Have you ever "trained" or "reprogrammed" yourself to stop saying or doing a certain thing that you habitually do/say?

Get a rubber band. Put it around your wrist. Snap yourself with it every time you catch yourself doing the Bad Thing.

I got into the bad habit once of saying ” Ya know..” a LOT!
Had to stop it. It takes self awareness and a lot of attention, ya know? lol

Au contraire. I have trained myself to avoid and shun contractions when writing on Fluther.

I discovered that saying “should” was a very counter productive and un-empowering thing to say. If I said, “I should” do this, I was avoiding it (because I never did it, I just always talked about it). And when I told someone else they “should” do something else, I was being manipulative.

Neither one is a healthy way to behave, and the more I thought about it, the more I hated the phrase. Now I never ever say “should” unless it’s to say to someone, “Didn’t your momma tell you not to should on yourself?”

Now I seek to inspire myself and others to do things rather than avoid or manipulate.

I went through this phase where I always said like.

I think it was in front of every word.

I like started to like sound like a valley girl.

Then it got worse before it got better and I started to add, “Like, OH MY GOD!!!!” to any of the other sentences.

I actually had to realize that it was annoying, not just to myself but to others and then I started to break the habit.

I don’t really remember how I did it but I am no longer a valley girl, it had to be similar to when I was a smoker I just quit cold turkey, and then I bought the most disgusting cigarette on the market and forced myself into a form of withdrawals and about a week later I came out smoke free and I have been for over 4 years now and I will never go back, I smoked for basically half of my life.

^ @snowberry good job! :)

I was a serious, lifelong chocoholic. I loved the stuff and could never get enough of it.

In 2004, I swore that I’d give up chocolate forever—never have another bite—if the Red Sox were to win the World Series. They did, and I did. I haven’t eaten chocolate since the autumn of 2004.

Several times I have picked up sayings, said them so often it was annoying, and then finally moved on and let the saying basically drop from my vocabulary. It helps to not hang out around other people who say it. Also, just being aware and making a real effort to use other words helps. Think up alternatives and use them.

As far as doing things differently, I gave up caffeine, which came in the way of coca cola. It sucked and I still miss it at times. I cheat once in a blue moon.

I want to eat better more consistently. I really should apply the same method as I did to give up caffeine, which was basically a cold turkey method. My grandma in her 40’s lost 20 pounds and never gained them back. She said saifdcertain foods she just decided were poison, like it could kill her on the spot, and she always left the table feeling a little hungry. Eventually, she didn’t feel hungy, it became normal to her. She said it took about three years for those portions to feel normal. It wasn’t really that she left the table hungry, just that what felt normal was feeling stuffed after a meal.

When I was 20-something, I deprogrammed myself from two habits at the same time: smoking, which I had been doing for close to 10 years, and from biting my nails, which I had been doing all my life. I’ve never gone back to either.

@snowberry

Years ago when I went to a year of therapy after a traumatic divorce my therapist told me something I never forgot.
She said, ” Do not should on yourself!” lol
THAT tiny little statement made a huge impact.
Goes without saying we “shouldn’t” should on others either. ;-)

Quit smoking, three packs a day to ZERO.
Hypnosis on the second try.
Twenty-six years ago on November 11th.

@Tropical_Willie I hate you! lol
I did hypnosis, worked for a long time, but my stress has me smoking again.
I am rationalizing smoking organic cigarettes, no chemicals but….heh…smoke is smoke. Up in smoke, more that one kind if I had my way. haha

Freaking hardcore neuropathways. Bah!

Fer shure Dude!

Yes. Some grammatical, some bad habits.

I was learning how to teach a training course at work, and we were videotaped while we made a presentation. I never knew how much I said “um”, about every third word. That took conscious but not terribly difficult effort.

I have not had any alcohol or recreational drugs since April 22, 1986. And, like @Tropical_Willie, I had a two pack a day Marlboro red addiction, which I quit cold turkey on August 22, 1988.

My grandmother broke me of my Valley Girl “like” habit when I was a teenager. She said it every time I did, to make me realize how often I was using it, and it worked within days. So I guess my advice is to enlist help from a friend or SO, asking them to point it out every time you do it.