The Psychology Behind Developing Better Habits

A behavior is an Action

Habits are a Practice

If you knew your negative behaviors were just outward expressions of your thinking habits, would you be willing to change your thinking habits?

1. How habits show up in our behavior

From what we see others doing to how we do things
From how people have spoken to us to how we speak to ourselves

Can you relate to any habits in your life that were formed, from the example of others?

How are habits and behaviors created?

A habit is formed from an inward way of thinking and transformed into an outward behavior

Have you ever heard the term, “practice makes perfect”

The practice may be harmful or helpful but regardless, if it’s repeated enough they become perfected in us

2. Our Behaviors identify our thinking habits

What habits are you practicing today?

The evidence is in the actions

Write out your actions that you have tendency to repeat often:

What habits have you been subconsciously practicing the past few days, weeks, months, or even years?

If you identified your habits, which of them do you want to keep and which do you want to remove?

3. The practice of developing or removing Habits

If your behaviors were damaging to your life, would you rather keep them or remove them?

I read this saying a few days ago that said, “I’ve grown to love the way you poison me.” and I thought, “wow, how real that saying is to so many people. Not the poisoning from others, but the poisoning from our own habits”

See, we don’t really love the poison, we love the familiarization the poison produces. There’s a certain type of comfort our habits create, regardless if it’s healing or poisoning.

Habits create familiarization, which leads to avoidance of discomfort, and avoidance of discomfort, leads to intensified, longer-lasting, self-inflicted misery. But because that misery is familiar to us, we consciously/subconsciously act out the behaviors that ultimately self-sabotage us to ensure we maintain the habits.