We tend to focus a good deal of our time and effort attempting to stop negative habits. We also have a significant emotional investment in them as our minds are plagued by awareness of the habit and pointed reminders every time it is indulged.
Avoidance
We typically implement techniques designed to avoid the activity or punish ourselves for engaging in it. If the habit is using foul language, you create a list of situations where you use it and abstain from them. For example, you may not watch football rivalry games with certain friends or political news under any circumstance.
You may also seek to motivate yourself by employing loss avoidance techniques such as snaping a rubber band around your wrist or depositing $.25 in a glass jar for every curse word passing through your lips.
These forbearance techniques are helpful but keep you locked in a good v. evil struggle. It is easier to overcome negative behavior when focusing on the underlying reason for the goal you seek to accomplish.
In the case of ceasing the use of foul speech, the true objective is the desire to speak clean language. When focusing on the goal, you prepare to speak clean words before opening your mouth. When you speak more of the words you aspire to, you inevitably speak fewer of the words you wish to avoid. Rather than joining your friend in profanity-laced cheering, you express the same feelings using different words (albeit at the risk of sounding like a nerd).
Redirection
If you focus on your desired outcome, you will struggle a great deal less with feelings of deprivation. Success requires a mindset shift. Rather than dwelling on what you cannot do or have, think about achieving your goals. This principle applies in every situation, even to deep-seated habits.
Assume you are virtually addicted to bacon and potato chips but want to eliminate them from your diet (avoidance) for health reasons. If your first response when faced with the necessity of eating is choosing healthy foods (goal), you will not seriously consider bacon or chips as they are not part of healthy eating.
This goal-orientation method has proven particularly effective for my new eating regime. I do not compile and review a mental list of the meats, breads, and cheeses I cannot consume. Instead, I think about what I can eat, how I feel after eating healthier, and the lower number on the scale. I confess a weekly cheat day makes it easier to maintain my resolve.
Addicts have the strongest reasons to stop a negative habit; they possess first-hand knowledge of addiction’s terrible consequences (loss of family, friends, jobs, etc.). However, experiencing consequences and a desire to stop do not provide sufficient motivation to end the indulgences. While their lives depend on abstinence, 12-step programs are focused on a journey of recognition, acceptance, personal inventory, forgiveness, etc. that results in abstinence. Click here if you wish to learn more about twelve-step programs.
Going Towards
The reorientation of your mindset toward your true objective will curb your desire for the behavior you seek to avoid. While opposing desires may not be eliminated, the need for brute willpower and avoidance techniques are reduced and more effective when deployed.
You harness the power of “light drowning out darkness” when you focus your thoughts and actions on what you are pursuing, not what you are leaving behind.
