How does some one break old habbits, and start new ones?

Cultivate half-habits. When a class ends, if you have open time, go to a place with a table, and spend a half hour organizing your notes from the class you just attended.

Have a friend join you and make a date out of it. What gets me to the gym is know that my buddy is counting on me to be there. We have certain days and times that we go together. Knowing that I promised her I’d be there makes it harder for me to skip going.

When I was in school, I organized study groups once a week. Once again, knowing I had people counting on me to be there, made me show up as well.

One-month free trial. Don’t say “I am going to go to the gym every day for the rest of my life.” Say, “For 30 days, I am going to get up in the morning an hour earlier and go to the gym.” Or, “For the next three weeks, I am going to spend 15 minutes a day reviewing my notes for my classes.”

This was one of the ways I managed during graduate school. Some days were not productive writing days, while others were very good writing days. But they all felt like bad days before I was about 10 minutes into the writing. So I committed to write for 15 minutes every day, and once I had put those 15 minutes in, I was free to quit. What happened was that on bad writing days, the 15 minutes was enough to show clearly that it was a bad writing day, while on good writing days, the 15 minutes was enough to get into it and I’d spend a couple hours writing.

I’ve read many times it takes 30 days to make a habit and just three to break it. And it’s held true for me almost all the time. Don’t give yourself excuses. Make deals, when you feel like you should be on fluther, read your textbook for half an hour then get on fluther. Delay things you want to do as rewards for accomplishments. Watch tv all afternoon, AFTER you’ve run five miles. And so on. Problem solved. :)

My father in law had a theory he learned a million years ago when he went to Berkley. As a freshman he saw a group of guys he looked up to who managed to get straight A’s and party like crazy every weekend. He finally asked one of them his secret.

The answer? he said “When I go to school, I go in at 8:00. It doesn’t matter if I have class or not, I f I don’t have class I will go to the library and study. I won’t leave campus until 5:00. During all the hours that I am not in class I am doing homework or studying. When the weekend gets here the time is mine and I don’t have to stress that I didn’t get any work done.
My father in law adopted this habit and got straight A’s himself for the rest of his college career.

Set very, very small goals but pursue those strongly. Don’t make things big like – “I’m going to do X now everyday for three months” – take it day by day. E.g. “Today I’m going to eat breakfast and then I’m going to study”. Set small goals for every single day instead of thinking big. If you do the small things right, the big things will come naturally.

If you have a big task, break it up into very small tasks, so the big task doesn’t get overwhelming. Instead of “Got to write this 150+ pages paper. OH NOOO”, set yourself a little 2 page goal and REALLY do it. Then go on to the next 2 page goal. After some time reward yourself.

Start new bad habits ? Hmmmmm ?

First of all, I’m not sure it’s very nice to break old hobbits, and start new ones. Also, it’s not very practical. You need old hobbits to create new ones. So maybe you better start with the creation of new hobbits, and they you can break the old ones.

Now, as to breaking hobbits, it’s not all that good to imprison them in an underground cell, because they like it underground. Nope. You best bet is to give them a magical ring that gradually sucks their souls out, but even that is not guaranteed to work. Anyway, it’s not nice, so I wouldn’t do it.

I think you should really start a few new hobbits….

What?

Really?

Oh my god! You mean habits? What a dork I am!

lol thanks guys for the advice. I’ll probably try a little bit of all your advice and hopefully I can get into habits that set me up for success rather than painful letdowns and failure. Though I probably won’t rely on my friends much to build new habits, they are as bad as I am at it lol.

Force yourself to do it every day, then eventually it becomes routine and you’ll feel weird not doing it.

As for breaking old habits, for me personally, it took going cold turkey. I’d tried quitting before, but wasn’t successful because I didn’t really want to quit. So make sure you really want to get rid of those old habits too.

30 days. It takes 30 days to get into a new habit.

@daloon GET AWAY FROM MY HOBBITS!!!!

@Dutchess12 Why? I was rather enjoying them. We were going Ent hunting.

@daloon I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to turn my Hobbits into Hubbits!! I can’t let that happen!!

First hubbit, then habit? As long as we don’t get stuck in hibitions.

I HAVE no hibitions! Wait…I just checked with my husband. Yes I do have hibitions….well, shoot!

I can’t say as I blame you, but I’m wondering—do those hibitions extend to hobbits?

Well, I hate to admit it but…no. My hobbits have no hibitions. They are hors hobbits. :(

BTW….I JUST HAVE TO ASK!!!....what is your avatar a picture of?

It’s a map of the world.

Very difficult to break old ones and I believe very easy to start new ones!

@RubyReds ; easy to start new BAD habits. I wish it were easier to start new GOOD habits!!