
At the end of the day, allow yourself to exhale into Him and surrender to His guidance. Let go and let God. When we surrender, our change occurs faster. As you partner with God and surround yourself with positive people, you move forward with greater confidence.
6. Fill Your Being with Goodness.
As you surrender and release limiting beliefs, it is essential to fill yourself with goodness. You may want to begin with meditation. In meditation, you can calm your spirit, find your breath, and listen to God’s word.
While you meditate, learn to slow down and build on the Lord. This moment is a time to slow your expectations of growth. Focus on being patient with yourself as you conquer the roots of your habits. With practice, this meditation can be a time of rest and recovery as you move toward the new goals you want to create.
7. Let Go of Perfectionism
We are not perfect people. However, when we are clothed in Christ, our development rate increases. Develop using God as your strength. Let go of false beliefs that are easily rooted in perfectionism.
Take note of how perfectionism might have stopped you as you sought to break bad habits before. Partner with God to release those ideas of perfectionism and commit to stepping forward in faith with Him by your side. With these strategies and tips, you will be prepared to break bad habits in a different way than ever before. As you walk with Christ closer by your side, you will be able to release toxicity and become the woman you want to be.
