Why do you think it's hard to break bad habits and develop good ones?

Question

Have you noticed that bad habits are hard to break? Like smoking, eating fast food all the time, and cursing. All of these are bad habits. Exercising, eating right, and saving money are good habits that some people can be consistent with for a while and then discontinue. Do you think it's the way we define a "good habit" versus a "bad habit"? I like to define a bad habit as behavior that will yield a negative or horrendous result, like cancer and/or death. What's your perspective on this?

Answer 1

We are learning beings.  We automatically learn, and when we repeat the doing of something it can easily become a habit. Just like we can gain fat and keep it, easier than get ride of it, because our bodies want to store emergency energy in case we need it.

Here are some good books on breaking bad habits:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url...

Answer 2

If it takes 7 days to break a habit and a few days to make one, Do the math on which ones that you can change in doing.

However unless you have ever had a bad habit then you have no clue what its like to break one, it take allot of will power, its not easy and the person has to want to change. Operative word here WANT.  

Answer 3

"Habits" is another word for "doing things I've got used to doing that way." Behind our behaviors are two important things:

1. Behaviors are best explained in terms of future goals we seek, rather than past "causes" that "make" us act as we do.

2. Change is a threat to the Self, the core personality. Sure, you can change some things, so long as they are small and don't result in a REAL change to who you are. But if you try bigger changes, your Mind will rebel and say "Nope! Changes like that would make you an entirely different person, so no dice...it's not gonna happen." (Or words to that effect.)

Good habits or bad, you've gotten used to them, and it's easier to keep them than to change them or delete them. In therapy this is called "resistance," when the mind digs in and gets real stubborn about the client making real changes.

-- Dr. Bob, Adlerian Psychologist

Answer 4

If you think about it, it's just as hard to break good habits as bad ones.....or wait.... maybe it's not. Maybe bad habits are just more fun and good habits are boring and icky like the difference between a slice of cheesecake and a wheat cracker.

My perspective is bad habits have immediate gratification. Good habits require a level of commitment to and belief in the future that lets you think delayed gratification is better than immediate gratification.

Answer 5

I know people who are addicted to the good habits you mentioned...eating right, excercising, saving. Was it Shakespear that said, "There is nothing good or bad, thinking makes it so?" Anyways, I think the key to all habits is moderation...otherwise regardless of whether they are considered good habits or bad, they become addictions. So I'd define a bad behaviour as anything done excessively.