Spiritual Pointers for Quitting a Bad Habit

Bad habits aren't totally hard to break. Although they require extra work, shifting your bad habits to positive ones is still highly doable. And there's a lot of ways to get the job done.

Aside from approaching it scientifically and medically, here's how you can start quitting your bad habits in a spiritual point of view.

Make time to meditate

Meditation is about clearing your mind and zoning out completely. It can help you think deeply about your life and where you’re headed to.

Taking the time to engage yourself in deep self-reflection regularly can allow you to pinpoint actions and behaviors that you need to change before they get out of control.

Hone in on your motivation

You’re likely to have a hard time breaking a habit if you don’t really want to do it in the first place. So, before you can be successful in your goal, you must first be committed to that decision.

Take, for example, your after-work happy hour habit. If you know that it's starting to interfere with family time, you can use it as your motivation. Focus on the reward of getting home in time for dinner and tucking your kids into bed.

This way, you'll have a starting point for saying “no” the next time you’re invited to post-work cocktails.

Replace the bad with the good

Rather than focusing all your energy on eliminating your bad habits, you can take a different approach and focus on replacing them with good ones instead. This goes back to the concepts of meditation and motivation. Just think about the habits you have that make you feel good, healthy and proud of your actions.

Perhaps they’re not habits yet, but rather things you would like to become habits. When you make the effort to go for a run around the neighborhood, for instance, you'll feel a rush of ‘endorphins' that can leave you smiling for hours afterward. This positive effect can make you feel 100 percent comfortable in committing to it.

Visualize your success

After you’ve made the decision about what you need to do, why you want to do it, and how you’re going to accomplish it, you need to start visualizing your success. This can help you be more focused on your end goals.

Imagine a life where you're no longer regularly binge-drinking. Instead, you find yourself surrounded by a group of friends who have no problem finding healthy and positive ways to have fun. Imagine waking up early for yoga or cooking healthy meals for your significant other.

Constantly visualizing what you want in life can help you get through times of temptation.

Surround yourself with positive influences

We all have weak moments, which is why having a support system is so crucial. Having people who can keep you focused can make breaking away from your negative habits a lot easier.

Friends who have no intentions of changing their ways or family members who have a tendency to enable bad behaviors will only make the road more difficult for you. While you don’t need to cut ties with these people, it helps to spend more time with those who can encourage you to stay committed to your goal.

And remember, it’s a two-way street. If someone encourages you to work past your bad habits, think about how you can help them kick their own to the curb. Creating a circle of positive reinforcement can only result in greater good.