Bad habits are among the worst enemies of living life to the fullest. Why? Because habit is something we do over and over again. While we do other kinds of mistakes occasionally, bad habit is something we do consistently over time. If even one mistake can drag your life down, you can imagine what kind of damage bad habits can do.

    To make matters worse, often we don’t realize that we have bad habits. We think that we just live our life as usual while we are actually making mistakes again and again. It’s like having leaks in our ship without realizing it.

    So breaking bad habits should be among your top priorities to get the most out of your life. If you do it right, and you are on your way to make significant improvements in your life.

    The first step to breaking the bad habits is to identify them. Only after identifying them can you decide to do something about them. Here are two tips for identifying the bad habits you might have:

    1. Compare your life with your value system

    Do you live according to your value system? Or do you deviate from it here and there? Your value system acts like a compass that guides your life. When you do things that are not according to your life compass, you know that you have a problem. So look for things you consistently do that deviate from your value system. Those are your bad habits.

    2. Compare your life with a role model

    Sometimes it’s easier to compare your life with someone else’s life than to compare it with an abstract value system. So find people whose life you want to emulate and find the details of how they live their life. Is there anything they don’t do that you consistently do? For instance, perhaps they are never late. You, on the other hand, are perpetually late. That’s a bad habit you should stop.

    The next step after identifying the bad habits is to break them. I’m glad I found some good tips for it in the book Become a Better You by Joel Osteen. While the book is based on Christian principles, many lessons in it are universally applicable including its suggestions on breaking bad habits. Here are four tips to stop bad habits based on the book:

    1. Quit feeding the bad habit

    There are two “wolves” inside us that fight each other. One wolf represents good habits while the other represents bad habits. Which wolf will win the fight? The answer is the one you feed. So breaking bad habit is actually simple: just stop feeding it. Leave the bad habit starve and you are on your way to get it away from your life.

    2. Replace it with a good habit

    Quit feeding the bad habit is essential but it’s not enough. You must also replace it with a good habit. Otherwise there is an empty space in your life where the bad habit could go back to anytime.

    So develop a good habit to replace the bad habit. For instance, if you have the habit of thinking negative thoughts, you should replace it with the habit of thinking positive thoughts. Whenever negative thoughts come, use it as a trigger to start thinking positive thoughts. Or if you have the habit of eating unhealthy food, you can start developing the habit of eating healthy food. Just don’t leave the space empty.

    3. Press past the initial pain and discomfort

    When breaking a bad habit, the beginning of the process is the most difficult. Just like getting a space shuttle lifted off the Earth takes enormous amount of power, it also takes enormous amount of willpower to break a bad habit. And just like moving a space shuttle that has escaped the Earth’s gravitational pull takes little energy, it also takes only little amount of willpower to continue doing your new habit.

    The initial phase is the most difficult, but it will become easier and easier over time. So whenever you think that it’s too difficult to stay on course, just remember that it won’t be so for long. You just have to keep moving forward.

    4. Make “no exceptions” policy

    Once you decide to break a bad habit, stick with your decision. Make no exceptions to come back to it for whatever reason. I know it’s not easy (at least for me), but this step is essential if you want the process to get easier over time. Making exceptions is like taking a space shuttle back to Earth; you need another enormous amount of power to lift it off again. So be careful not to make exceptions when you are dealing with bad habits.

    These four tips are simple but powerful. Using the feeding analogy, the tips to break a bad habit boil down to this:

    Quit feeding the bad habit. Feed a good one instead.

    What do you think?

    壞習慣是阻礙生活變得充實完美的最大殺手。為什么呢？因為習慣是一件我們不斷重復的事情。一些錯誤我們偶爾會犯，然而我們的壞習慣是不間斷的。即使是一個錯誤都可以拖累你的生活，你可以想象一下壞習慣能帶來多大的危害。

    更糟糕的是。我們通常不會意識到我們的壞習慣。我們認為我們只不過和平常一樣地生活，然而我們的的確確，一次又一次地在犯錯。這就好像我們沒有意識到我們的船有漏洞一樣。

    因此改變你的壞習慣必須成為你生活的重中之重。一旦你糾正了壞習慣，那么你就為改善你的生活走出了極其重要的一步。

    改掉壞習慣的第一步是發現它們。只有意識到壞習慣，你才能針對它們有所行動。以下兩個小竅門就是教你如何發現你可能有的壞習慣。

    對比一下你的生活和你的價值觀

    你是否按照你的價值觀來生活呢？又或者你的生活方式常常與價值觀有所出入？你的價值觀其作用如同導航你生活的羅盤。當你的行動與你生活的羅盤方向不同時，你可以知道你出了點問題。因此尋找一下那些與你價值觀不符卻又常常發生的行為。那些就是你的壞習慣。

    對比一下你的生活和模范的生活

    比起拿你的生活和抽象的價值觀對比，有時候和其他人的生活作比較更容易。因此找一下你理想生活的典范，并分析他們生活的細節。看看有什么事是你常干他們卻不做的。比如，也許他們從來不遲到。而你，正相反，一直會遲到。那就是你必須改正的壞習慣。意識到壞習慣后，

    第二步就是改掉它們。很開心我在Joel Osteen的《完善自我》一書中找到了幾個對付壞習慣的方法。這本書基于基督教的教義，其中許多是經驗教訓示廣為適用，包括如何改變壞習慣的建議。基于這本書，以下給出四則貼士，教你如何改掉壞習慣。

    1.停止“飼養”壞習慣

    我們體內有兩匹“狼”，它們爭斗不休。一匹狼代表了好習慣而另外一匹代表壞習慣。哪匹狼會在爭斗中勝出呢？答案由你決定。所以停止壞習慣其實很簡單：只要停止“飼養”壞習慣。讓壞習慣自生自滅，這樣你就可以讓它從你的生活里出局。

    2.用好習慣替代壞習慣

    不再養成壞習慣很重要但這樣還不夠。你必須用好習慣來替代壞習慣。否則你的生活中會多出一個空檔，壞習慣隨時又會回到那里。

    因此要養成一個好習慣來替代壞習慣。比如，如果你有思考事情消極面的習慣，你必須通過思考事情積極面的習慣來替代。每當消極的思想出現時，就以此為契機開始思考積極的事情。又或者你有吃垃圾食品的習慣，那么你就要開始養成吃健康食品德習慣。千萬不要留出任何空檔。

    3.堅持度過最初的痛苦和不適

    但你要糾正一個壞習慣，最初的過程是最難的。就像太空飛船離開地球時需要巨大的推動力，改正壞習慣也需要強大的意志力。就像太空飛船一旦脫離了地球的引力，移動起來只需要花一點點的能量，繼續養成好習慣也只需要不多的毅力。

    最初的階段是最難的，但隨著時間的推移將變得越來越容易。所以一旦你覺得繼續改變太難的話，只要想想這樣的階段不會太久的。而你只有繼續前進才行。

    4.立下“沒有例外”的規矩

    一旦你決心要改變壞習慣，就要堅持你的決定。不論有什么理由都不能例外。我知道這不是件容易的事情（至少對我而言），但這個步驟很關鍵，如果你希望隨著時間的推移能讓這個過程變得容易的話。搞特殊情況就如同把太空飛船拉回地面；你需要又一次花同樣大的精力讓它再度升空。因此在對付壞習慣時千萬小心，不要有所例外。

    這四則貼士說來容易但卻十分有效。通過“飼養”壞習慣這個類比，糾正壞習慣的這些貼士可歸結為：

    停止“飼養”壞習慣，相反培養一個好習慣。

    你認為怎么樣呢？