Going in to the new week marks my 20th week in breaking yet another bad habit. I’m becoming a bona fide professional bad-habit breaker. It doesn’t matter which one I’m wrestling with at the moment, the process, I’m discovering, is pretty much the same.
Right now, I am in the
‘cautiously optimistic’ phase. I do believe, if I continue doing the positive things I have been doing, I will be successful in keeping this habit at bay and eventually putting it completely behind me.
A couple of my friends who have been patient in walking with me on this latest journey have asked me if I feel like I have “it” licked. I told them that I’ve learned this is a precarious time in habit-breaking, for me. If I’m not diligent and careful, it’d be easy to give in to over-confidence. Ah, Cockiness!!! Where all great lapses begin.
I quit nicotine 8 ½ years ago after an addiction that ran more than twenty years. (Yes, I know what you’re thinking, go ahead, you’re right, I was a kindergarten chain smoker). I quit cold turkey. For me, abstinence is the only way, I never could taper off my demons.
I made each day without smoking count, and I counted each day. Sometimes, I counted each hour. Quitting tobacco was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Ever. By comparison, this habit I’m foregoing is child’s play. But the really great thing about conquering one bad habit is we program our subconscious mind that we can, in fact, do it. We’re brave enough, strong enough, convicted enough, down right tough enough to do it again.
So that’s my encouragement for you today. If you aren’t ready to wrestle with your “big, bad habit”, pick a small one. Conquer it. Show your subconscious you’re the boss!
If you can do it once, you can do it again. Trust me. I know of what I speak.
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Have a great week!!
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