AFEH

I used to believe that changing a habit was all about will power, strength of will. That we had actually to think about breaking the habit on a more or less constant basis, kind of worry about it. But that just focuses us on the habit we’re trying to break and keeps it at the forefront of our mind, which is the last thing we want to happen.


For me now it’s all about impulse control. We get a triggering event for the habit, say to have a cigarette and instead of satisfying the impulse we just tell our self “no”. Then we let the impulse pass us by and carry on with what we are doing. When we get the impulse again in the near future (it is habitual!) we just tell our self no again and move on again. It’s this way that I broke a smoking habit of just about 50 years. It took just 8 weeks to break the habit, that was over a year ago and now I just don’t think about them at all. I never get the impulse to have one.


We can actually feel these impulses “rising” in our mind. “Hey here it comes, the impulse to say “sorry” has risen in my mind!”. It’s at this point you just tell your self no and carry on with what you were doing. It really is that easy. You just keep saying no to the impulse to say sorry and pretty soon you will find you no longer get the impulse at all.