Breaking Bad Habits?

Breaking Bad Habits?  If psychologists will hear that question, they get stomped with this challenge, CAN WE RETRAIN OUR BRAIN?  And they have a ready answer that YES WE CAN RETRAIN IT.  BUT as the cliche goes, if you need to shy away OR put away something, there has to be a literal replacement.  Imagine if you're a chain smoker and you'll attempt to stop smoking.  Likely THAT will be doomed to fail unless smoking gets replaced with another sensible 'replacement', right???

I've read this shared narrative before.  Mike wrote a list that showed:  Make a healthy snack, go to the gym, DON'T waste time on the mobile phone, read a classic novel and housetrain his dog.  24 hours later, Mike munched celery sticks while reading his fav classic novel.  His legs were sore after an hour at the treadmill while his dog was waiting outside.  Is this believable?  Factually, Mike was on the couch, one hand in the bag of chips, the other on his mobile phone. The unopened gym bag and copy of the classic novel were on the floor💥💥💥

Indeed that's more plausible, right?  YES we all agree that HABITS DON'T change overnight, NOT for the simple doggies and NOT for the big-brained human beings.  BUT research shows that even the pet dog can learn that he should go potty outside instead on top Mike's gym bag BUT YES, we can REWIRE our brain to change our HABITS.  We humans just need a subtler approach than just a few treats, agree???

SO HOW?  So many studies have covered this so let's piggy-back on them instead.  

• Identify CUES - Something has to trigger a habit!
• DISRUPT - With cues, throw BAD HABITS off track!
• REPLACE - YES, BAD HABITS must be replaced
• KEEP IT SIMPLE - Simply new behaviors to adopt
• Think LONG-TERM - That CHANGE is not overnight
• PERSIST - As established HABITs are hard to break, keep at it, and it's been proven that over time, persistence works although it's painful at the start

Our takeaway:  While it's NO surprise to me to keep hearing zillion attempts to break a BAD HABIT, WHAT befuddles me is that most of the people involved seem to just shrug off their shoulder WHEN their attempt to change flops.  AS IF it's a no-brainer but the thing here is that UNLESS and UNTIL a person is personally committed to BREAK those BAD HABITS, rest assured that those BAD HABITS will continue to stick it out to them [probably throughout their lifetime] like a leech.  BREAKING BAD HABITS?  Just do it dude😄😄😄