Personal Development | Changing Bad Habits

December 26th, 2009
Changing Bad Habits

By: Marty Marsh (see my bio) | Leave a comment
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When I was younger, I bit my fingernails.

This was a nasty habit that I desperately wanted to stop and so I did. But it took some time.

At first, I tried everything. I sat on my hands. I put bitter stuff on my nails, but soon learned to like the taste of it (I guess). I don’t remember how I quit biting my nails but I did.

But that didn’t keep my fingers out of my mouth. I’ve spent the last 40 years chewing everything on my fingers but my nails, which often resulted in painful tears in my skin.

Recently, though, I decided that I wanted to stop doing that.

And I did. Just like that. I quit it.

Which surprises the hell out of me, because I’ve never been able to stop a bad habit like this so easily.

So, I wonder what was different? Maybe it was just that I made up my mind to do so. Simple as that.
Today, in my wanderings around my favorite blogsites I came across a great post by Ivan Campuzano titled “What Time Is It?” and this paragraph jumped out at me:

If you want to change a habit, why do you say it will take some time? Observe who is saying this, why do you need 6 months to change or any time for that matter? If you look deep enough, you might see that all your conditioning from society that has shaped your self image is the one who believes you need time to change. What if you can transcend this false sense of self, and see things for what they really are, will you need time to change? The answer is no, when you are no longer in psychological bondage to your thoughts, you now have the energy to take inspired actions not dependent on your past or future. Your memory is essential for your daily life but the problem lies in when we continue to carry all the emotional baggage by becoming attached to our memories.

You might want to read the rest of his blog post here: What Time is It?

So, what are you in bondage to in your life that you’d like to change? I’d love to know how you’ve changed your own bad habits (if you have/had any.)

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 26th, 2009 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Personal Development, The SELF of Self Employment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Marty Marsh helps his fellow entrepreneurs and small business owners attract and keep more clients with creative, yet affordable, relationship-building marketing and promotional materials including newsletters, postcards, greeting cards, books, brochures and more. Marty is also author of numerous eBooks and Audio Programs, many of which are available at no charge at his website www.martyink.com, including his popular "How to Get the Word Out About Who You Are and What You Do," a seminar-in-an-ebook.