How to Turn Bad Habits Into Good Habits

Plan for big changes

Photo by LYFE Fuel on Unsplash

With the adoption of a few bad habits, I went from being the fittest person I knew to the most out of shape, barely able to run for five minutes.

What were these habits? Drinking, overeating, all-nighters playing multiplayer games, binging Netflix… And while I seemed very capable of adopting these bad habits, I was powerless to create new ones.

I tried everything — read hundreds of books — in the end, only one thing made the difference: shifting the balance of my time.

Here’s how it works.

Identify the habits you want to change

There are two ways to do this:

1. Adopt a new habit — no need to get rid of anything.
2. Turn one habit into another.

Either way, you need to be specific in identifying what you want to add or take away. Don’t say: I want to be fitter or I want to be healthier. Say: I want to work out every morning, or I want to stop smoking.

You need to be able to see your target if you are going to hit it.

Replace every bad habit with a good one

If you choose to get rid of a bad habit, you need something to fill the void…