When changing habits there’s a lot of advice on how to insert positive habits that over time will flood your life and override any unhealthy habits that you might have. But just because it’s common advice dispensed by everyone (including myself) it doesn’t mean that it’s the only way to go about changing habits.
What if you ignore what works for most people and flip it around. What if you start focusing on stopping something negative instead of starting something positive. What if you create a “to-stop-list” instead of “to-do-list”?
Analyze the tasks or habits you do throughout the day and see which ones are those that keep you from what you want. If you have a habit of eating a lot of chocolate, what sets off your eating frenzy? Is it ignited by aimlessly flicking through TV channels trying to find something to focus on? Is it stress because of how your boss treats you at work?
Look for the actions and situations that happen “behind the scenes”, those that might seem irrelevant without a deeper analysis.
These are hard questions to answer but worth having a deeper look at. If you’ve already tried a tsunami of healthy habits, none of which have made a difference, it’s possible that the answer is outside of the box that you are trying to find it in.
There’s no one things that works across all people. You might need something different.