It's no new thing that we are here again in a new year. 2022 came with it's own difficulties in terms of habits most especially on how to quit procrastination, late night sleeping and other form of addictions which are not good mentally and otherwise. Here comes 2023,and how do you think you can overcome this obstacles for your growth?

The one way is through "Quitting certain habits".

However,it is one thing to know you should quit an habit and it is also another to know how to quit an habit.

Let's start with the basic introduction of what an habit is before moving to the understanding on how habits

What is an Habit?

According to the Oxford dictionary,

An habit is a thing you often do without thinking, especially something that is hard to stop doing.

Understanding how habits are formed

Most of the natural things we do such as sleeping,eating when hungry, dancing when listening to music are all habits. Most of our habits are naturally involuntary and can likewise be caused voluntarily like betting, masturbation, chewing of nails, unnecessary late night chatting e.t.c

For the natural habits, this is quite understood as it is compulsory we do them but for the unnatural habit,it has one time been forced and our brain registers this action due to dopamine reward this action gives.
For instance:

After about 4-5years of not having any electronic gadget James finally got one. Due to the long anticipation on what it feels like to have an electronic gadget hearing enough talk about it from his friends he now remains glued to his phone.

Every morning,after morning prayers James binges on his phone and this continues for twenty-one (21) days. At some point in time James unknowingly forms the habit.

Throughout the twenty-one(21) days, he send a signal to his brain that every moment after prayers his phone is the next point. Then his brain draws the same line and follows that sequence. This is the archetype on how habits can be formed. By constantly sending signals to the brain.

The brain adapts this method without permission. The brain is not aware on the right thing to do. It works based on information due to signals.

This is the same way our various unnatural habits are formed. Also,the same as being a student,you aim for being a first class student. In order for you to inculcate a reading culture. The one thing you do is to send signals to your brain by ACTION.

You constantly set an alarm every 2AM in the morning to read. The brain gets use to that time duration and adapts to it. Which is one of the reasons why without alarms after such practice you can still wake up to do your reading.

How to replace an habit

Understanding how an habit is formed is not enough to break unnecessary/bad habits. There is more to understand how to break an habit. But the most sad fact to accept is that old habits cannot be changed. The brain can draw enough number of lines due to the sequence of action which we take from a single point of action.

An example of a sequence of action is;

Sleeping-then eating-binging on a television favorite series(after eating)-then back to sleeping again.

This is how your brain registers it. So once you decide to change it,it draws a different line from sleeping. Let's say from sleeping you then decide to cook and now a new sequence is formed;

Sleeping- then to cook - going back to sleep again. This can still go back to

Sleeping - eating - binging to television series.

It can return back to the old ways since the first point of the signal transmission is sleeping and if you are to adapt to the old way it would need time and consciousness.

However,the consciousness of an habit cannot be noticed without detriments but most times it is noticed but how do you stop it. Habits are changed gradually with the "trial and error" strategy untill it is replaced completely.

The cues to look out for in order to break a particular habits are

• Time
• Environmental factor
• What you did before
• Your present location

TIME:
An action most especially an addiction is caused primarily on the time factor. Taking an example from James earlier as spoken about. "Every morning after prayers"—. That stands to show the hour of the day and the time which he begun getting use to his phone and forming the habits.

This is the use case and it applies for every single form of habits. You are having a hard time with social media then you need to look out for the time is possible the hour which you usually log in to your social media accounts. Same as sleeping when you know you shouldn't your check out the time which you used for unnecessary things instead of sleeping to adjust so it can favour your reading duration.

This is the key factor to noticing when an habit starts and it's simply the best medium to attack before it causes a chain of destruction towards your daily plans

The next thing to watch out for is;

Environmental Factor:

Are you always alone whenever yo u have dirty thoughts on your mind? Or are you drained by the deeds of people around you that you have to indulge yourself and thereby trapping yourself in an unhealthy habits?

These are the things to watch out for. In the use case of masturbation and pornography,the absence of people or being in a solitary position triggers the brain to take that sequence of action then moving on to different other things.

When once you are able to detect that solitude is the very cause of any form of habit then a total need to flee from being alone is needed. It is not a matter of knowing you should flee but a need to flee.

The third pertinent factor to look out for is:

What you did before that particular cause of action:

As earlier said,to escape from the oblivion of any bad habit total consciousness is demanded in order to replace the habit.

For habits like chewing your nails,it can be most said that one of the causes of this particular habit can be listening to a boring tv show.

You are in a hall of elders giving a speech and it might be less interesting to lay attention as the time spent in listening increases your attention span tends to reduce and you end up chewing the nails. This should be noted and scribbled down.

The process of changing an habit needs to be essentially tracked in order to understand the factor causing you to remain under a particular habit.

Lastly, another factor is

Your present location:
This matters most in the use case on building an educational habit.
Where were you when you slept off while, reading? Was it in the bedroom or sitting room?

These are the type of questions one needs to ask his/herself in the process of changing a new habit. Your position matters. If you were in the bedroom were you sitting or lying on the bed?

Once all of this is pointed out an habit can successfully be replaced.

But the dopamine space is still left empty. You need to fill it. The dopamine reward is that nice feeling you have after doing a certain habit. Now here is a new habit you are trying to adapt to. You need to give yourself a reward whenever you take this new habits and you act it out successfully.

It can be buying yourself biscuits,a cool evening walk or anything you know you enjoy so much.

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