We all know that positive language provides better results than negative language, but we may be using negative language without realizing it.

As Zig Ziglar says “negative people call it an alarm clock, positive people call in an opportunity clock”. Corny? Sure, but it’s also true that your words can define your habits.

Let’s take a look into some language that you may not realize is holding you back, and how to change it…

Defining Positive and Negative Language

Negative language is pretty obvious…

• I will never have that
• I could never do that
• I will never be able to break this habit
• I will never be able to create this habit

…but it goes farther than that. Negative talk isn’t just the obvious stuff – it’s anything that is taking away from your goals due to the wording you’re using. More on that in a moment.

So what does positive language look like?

• I will be able to have that
• I can do that
• I can break this habit
• I can create this habit

That’s the obvious language, but again, it goes farther than that. Let me explain…

Your Language and Your Habits

If you’re trying to quit smoking and you say: “I will not smoke cigarettes”, you may think about that as positive language, but it’s really not. Why? Because the word cigarettes is in your statement. Every time you say what you’re going to do, you think about cigarettes, and that’s counterproductive.

So how do you make the switch to positive language? When you’re trying to break a bad habit, you need to remove that habit from your vocabulary. We don’t think in ticker-tape lines of information, we think in visual images. So every time you say “I will not smoke”, you’re mind starts thinking about smoking. If you say: “I will stop looking at pornography”, guess what your mind is thinking about?

As I’ve said before, and I know from personal experience, it’s best to replace habits instead of simply breaking them. This carries over into your language.

Here are some practical examples…

Templates to Follow

Here are some of the most common habits that people want to ditch or control, and here is some effective word-replacement to get you started:

• Smoking – Instead of “I am quitting smoking”, try “I will only breathe fresh, pure air”.
• Pornography – Instead of “I will not look at pornography”, try “I will only look upon productive and good things”.
• Poor Diet – Instead of “I will not eat junk food”, try “I will only put healthy food in my body”.
• Alcohol – Instead of “I will drink less alcohol”, try “I will drink more water”.

Stop using negative language and start using positive language.

Here’s to replacing bad habits and bad language.

You’ve always put cream and sugar in your coffee, but today is different.

You went to put that second spoonful of sugar, and you stopped halfway through.

You only put one and a half today. You’re not sure why, and you’re not sure if it matters. It does.

It matters more than you would ever know. That half of a spoonful could change your life, if you let it.

Small Choices

Habits are built by small choices. Small choices, practiced daily, turn into huge choices over time.

When it’s a negative habit, we just brush it off as a bad habit that doesn’t matter much, although we know what it will do to us over time. When it’s a positive habit, we call it self discipline. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

How do you start a new habit? With a small decision to change. A small decision that turns into a large result.

You decide you want to be a runner, so you run around the block. You want to be a daily reader, so today you read one page. You want to start a new writing habit, so today you write 100 words, or just ten words. You start small, knowing it’s going to snowball into a life-changing habit.

So yes, small choices matter. But they don’t just matter, they’re everything. And it’s important to remember that.

When you’re running and you decide to run to one more mailbox, after you planned on stopping, that decision matters. You just made a huge step towards becoming a successful runner, if you continue on that path. How many mailboxes would you run to over the course of a month, if you were constantly “just doing one more?”

It matters. It all matters. More than you know, or at least, more than you used to know. But honestly, you know each one of those decisions matter. That’s why it bothers you when you planned on doing 10 reps and you only do nine. You know how it will compound. If you do nine today, it will be much easier mentally to do eight tomorrow. It’s a downward spiral that happens faster than we think. Every time.

Bad Small Choices, Good Small Choices

Don’t fall for the “I might as well go all out mindset.”

You know what I mean. You’re on a diet, and it’s going great. Until one day, you meet a friend at a Chinese buffet. You think:

“I’m going to cheat, so I might as well go all out. I’ll have a Coke. And…I’ll pack out my plate with fried food, before going back for a second plate of rice and noodles. Yeah, I’ll have some soup too. And I can’t forget the desert bar.”

30 minutes later, you feel like you’re going to die.

Sometimes we need that. Sometimes we need to go all out. But the key word is “sometimes.”

You shouldn’t go all out every time you cheat on your diet. You shouldn’t do absolutely no exercise every time you miss your hour-long workout. You shouldn’t wait until tomorrow to resume your daily reading habit, even if tomorrow is Monday. Read today.

Those small choices are important.

Why Small Choices Are Everything

The British Journal of General Practice published a study on habit formation.

And it seems like every study says the same thing. Habits start small, you need a cue and you need a reward.

The Study published a tool for creating new habits. Here’s their checklist:

1. Decide on a goal that you would like to achieve for your health.
2. Choose a simple action that will get you towards your goal which you can do on a daily basis.
3. Plan when and where you will do your chosen action. Be consistent: choose a time and place that you encounter every day of the week.
4. Every time you encounter that time and place, do the action.
5. It will get easier with time, and within 10 weeks you should find you are doing it automatically without even having to think about it.
6. Congratulations, you’ve made a healthy habit!

My goal (e.g. ‘to eat more fruit and vegetables’) ______________
My plan (e.g. ‘after I have lunch at home I will have a piece of fruit’)
(When and where) _________________ I will _______________

The key phrase is “choose a simple action.” If you start too big, you fail. If you start small, it’s easier and you have nothing to lose.

This model is extremely effective. The problem is, we would rather read about how to do it, instead of just taking the first small step. I’ve been guilty of this and so have you.

It All Matters

Every choice matters in some way. And that’s good! Now you can feel good about each one.

When you go for that donut, and decide you don’t need it, you just had a small win, and you know that’s huge!

Small wins are all you need for huge success. You just have to have enough of them

Every decision you make has some sort of implication on your life. Remember that when you’re happy, and when you’re stressed. Remember that on the weekdays and the weekends. Remember that morning and night.

It makes “micro quotas” and “macro goals.” That means using small habits to create huge results.

Everything you do matters. Take the word “just” out of your vocabulary, unless you use it for good. It’s not “just” one more spoonful of sugar. It’s not “just” one more piece of pizza. It’s not “just” one day without completing your habit.

But it is “just” one more mailbox. It’s “just” one more page. It’s “just” 100 more words to write.

Flip your thinking. Stop making excuses for why you can do the bad, and start doing the good.

A habit isn’t bad or good on its own.

Positive habits are an absolute must for success in your health, finances…basically everything.

But negative habits, or bad habits, can combat your positive habits.

In fact, eliminating negative habits can be much more effective than starting new positive habits and often, it’s easier to break a bad habit than it is to stick with a new good habit.

The truth is, you need good habits in your life, but let’s break the bad ones first…

What is a Bad Habit?

This is a pretty basic question, but it’s worth asking. How do you define a bad habit?

When we first think of bad habits, the obvious things like smoking, overeating and alcoholism come to mind. I would simply put it like this: a bad habit is anything that takes away from achieving your goals without providing anything in return.

Most things are defined in your goals already. Let me explain…

I’ll use video games as an example. Like I’ve said before, playing video games with your family could contribute to a family goal to spend time together. Playing video games alone everyday doesn’t contribute to anything. Occasionally playing video games by yourself to relax however, could be perfectly fine.

Be honest with yourself. That’s the most important thing here.

You know if something is blocking you from achieving your goals. You know if something doesn’t provide benefit or value.

So once you’ve defined the habit, how do you break it?

Don’t Just Break It, Replace It

It’s easier to replace a habit than it is to stop a habit completely out of the blue.

Want to stop smoking? Replace your smoke breaks with 10 minute walks.

Want to stop watching so much TV? Replace your tube time with reading.

Create the new habits of walking and reading as you stop the old habits of smoking and watching too much TV.

The important thing to remember before starting this process is that you must have the motivation or it won’t happen.

What’s Your Motivation?

You need to really find some motivation to quit. Think of all the reasons you should break the habit and try to use them as motivation. If one reason doesn’t do it for you, use another.

Let’s go back to smoking, since it makes an easy example…

You may want to quit smoking because the second hand smoke harms your family, whether directly or on your clothes.

Don’t have a family? Think about the fact that you likely spend over $2,000/year on cigarettes if you smoke a pack a day.

Money not an issue? Think about the fact that you may spend over 1,000 hours each year smoking. What else could you do with that time?

If you’re a smoker, you’ve heard about lung cancer so much that you’re likely numb to that reason.  So find a different one.

Keep going down the list until you find motivation that works for you.

Remember, anything is better than nothing in a situation like this.  For example, you could try an alternative to smoking, such as vaping.  The addiction is still there, but it’s a step in the right direction, and you’re avoiding many of the negative effects of smoking, such as secondhand smoke and smelling like a smoker.

Your Environment Determines Your Success

Vietnam was a tough place for a lot of reasons in the 1970s, but one of the little-known issues with American soldiers was heroin addictions. Upon the return of our troops, it was discovered that 2/5 of the returning soldiers had tried heroin in Vietnam and 1/5 of them were addicted to it.

Typically, with heroin addicts, there is a 90% re-addiction rate. With these returning soldiers, there was only a 5% re-addiction rate. So what was the difference between these soldiers and other heroin addicts?

Environment.

Most of the heroin addicts that typically come into clinics are coming from a “drug lifestyle”. Once they break their addiction at the clinic, they head back to their old house, with their old friends and they get right into their old habits.

If you’re trying to quit smoking, stay away from the smoke pit. Don’t go out to the smoky bars with your smoker friends. If you’re trying to create a healthier lifestyle, stay away from the office with the candy bowl. Remove the junk from your cabinets.

Break a Bad Habit in 4 Steps

1. Define the habit.
2. Find a replacement.
3. Find your motivation.
4. Change your environment.

That’s it. It’s all about self-discipline from here, but these steps will make it as easy as possible. Once you’ve laid out your plan for breaking the habit with the above steps, it really doesn’t stand a chance.  You’ve got this.

There aren’t many of us who don’t have some bad habit we’d like to quit: smoking, sweets, shopping, nail-biting, porn, excessive checking of phones or social media, other distractions …

The problem is that we think we don’t have the willpower, faced with past evidence of failure after failure when we’ve tried to quit before.

We don’t think we can quit, so we don’t even try. Or if we do try, we give ourselves an “out,” and don’t fully commit ourselves.

Let me tell you this: quitting a bad habit takes everything you’ve got.

It’s hard, but doable — if you put your entire being into it.

But if you’re ready to finally quit something, here’s a short guide to doing just that.

10-Steps — Just as Good as the 12-Step Folk

You don’t actually need to follow every single one of these steps to quit a habit, but the more of them you do, the higher your chances. I recommend all of them if you want to be all in.

1. Have a big motivation. Lots of times people quit things because it sounds nice: “It would be nice to quit caffeine.” But that’s a weak motivation. What you really want is strong motivation: I quit smoking because I knew it was killing me, and I knew my kids would smoke as adults if I didn’t quit. Know your Why, and connect with it throughout your quit. Write it down at the top of a document called your “Quit Plan.”
2. Make a big commitment. Now that you know your motivation, be fully committed. A common mistake is say, “I’ll do this today,” but then letting yourself off the hook when the urges get strong. Instead, tell everyone about it. Ask for their help. Give them regular updates and be accountable. Have a support partner you can call on when you need help. Ask people not to let you off the hook. Be all in.
3. Be aware of your triggers. What events trigger your bad habit? The habit doesn’t just happen, but is triggered by something else: you smoke when other people smoke, or you shop when you’re stressed out, or you eat junk food when you’re bored, or you watch porn when you’re lonely, or you check your social media when you feel the need to fill space in your day. Watch yourself for a few days and notice what triggers your habit, make a list of triggers on your Quit Plan, and then develop an awareness of when those triggers happen.
4. Know what need the habit is meeting. We have bad habits for a reason — they meet some kind of need. For every trigger you wrote down, look at what need the habit might be meeting in that case. The habit might be helping you cope with stress. For some of the other triggers, it might help you to socialize, or cope with sadness, boredom, loneliness, feeling bad about yourself, being sick, dealing with a crisis, needing a break or treat or comfort. Write these needs down on your Quit Plan, and think of other ways you might cope with them.
5. Have a replacement habit for each trigger. So what will you do when you face the trigger of stress? You can’t just not do your old bad habit — it will leave an unfilled need, a hole that you will fill with your old bad habit if you don’t meet the need somehow. So have a good habit to do when you get stressed, or when someone gets angry at you, etc. Make a list of all your triggers on your Quit Plan, with a new habit for each one (one new, good habit can serve multiple triggers if you like).
6. Watch the urges, and delay. You will get urges to do your bad habit, when the triggers happen. These urges are dangerous if you just act on them without thinking. Learn to recognize them as they happen, and just sit there watch the urge rise and get stronger, and then and fall. Delay yourself, if you really want to act on the urge. Breathe. Drink some water. Call someone for help. Go for a walk. Get out of the situation. The urge will go away, if you just delay.
7. Do the new habit each time the trigger happens. This will take a lot of conscious effort — be very aware of when the trigger happens, and very aware of doing the new habit instead of the old automatic one. If you mess up, forgive yourself, but you need to be very conscious of being consistent here, so the new habit will start to become automatic. This is one reason it’s difficult to start with bad habits — if there are multiple triggers that happen randomly throughout the day, it means you need to be conscious of your habit change all day, every day, for weeks or more.
8. Be aware of your thinking. We justify bad habits with thinking. You have to watch your thoughts and realize when you’re making excuses for doing your old bad habit, or when you start feeling like giving up instead of sticking to your change. Don’t believe your rationalizations.
9. Quit gradually. Until recently, I was a fan of the Quit Cold Turkey philosophy, but I now believe you can quit gradually. That means cut back from 20 cigarettes to 15, then 10, then 5, then zero. If you do this a week at a time, it won’t seem so difficult, and you might have a better chance of succeeding.
10. Learn from mistakes. We all mess up sometimes — if you do, be forgiving, and don’t let one mistake derail you. See what happened, accept it, figure out a better plan for next time. Write this on your Quit Plan. Your plan will get better and better as you continually improve it. In this way, mistakes are helping you improve the method.

I’m not saying this is an easy method, but many people have failed because they ignored the ideas here. Don’t be one of them. Put yourself all into this effort, find your motivation, and replace your habit with a better habit for each trigger. You got this.