Breaking Bad Habits

What are habits?

“Social psychologists use the term ‘habit’ to refer to a phenomenon whereby behaviour persists because it has become an automatic response to particular, regularly encountered, contexts that is acquired through associative learning.” (Source)

We naturally form many habits on a regular occurrence – be it how we organise our life; how we look after ourselves, how we connect with others, and so on. There are numerous healthy daily behaviours that are routine and habitual that help us live our lives efficiently and can give us comfort due to their familiarity.

What makes a habit or behaviour “bad”?

We can think of bad habits as behavioural patterns that are generally unhealthy or unsustainable in the long-run when trying to respond to challenges in life.

A bad habit can sometimes be hard to identify in ourselves, because when they originally formed, they may have been a coping mechanism that had a powerful, purposeful impact on how we handled stressful or challenging situations. In fact, we may feel they still help to deal with some of our present concerns, which makes it even more difficult to identify it as “bad”, or to feel motivated or able to change it.

Common examples of unhealthy or unsustainable habits can include:

defensive/aggressive (reactive) communication styles
impulsive/compulsive spending
gambling
excessive alcohol consumption
compulsive behaviours
self-injury
porn/sex addiction
emotional eating
smoking/vaping
illicit drug use

If it’s not broken, why fix it?

Although it may be true that the bad habit may still have some use in managing life, there are healthier, more sustainable and more effective coping methods that aren’t accompanied by the same consequences.

What can we do?

Habits can be changed. Acknowledging we have a bad habit we would like to work on is a massive step towards being able to change it. For many, feelings of embarrassment or shame, or fearing judgement from others can hold them back from opening up. The counselling environment provides a safe space, free of judgement, where you can explore any of these concepts constructively and empoweringly. We encourage you to contact us if you would like to explore how to break bad habits further with Lee Wong.

You can make a habit. You can break a habit.