“Obsession led me to write. It’s been that way with every book I’ve ever written. I become completely consumed by a theme, by characters, by a desire to meet a challenge.” ~ Anne Rice

An obsession is consuming. It often pushes other activities into the background. It compels and fills your thoughts and impassions your soul with desire. It becomes the beat of your heart and the pulse of your being. It drives you ever forward toward its object.

And while obsessive behavior can destroy and corrupt happiness, robbing it of a sense of freedom and will and sometimes even land you in prison, certain kinds of controlled obsessions can enhance the quality of your life. I recommend the following …

1. Be Obsessed with Kindness

Are you drawn to kindness like a child to candy? Do you regularly think about how you can bless the lives of others? Do you wish you could do more?

An obsession with kindness can be seen in those who are constantly reaching out to do good. They are seen in soup kitchens, ladling soup, in food banks, boxing food and cleaning up after natural disasters.

Such people’s hearts are filled with love and compassion and charity. They care about others, even those they don’t know and have never met.

And it’s an obsession that will draw the best from you as you reach out in service to others. It is guaranteed to add meaning to life and purpose to living.

2. Be Obsessed with Excellence

No matter what you do, be the best you can be at what you’re doing within the time frame you have for doing it. If you have only 10 minutes to prepare for a presentation, for instance, then be the most focused and diligent preparer for each and every one of those 600 seconds.

Make excellence your motto and your theme song. Those obsessed with excellence can usually be found congregating at the top of their classes, at the top of corporate ladders and on the top of winner’s platforms.

They show up to practices first and are the last ones to leave. They are self-motivated and yearn to improve and add value and innovate. They also inspire others to excellence by pursuing it and exemplifying it in themselves.

They go the extra mile and do those things others aren’t willing to do. Often, it’s the small things that put them at the top. They work on their free throw longer than others. They make the phone calls no one wants to make. They follow through and plan and pay attention to the details.

3. Be Obsessed with Happiness

You only have one mortal life. It can be filled with frustration and anger, bitterness, hatred, suspicion and resentment. Or we can become obsessed with developing those characteristics happy people possess.

People obsessed with their own happiness, when pursued correctly, find themselves very unfocussed on themselves in the long run. They quickly learn that the happiest people are focused on others. They develop traits like patience, compassion and gratitude. They smile freely and laugh often.

They are obsessed with seeing the good in the bad and believing that, with a little work, things will work out in the long run even if they aren’t working out yet today.

4. Be Obsessed with Gratitude

What a wonderful obsession to have! Such people possessed with this obsession habitually see beauty and opportunity and decency and humor even in life’s most trying moments. Not only are they obsessed with expressions of gratitude, they’re obsessed with being grateful, with feeling it deep inside.

They have an incurable passion for seeing the good and interpreting life in terms of its blessings even when others only see its pain.

5. Be Obsessed with Wisdom

Those plagued by this obsession hunger and thirst for knowledge and intellectual growth. But most of all, they seek to understand the wise application of that knowledge.

Knowing is one thing. Knowing how and why and if, is another.

If being smart is your capacity to learn and knowledge is what you’ve learned, then wisdom is knowing when and where and why that knowledge should be applied in any particular way … and when it shouldn’t be.

That understanding is what is obsessed over. And so those obsessed with wisdom spend lots of time learning and thinking. They study a broad range of knowledge.

But they spend a particularly large amount of their study time with wisdom literature, reading deeply from philosophical and religious and spiritual texts.

Their libraries display books like Aristotle’s Ethics, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, the Bible and Buddha’s Dhammapada, among others.

6. Be Obsessed with Character

A wit and intellect, a great sense of humor, popularity, a great personality are not enough for those obsessed with character.

They believe character, their personal commitment to a set of moral standards, is more important than gold or power or prestige. They’re protective of it and don’t place themselves in circumstances where they may be tempted to act against it.

They are not at the mercy of their emotions. They don’t excuse bad behavior by citing bad feelings.

Such obsessives are very comfortable talking about morals and ethics and values and standards. They talk freely of courage and love, of humility, honesty and decency.

They work on being compassionate and kind. Their honor and integrity cannot be bought and are never compromised. Those so obsessed therefore tend to be deeply respected, trusted and admired. They see moral flaws of pride and selfishness as things to be overcome. Their word is their bond.

They stand for something which strengthens their sense of purpose. The beauty of those obsessed with character is that they seldom ever wince when they look deeply into a mirror, peering into the depths of their own souls. As such, they sleep peacefully, undisturbed by the pangs of conscience or guilt or shame.

7. Be Obsessed with Growth

Personal growth obsessives are uncomfortable with plateaus and stagnation. They cringe at statements like, “That’s just the way I am” or “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

They challenge themselves and look for opportunities to learn and overcome, to stretch and become something better than they were before.

They grow spiritually, mentally, emotionally, professionally, and in their relationships. They work on their character and review their days and weeks and months and years to see how they can improve next time around.

They go to seminars and check out personal growth tapes from the public library. They read and work out and eat well and push themselves outside their comfort zones with regularity.

They welcome challenge because of the growth they experience from it. And because they are so dedicated to growth in general, they never become too lopsided, dedicated to one area of growth to the utter neglect of others.

Afterthoughts

“I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance … have brought me to my ideas.” ~ Albert Einstein

Obsessions are tricky things. While those obsessed with whatever it is that drives them and defines them are those who tend to cluster at the top of any industry (sports, entertainment, business, whatever), those obsessed with what they do often struggle in other areas of their very successful lives.

Divorce, estranged children, character flaws made huge by media attention and health problems are commonplace among some of the people who have obsessed their way into the public spotlight.

There are healthy forms of obsession – a passionate form of dedication and drive – that leads to great things if you use that passion to move you steadily toward your goals instead of being controlled by those inordinate levels and kinds of obsessive qualities.

But an obsession with life, with living it well, fully, immersed in the joys of it, filled to capacity with the passion of living it, engulfed in the flow and rising tide of deep abiding happiness is an obsession that we would all do well to acquire.

Your turn:

What are your healthy obsessions? Or what targeted obsessions do you plan on developing for 2012? Please share in the comments below.

And feel free to obsessively Share and Tweet this post if it resonated with you (or you think it may with others).

Ken Wert, at MeanttobeHappy.com, is dedicated to inspiring readers to live with purpose, act with character, think with clarity and grow with courage. He believes we were all meant to be happy and can be if we but learn and apply the principles that produce it. He blogs at Meant to be Happy.

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It’s fair to say that most people reading this will want 2012 to be better than 2011. This isn’t necessarily negative nor am I talking recession, gloom and downturn. It’s simply in our nature to want to grow and develop – we’re designed to want to reach beyond our grasp and make things better.

It’s also fair to say most people don’t keep their New Year’s Resolutions to be better, do more to have more (and again this is in all areas: spiritual, material, relationships etc.)

Obviously, there are reasons for this (and drunkenly promising to love your dog more at 11.59pm is only one of them). The main reason is that on Jan 1^st 12:01am you are actually no different to what you were a few minutes ago. (You may, of course, be drunker though.) As a result, by Jan 20^th you have probably given up trying to change.

If you want to make real changes you need to sober up and listen. The following sound like self-help platitudes but are actually common sense.

• “To get different results you need to do something different.” (Anthony Robbins)

• “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again” (Ben Franklin)

These sayings last because they are true but at a certain level they are still unhelpful. If you are talking about varying market strategies for your business or learning to paint – or any number of physically or behaviorally oriented skills then yes, it’s all good.

But when it comes to changing YOU then you need a different approach.

Einstein said that “problems cannot be solved at the same level that created them.” Where it comes to humans this is more true than he knew.

Our minds are dynamic systems that build themselves through repeatedly jumping to higher levels and creating new ways of thinking using the information from lower levels. Sometimes we energize certain thoughts and they become solidified as beliefs.

These beliefs end up forming (at higher levels) the basis of your perceptions, habits and behaviors – what characterizes you (your character). Their power over your everyday thinking and actions is formidable.

Therefore beliefs, because of their driving influence in these areas, are the place to start designing your New Year’s Resolutions. In fact, they are one of the best places to examine before you make any major change. Knowing solves the problem of which area of self-help to start with.

Why? Because belief-change forms the backbone of almost any self-help course of change.

Think of it this way: in 2005 American’s read $693 million dollars worth of self-help books and by 2010 the American self-help market was worth $10.9 Billion. That’s a lot of reading, listening and learning.

Virtually all of these courses will ask you overtly or implicitly to change your beliefs in order to get new results. This is reasonable.

The problem is they don’t usually tell you how.

As a result we often try to change beliefs from a lower level of thinking – using physical effort to alter our behaviors in an attempt to be different.

Our beliefs exist above our everyday level of consciousness and this is why wishing we could change, straining to change and trying to change our behavior doesn’t often work. It’s like pulling a rubber band and expecting it to stay stretched.

What do you need to do then? You need to learn how to cut the band!

In case you were wondering: Beliefs are formed one of several ways. We gather evidence for something over a period of time and one day decide (from a higher level of thinking ABOUT the evidence) to believe it. Or, we have an experience or a flash or emotion that causes us to pay special neurological attention to a particular idea – and it becomes a belief.

Ironically, the way we do both of these processes have their origin in the simplest of English words: Yes, and No.

What happens when we develop a phobia should help to illustrate my point.

When we have a shocking experience (I knew of someone who saw a bump in someone’s neck burst open and baby spiders pour out) then our minds release a massive burst of energy marking that event with a giant neurological NO! Afterwards, we don’t have to remind ourselves to feel aversion to that kind of experience – our mind kindly freaks out every time.

Thus the mind has developed a belief that we should not go near that thing – NO!

In the same way, ecstatic experiences (yes, that one as well) give us a massive burst of pleasure energy and create a neurological YES to which we are more likely to respond in the future.

We need both kinds of beliefs.

‘No’ beliefs (shocking and less so) are necessary for us to set boundaries and help us focus on what our YES beliefs are pointed towards. If you are studying for a course it helps to be able to say YES more to study than to partying. If you want to be faithful then you have to say YES to your spouse and NO to giving in to sexual temptation. And so on.

It is the combination of the things we have said YES and NO to that make up our life. Yes, life is made up fundamentally of what we say YES and NO to. If you don’t stand for something (YES) you’ll stand for anything because you don’t have a strong sense of direction shaped by your beliefs.

The good news is that we can all change even when we feel we can’t. Whenever you mentally step back and evaluate your thinking with questions like:

• What belief would I rather hold?
• What do I need to believe in order to be different in this area?
• What beliefs do I think a successful person in this area already holds?

…then you are questioning the structure of your thinking from a position of authority. You see, unlike the apes we humans can constantly question the quality of our thinking. We can ask:

• Does it SERVE me to think this way?
• Do I like the results I am getting?
• Do I want to keep on thinking this way? If I do, what will I be doing in ten years?

The mere fact of being able to question puts us in a position to change because we are now operating at a level above the beliefs! Think of it like the boss being at the top of the office building issuing orders to plebs down below.

So, if you are willing to consider that you need to some new beliefs in order to do something different – what results do you want next year? And what will you need to believe?

William James said:

“To change one’s life:
1. Start immediately.
2. Do it flamboyantly.
3. No exceptions.”

So do you want a fast effective way to change your beliefs? To start now?

To help you get a head start I have a special offer for PicktheBrain readers. I’ve created a belief change program based on the pioneering work of P.hd L. Michael Hall. It teaches you how to generate the emotional energy for change and use your YES and NO to create and destroy beliefs in just a few minutes.

There’s a manual and 12 downloadable audio tracks which will take you through the patterns. See the main page at: www.change-my-beliefs.com and the reader offer at: www.change-my-beliefs.com/pickthebrain

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Do you struggle to eat healthy?

If you’re like most people, you probably give in to the temptation of ice cream, chips, cookies and fast food more often than you’d like.

After you give in to those temptations, you feel guilty. So you eat healthy for a few days—maybe a week, even. Then your self-control lets you down again and you finish a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s in one sitting.

The cycle repeats itself. I’m guessing that you can relate at least partially to this?

For me, my weakness is dessert. I could eat dessert at every meal, every day. Chocolates, cakes, puddings, brownies—you name the dessert and I’ll eat it.

I’ve since won my epic battle with desserts, so I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned.

The Root Cause

The root cause of our lack of discipline when it comes to food is this: We associate food with our emotional state.

Feeling happy? It’s time for delicious food. Feeling sad? It’s time for even more delicious food.

Whether it’s time to celebrate or time to grieve, we find a reason to eat. If you want to take complete control over your eating habits, you need to create some distance between your diet and your emotions.

Once you do this, eating right will no longer pose such a daunting challenge to you.

I’ve discovered the three key decisions you have to make if you want to establish this emotional separation:

1. Decide to be normal, not average.

It’s average to eat a lot of junk food, to be overweight, and to be at risk for diabetes and heart disease.

But is that normal? No!

It’s normal to eat right, to be lean, and not to have any chronic health problems.

All of us want to be normal. We just need to raise our standards of what we consider normal. Don’t let the people around you tell you what “normal” is.

“Average” is relative. “Normal” isn’t. Don’t confuse what is average with what is normal. That’s the first step to overcoming your unhealthy eating habits.

2. Decide that your diet is a mini-representation of your life.

Whenever you put food into your mouth, you’re either getting stronger and healthier, or weaker and flabbier. There’s very little middle ground.

Eat broccoli and chicken breast, and you’re becoming stronger. Eat pizza and Doritos, and you’re becoming weaker.

In a similar way, whenever you choose to spend your time in a certain way, you’re either growing as an individual or you’re regressing.

When you attend an educational seminar, you’re learning and growing. But when you spend an entire afternoon reading a trashy magazine, you’re regressing.

Once you start seeing the food you eat as a mini-representation of your life, your dietary habits take on new meaning and significance. Food isn’t just food anymore. It’s a tool you can use to grow as a person.

When you eat healthy, you’re choosing to become more disciplined and focused. You’re choosing to become a person of greater character.

Start thinking about food this way and I guarantee that you’ll find it easier to eat right.

3. Decide that you want health more than you want pleasure.

If you want to change your behavior, it boils down to desire. Which do you desire more: the long-term health benefits of eating right, or the temporary pleasure of eating junk food?

It’s more effective to focus on increasing your desire for health, rather than on decreasing your desire for pleasure.

To make eating healthy more appealing, I invite you to answer the following questions:

• Do you want to have a good quality of life, especially in old age?
• Do you want to feel more energetic?
• Do you want to lose body fat?
• Do you want to fall sick less often?
• Do you want to avoid suffering from chronic health problems?

I’m sure you answered “yes” to all of those questions.

We’re driven by our desires. Cultivate a burning desire to be healthy, and you won’t have a problem saying “no” to unhealthy food.

–

I didn’t write this post for your information. I wrote it for your action.

Will you make these three simple decisions today and take charge of your unhealthy eating habits?

Daniel Wong is passionate about helping young adults to maximize their education, career and life. He is the author of The Happy Student, which will be published by Morgan James Publishing by early 2012. You can read his blog at Living Large and find him on Twitter.

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I’ve discovered a powerful remedy for self-destructive habits that is so simple I wondered how I missed it over the years. My self-destructive habit involved eating junk food late at night, yet my discovery will work for any chronic, self-defeating behavior.

Do you do things every day that you wish you didn’t?

Most people wish they had control over certain behaviors, from addictions like smoking, drinking, gambling and junk food to emotional behaviors such as anger outbursts and yelling. Other seemingly stress related habits plague millions, such as biting fingernails, fidgeting or even shopping too much. We are creatures of habit, but sometimes our habits get the best of us, even though we understand the consequences.

Science Daily recently reported on a University of Alberta study involving lifestyle habits:

“…it was clear that they understood what types of behaviour are the riskiest, but that knowledge wasn’t enough to motivate them to change their ways,” said Dr. Cindy Jardine, an assistant professor of rural sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

“The results showed that in fact, people have a very realistic understanding of the various risks in their lives. We as risk communicators–scientists, academics, government agencies–have to get beyond the thought of ‘If they only understood the facts, they’d change.’ They do understand the facts, but we need to look at other factors we haven’t been looking at before.”

Here it is, then: we understand the danger, yet we do it anyway!

What must be true if we do daily, harmful things to ourselves? Here are my answers:

1. We just don’t care that much about ourselves, indicating low self-esteem.
2. We lose awareness in the moment.
3. We have more pressing needs that are being met though the self-destructive behavior.
4. A combination of the above.

Now for the good news

Self-observation sets in motion a process of healing that is more powerful than our self-destructive tendencies. When we observe ourselves we feel greater awareness, maturity, compassion and self-acceptance. A student in our online NLP course recently said the following:

When took a step back and observed myself in the moment, mindlessly surfing the Internet when my family was just outside my bedroom wanting to spend time with me, I felt an immediate letting go – sort of like I walked in and ruined my own little party, but it wasn’t a shameful thing. I just realized this wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. So I shut my laptop and went to play with my kids. When I saw myself clearly, I wanted to do something else.

This captures it nicely. True self-observation invites our most adult self to be at the helm, shining the light of maturity and compassionate self-awareness toward whichever aspects of ourselves we are willing to observe.

How to observe yourself.

In NLP we call self-observation, dissociation. Of course, NLP’s dissociation doesn’t resemble clinical dissociation in any way! It simply involves taking a step back and seeing yourself as a more neutral or compassionate observer might see you. Dissociation pulls us out of our stressed and distracted, self-involved states that tend to lead to bad behaviors. Then, we simply observe the moment. When we do this without attempting to coerce ourselves, miracles happen.

Try it. Here are some simple methods.

• Label what you are doing without judgment. The next time you are caught up in the moment, label what you are doing. Right now, I am doing X.

• See yourself. Imagine looking upon yourself as if from a distance. How do you appear? This works particularly well for situations that involve arguments with other people. When we see ourselves and our actions, things change.

• Ask yourself a big picture question. What’s really going on here? What do I really want right now? What am I trying to accomplish here? What does this do for me?

What if I keep doing it anyway?

What if you observe yourself and do the unwanted behavior anyway? Don’t be surprised if you do. It took me weeks of self-observation before I lost my desire to overeat late at night. Of course, I had been doing this self-destructive behavior for 20 years, so a few weeks is a swift recovery if you think about it.

With habits and addictions there are often deeper, unmet needs that need to be identified before self-observation becomes meaningful. If you aren’t aware of your deeper needs, then self-observation may fall flat, like looking through a stranger’s family photo album. What you see doesn’t mean much because you don’t have a strong connection to the family or its history.

When you understand your historical, unmet needs, observing yourself takes on new meaning and automatically fosters greater compassion and self-acceptance, which causes the underlying stress to melt away.

The process of self-observation, compassion and releasing unwanted habits can take some time and may even require some coaching. When you are in a position to practice regularly, however, you will be amazed at the results. Poor habits, even long-standing ones, are weak compared to the power of compassionate self-observation.

Mike Bundrant is a retired mental health counselor who conducts online NLP training with the iNLP Center.

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Do you talk over people during conversations?

Do you bite your nails when you are nervous?

Do you drink like a fish or pop pills like a pharmacist?

Have you ever told a lie to get a point across?

Have you ever ignored the people you were with for a better conversation with someone on your cell phone?

Has your recent predicament made you so worried that you can’t focus on anything?

Good, you are human. Each and every person on this earth has habits rather good or bad. There are just some things that we tend to do automatically. They have become so repetitive that they almost seem natural. Habits are inherently neutral but speaking for myself I seem to have more bad ones than good and I think I would greatly benefit from turning the tables. So how do you break bad habits?

WHAT IS A HABIT?

Now in order to break a bad habit you must have a clear understanding of what a habit is. Habits are behaviors that are repeated automatically without any thought or intent. They are so routine that they happen subconsciously. Many of them are created by repetition of a reaction to a specific situation or a measurable amount of positive stimuli.

We all have habits, good and bad, that effect how we respond in various situations. Take me for example. Whenever I get a chance to watch my favorite show Man vs. Wild I must have an ice cold glass of milk and Oreos. That is my good habit. J My bad habit is throwing my dirty clothes on a recliner chair in our bedroom that drives my wife nuts. She thinks we should use the chair for sitting. I use it as a dirty clothes hamper. We have agreed to disagree.

THE STEPS

In an attempt to stay married, for at least another year, I have decided it would be best to get rid of my unproductive habit. Here are a few steps that I have taken on my long road to self improvement that I think will help you as well. Some are easier than others. Good Luck.

Step One

Recognize your habits

You might not notice that every word that comes out of your mouth is negative. Maybe your compulsive drinking habit doesn’t bother you at all. The nature of habits makes them sometimes difficult to detect. They happen on a subconscious level. So if you don’t have your wife screaming at you to stop leaving your clothes in the chair they may require some personal reflecting to identify them. Others may stick out like a person wearing a ‘Go Lebron’ t-shirt at a Cleveland Cavaliers game. Take some time and examine yourself to recognize you habits, good and bad.

Step Two

Replace bad habits with a positive alternative

In my own progression towards becoming a better me and avoiding annoying my wife I have decided to put my dirty clothes in the – wait for it – dirty clothes hamper. This has done some amazing things at my home. For one I don’t have to get screamed at for throwing my clothes in the chair. Secondly I have a comfy chair to drink my ice cold milk and eat Oreos in. It was win-win scenario.

It is best to select an alternative that will have benefits that are apparent and numerous. This will help you maintain the momentum and create a good habit instead of a bad one.

Ex: If you sit in a chair and eat Oreos while watching TV it might be better to run on a treadmill while you watch TV and eat you Oreos. By using this technique you will burn the calories that you gain from eating cookies and improve your endurance for other things.

Step Three

Focus on the positive alternative instead of avoiding the negative one.

Spend your energy and focus on creating positive habits that will benefit you. I don’t know about you but when I try to avoid something intentionally I usually end up doing it because it is always on mind. Alter your focus on modeling good behaviors. In my situation I started by trying to avoid throwing my belongings in the chair. Now I try to make sure I clean up the room every night before I go to bed. Guess what happens when I clean up? The chair often ends up empty until Man vs. Wild comes on.

Bad habits can be broken and good ones acquired but they require the same amount of repetition and consistency that you put in the negative ones. I hear it only takes 21 days to form a habit. I will let you know I am on day 2.

Now it is your turn. I am looking for some help on breaking a bad habit. Share your thoughts and links below I can’t wait to read them.

Frank Jennings is a freelance writer and the founder of A Spark Starts -  ‘All it takes is one spark to start a fire that can change your life!’

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How To Achieve Your Goals With Health Habits

An Analytical Approach To Self Improvement

This article was first published by NursingSchools.net courtesy of Ken Martin.

———————–

Everyone knows that smoking is one of the most unhealthy things you can do to yourself, but still, many people continue to smoke because they simply can’t quit. If you’re struggling to quit smoking, you may be ready to do some crazy things to kick the habit, and we’ve got just the thing for you. These are 50 creative and crazy ways to finally put out the smoke monster.

Health

Here are several healthy things you can do to stop smoking.

1. Have a heart attack: A smoking-induced heart attack might be just the ticket to finally scare you into quitting.
2. Get your teeth cleaned: Invest in a good cleaning so that you’ll be sorry to mess up your pearly whites with smoke.
3. Eat booster foods: Garlic and ginger are good for pulling smoking chemicals out of your body.
4. Brush your teeth when you want to smoke: Any time you have a craving, just brush your teeth or swish with mouthwash to enjoy a clean feeling instead of smoke.
5. Become pregnant: Once you are carrying an unborn child who depends on you for its health, you will feel too guilty to light up.
6. Take up mountain biking: There’s no way you can bike up a mountain as a smoker!

Support

These ideas may provide you with the support you need to kick the habit.

1. Start a Facebook group: John Mellencamp’s son started a Facebook group, and if it attracts enough people, his father will kick the habit.
2. Make it a family affair: Ask other smokers in your family to join you in quitting.
3. Make a bet: Bet one of your smoking friends that if one of you quits for a month, the other has to buy a steak dinner.
4. Pay a fine: Agree to quit smoking or pay a fine to a friend.
5. Wear a sign: Wear a sign that asks people not to sell or give you any cigarettes.
6. Start a blog: Be accountable by telling your quitting story.
7. Announce you’re quitting on social media: Tell your friends and family of your plans to quit so that they can support-and pester you-about it.

Treatments & Tools

Here are some ways to get help with your goal to quit smoking.

1. Laser: These lasers are said to produce a reaction like nicotine.
2. Acupuncture: Acupuncture may be able to help you quit.
3. Quitter: Use Quitter’s service to track how many cigarettes you smoke each day.
4. Keep a journal: Each time you get a craving, write about it in your journal to identify your craving triggers.

Sticky Situations

These situations will make it difficult to smoke and easier to quit.

1. Clean your house: Clean your house and make smoking off limits so you’ll be forced to smoke outside.
2. Get hired where you can’t smoke: Some workplaces have a strict no-smoking policy, so get hired and quit or get fired.
3. Go camping: Explore the great outdoors for a few days with your cigarettes purposefully left at home.
4. Hang out where smoking isn’t allowed: Go to churches, theaters, libraries, and museums.

Distractions & Replacements

Use these methods to run interference against smoking.

1. Sleep when your cravings are the worst: During bad withdrawl hours, just take a nap.
2. Chew Milkbones: One woman killed cravings by chewing on Milkbone dog biscuits.
3. Do something physically engaging: Bike, run or do something else you wouldn’t think to smoke while you’re doing it.
4. Play games instead: Instead of taking a cigarette break at work, play Solitaire.
5. Light something else: If you have to light up, do it to a candle or incense.
6. Take up a new hobby: Combat boredom or loneliness with something you can be passionate about.
7. Go nuts: Eat a few nuts in their shell when you want to smoke to occupy your hands and mouth.
8. Play the lottery: Instead of spending money on cigarettes, allow yourself to play the occasional lottery ticket without guilt.
9. Be more comfortable: If you smoke to feel more comfortable socially, try counseling, public speaking classes, or a makeover.

Psychological

These ideas will help get smoking out of your head.

1. Bury your cigarettes: Wrap your packs in a plastic bag and bury it in the backyard so you’ll have to dig them up each time you want a smoke.
2. Use creative visualization: Imagine cigarettes wearing boxing gloves and beating you up-and you should punch back.
3. Get hypnotized: Hypnosis can work for some smokers.

Motivation

Stay motivated to quit smoking with these ideas.

1. Visit lung cancer victims: Go to the hospital and sit down with patients who have smoke-induced lung cancer, and see what they have to say about smoking.
2. Spend the money elsewhere: Take the money you’d normally spend on cigarettes, and treat yourself to something fun instead.
3. Remember other difficult things you’ve conquered: Keep in mind challenges you’ve faced in the past to give yourself confidence.
4. Look at photos of lifelong smokers: Check out photographs of people who never stopped smoking to see how you’ll look if you don’t quit.
5. Plan treats: Along each milestone, have a reward prepared to give yourself in return for making it so far without a smoke.
6. Put your savings in a glass jar: Physically see how much you’re not spending on cigarettes.
7. Learn about smoking facts: Look up dismal facts about the disadvantages of smoking.
8. Imagine your children smoking: Each time you want to smoke, think about what your kids would look like smoking-because it’s likely that they will if they grow up with a smoking parent.
9. Plan a cruise: At the end of a period in which you haven’t smoked, have a reward set up like an Alaskan cruise or visit to an old friend who wants you to quit.

Gross & Painful

Definitely on the crazy end of the spectrum, these methods are gross, maybe even painful, but effective.

1. Drink baking soda: This woman mixed baking soda in water and it killed her desire to smoke.
2. Wear a rubber band: Snap a rubber band against your wrist when you want to smoke to associate it with unpleasantness.
3. Look at smoking disease photos: Check out photos of diseased lungs, mouths, and throats so they’ll be burned into your mind any time you want to smoke.
4. Keep just one: Hang onto a solitary cigarette and light it when you need a smoke, then extinguish it and save it for later.
5. Smell some wet cigarettes: Gather up some butts, put some water on them and sniff the mess to gross yourself out about smoking.
6. Fill a room with smoke: Close off windows and doors, then light a few cigarettes and let them burn to see how gross it is. Be careful to do this with supervision.
7. Check out YouTube: Watch anti-smoking videos of oral cancers, brains, and more.
8. Smoke yourself sick: Chain smoke until you’re just sick of it, crush your pack and don’t look back.

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]]> http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/50-creative-and-crazy-ways-to-quit-smoking-once-and-for-all/feed/ 14 http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-to-break-any-bad-habit/ http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-to-break-any-bad-habit/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:13:23 +0000 Farouk Radwan http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/?p=2869

Why do people have bad habits?

Do you know that some people smoke only to control anxiety?
The automatic movement that the person does while smoking makes the person believe that he is in control of his environment and that’s why most smokers smoke when they feel anxious. It is in fact, one of the main reasons people start to smoke in the first place!

Do you know that some shopping addicts only buy things to improve their moods and not because they really want any thing they are buying? Those people go for quick fixes such as shopping to improve their bad moods or ease their stress. Ironically, these quick fixes actually worsen their moods and increase their stress (when they realize how much they’ve spent) when the high has faded.

Do you know that most drug addicts only use drugs to escape from their unsolved problems? Had those people learned, or had the chance to learn how to be brave or strong enough they might have never became drug addicts to begin with.

As you can see many of our bad habits are just a way to hide our vulnerabilities and mask our weaknesses.

The only way to break the bad habit in such a case is by learning how to deal with our weaknesses instead of focusing on building self discipline. Of course self discipline will help but without dealing with the root causes you will never manage to break your bad habits.

Why health warnings don’t work?
Lots of countries put pictures of diseased people on cigarette packs and while the pictures look really horrible they seem not to have any effect on some smokers.

Why is that?

Simply because each one of us has got his own unique values and belief system, a health warning would only affect a person who values health greatly. That’s why such warnings scare some people and have no effect on others.

Now go to a woman who is concerned about her looks and tell her that smoking can lead to severe acne and see her response. Most probably you will find the woman much more motivated to quit smoking than before.

In short, in order to quit a habit you need to know how badly it affects your core values.

Welcome to the real world

Usually after giving up a certain habit some people say that their lives have become boring. For example “after I stopped drinking my life became boring and uninteresting”

Usually I reply telling those people, Welcome to your real world!!

You have been escaping from reality for years and for the first time in your life you are now experiencing your true reality.

Instead of escaping to the bad habit you must work on fixing your bad world because after all it’s the main reason you are escaping to a bad habit! This is very scary to do. It takes a brave person. But the results are profound and life long if you can tough it out.

Behind every bad habit is a good intention

Our minds are intelligent enough not to ruin our lives without a strong reason.
Usually there is a very good intention behind every habit.
A computer addict might have became so because his life would have been really boring if he didn’t spend all that time in front of the computer.

In that case that guy should work on making his life interesting without a computer so that he doesn’t need to spend lots of hours in front of it. By providing a good habit that would satisfy the same need that the bad habit was trying to satisfy that person would easily be able to get over his bad habit.

In short, breaking bad habits is all about getting a deeper insight of the habit and the need its trying to satisfy.

M.Farouk Radwan is the founder of http://www.2knowmyself.com, the ultimate source for self understanding!

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Our lives are full of things we “should” do but for a range of reasons we don’t do them. Whatever it is – exercise, healthy eating, saving money – most of the time we choose to take the easier road, the road well traveled.

While I’m certainly not immune to this, there are plenty of things I don’t do that I know I should, I feel that understand the why is the first step to making real progress.

1. Being Comfortable (and Lack of a Burning Desire)

It all starts with how we feel about our life. How we feel greatly affects our motivations. Most people are in some form of comfort, but it’s a negative comfort. It’s a comfort where you’re not making progress towards your dreams but you’re not in that much pain either.

Don’t be in this space.

I’ve been comfortable. I live in a great area, there’s food on the table and I have shelter, and it’s this very reason that a bunch of my income dried up over the past couple of years. I’d been making great progress, which was motivating but then de-motivational forces (mainly school) and my own lethargy brought me into a false form of comfort. And now I have to work my way back to where I was.

The best motivators are pain and progress.

When you are in a situation that genuinely hurts you find a solution. It’s not a matter of making excuses, you just do it. And likewise, when you’re making progress the same thing happens, although from a much more positive standpoint. You feel great and the momentum-based achievement keeps you doing the things you should be doing.

But pain will just hurt and progress will be non-existent unless you are inspired or have a burning desire to make a positive change in your life. I have a burning desire to be known as a writer, and as thus I write, I write some more, and then I finish all that writing off with some more writing.

On the other hand I know I should go for more walks, eat more fruit and veggies, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Why don’t I do it? I’m not in a bad enough situation to motivate myself – I’m comfortable – and a although a good walk makes me feel great I rarely feel inspired to go on one.

It’s difficult to transform a “should” into a “must” (as Tony Robbins would put it), but there are a few approaches:

1. Wait till it gets so bad it hurts. This isn’t recommended because pain isn’t always the best motivator (there are exceptions remember) and it’s sort of silly to put yourself in a worse situation to get better.
2. Commit to doing it once. Give it a go. Just once. For ages I knew I should start writing a blog like this, but I put it off. Then I started it, and I loved it. Give it a go.
3. Understand the reason why. Understand why you should be doing something. Understand what you’re missing out on.

2. Distractions

Burning desires aren’t always obvious though. They get drowned out in a sea of distractions – trying to do or consume too much. Minimalism isn’t for everyone, and that’s fine, but at least understand and reaffirm the amazingness of having and doing less. And when I say “do less” I’m not talking about being idle, but cutting down on the quantity of activities you do, so each one can be done with deliberate focus.

Cut out everything in your life that doesn’t fulfill you, giving you room to get back to the basics and do the things that you know you should be doing.

3. Excuses

Excuses are the next hold up. For everyone reason you should do something there are 2 far fetched reasons, that you can easily convince yourself to be true, that you shouldn’t do it. And in my own experience the only effective and long lasting way to get rid of excuses is accountability.

Create a mastermind group or find a friend who has similar goals to remain accountable for your actions. Tynan has shared a twist on this system which is to give your accountability buddy the power to dare you to do something displeasing and vice versa.

4. Confusion

Although, excuses aren’t always just excuses, they may stem from confusion, and that’s a different problem entirely. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with all the things you should be doing and “being busy” is one of the most common, and easy to swallow ruses that few people will fault you on, even when it’s pure crap. And that’s dangerous.

To fight the overwhelm sit back with a pen and paper and write out a clear plan of what you should be doing. Break it down into numbers. If, for example, you know you should be running, write out how many minutes per day you should run, or how far, and how much of it is sprinting or jogging, or just walking.

Tasks appear monumental as a whole, but after breaking them down into bite-sized bits they amazingly fit quite well into your lifestyle even if the task itself hasn’t changed.

5. Misuse of Negativity

Tim Ferriss has discussed pessimism as a productivity system, but a constructive use of negativity goes beyond just productivity. According to The Law of Attraction focusing on negativity will bring that into your life. And to a certain extent I agree.

But negativity can be used constructively as long as you don’t dwell on it. The majority of the time you should focus on what inspires you and your burning desire, but whenever you feel particularly unmotivated, ask yourself “What will happen if I don’t do this?” See an unhealthy you if you don’t go for that run, or an unfulfilled you if you choose not to follow your passion.

6. Money Doesn’t Motivate

In the video below Dan Pink discusses how money is a weak motivator. Anything remotely creative or loosely defined task simply won’t be done better or faster if wads of cash are your driving force.

What does this mean?

Live for something greater than money. Money isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but you need to find a goal or purpose that goes beyond financial success to be persistent, or even to do something well.

7. Lack of Ambition

Everyone has ideas about ambition but, at least in my experience, setting goals that are ambitious are more likely to be acted upon. Going back to that running example, there are countless stories about non-runners who sign up for a marathon months in advanced, and then magically in that time they go from a couch potato to a competitive runner.

Us human folk adapt to the goals we set. When we set a small goal there’s a lack of excitement. Sure, I could set a goal to walk down the street and back, but that’s boring. Make it a 10km jog or 400m sprint though and suddenly it’s something to work towards. There’s a chance of failure so it becomes a gamble.

What is tricky though is setting goals that aren’t too beyond you while remaining ambitious. I’d love to beat Usain Bolt in a 100m dash, and it’d be an ambitious goal, but it’s just not going to happen. Consistent failure to attain an ambitious goal will eventually leave you unmotivated and back in your old routine. Be ambitious in the sense that there’s a chance of failure, but you feel confident of eventual achievement.

8. Uncertainty

And then there’s the last, and perhaps most deadly reason we don’t do things we should do: uncertainty.

If you’re uncertain something will lead to the result you want or expect it can be difficult to commit to it. There’s a constant stream of doubt fuelling excuses and less of a desire to persist (which is one of the secrets of success). To overcome uncertainty model yourself after other people who have achieved what you desire. Read autobiographies and story-driven accounts to understand their mindset, the process they took and the challenges they faced.

David Turnbull is a Guest Blogger For PickTheBrain and is the founder of DavidTurnbull.com.

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Many people go through life acting like trained circus animals.  They repeat the same antics they observed their neighbors, parents and family performing.  What they often don’t realize is that they are wrecking their lives.

Do you know someone that performs these tricks?

Understanding that these tricks change good lives into a zoo is the first step to freedom.  So, let’s take a look at the most common traps people fall into.

10 Very Common Stupid Tricks That Wreck A Good Life

I’d bet we’ve all witnessed at least some of these stupid tricks.  Unfortunately, they plague many people and are incredibly common.  Read over the list and let me know which one you think is the worst or most prevalent.

1.  Performing the starring role in a never-ending drama

It seems that some people want the days of their lives to mirror a soap opera.  They constantly behave badly and then wonder why their lives are so freaking crazy.  It is almost as if they are addicted to chaos!  These folks usually fail to see that they are their own worst enemy!  Do you know someone that is the big star in their own perpetual drama?

2.  Jumping through hoops without accomplishing anything

Who do you know that lives life like a hamster spinning in a wheel?  These people run and run, but never get anywhere.  In addition, they probably think they have little to no control over their lives.  They are stuck in the Twilight Zone where every day is just like the next.  They continually jump through hoops for everyone else, but never realize their own dreams.  I assure you this is only an illusion, but how do we convince them?

3.  Parroting the negativity heard in the media and from others

The voices of negativity are constantly lobbing grenades of gloom into our laps.  Many people become echo chambers that repeat and amplify this barrage until they are deaf to anything else.  Then their minds freeze up in fear, doubt and panic.  These people let themselves be toyed with like a puppet!  We all need to turn off the talking heads and feed our minds positive, encouraging vitamins of hope to regain a good life!

4.  Disappearing when they hear the words volunteer or charity

Why are people so afraid of giving away their time and money?  I know there are a lot of scams, but are we really going to let that squelch every attempt at good?  So what if once in a blue moon we give a nickel to someone that wastes it!  Life goes on!  Get over it!  The most significant thing we can do with our limited days on this earth is make someone else feel safe, comfortable and cared for.

5.  Trying to walk a high-wire without a net in their personal finances

The recession we just experienced was a gift.  It was a warning shot across the bow giving people the opportunity to turn from their destructive financial path.  Spending beyond their means, piling up mountains of debt and failing to save a penny for a rainy day will be the demise of many.  Our economy reflects our collective financial condition.  Hopefully, the warning we got will motivate people to get their house in order so we can prosper as a country!

6.  Rolling over and quitting because they made a few mistakes

Making a bad mistake can be painful.  I’ll admit it can feel like someone scarred you with a white-hot branding iron on your backside.  The memory of such an event leaves many thinking that the best thing they can do is to curl up into the fetal position and quit.  Of course, this means they’ll miss out on even the slightest chance that life might throw them a bone just when they need it most!

7.  Swinging from one relationship to the next to avoid commitment

It isn’t always easy to let yourself be loved.  A true partner will challenge you to grow and better yourself.  They will force a person to relinquish some of the selfishness we all cling to for dear life.  Jumping to another relationship won’t solve the problem.  One day you have to deal with the person staring back at you in the mirror.  This is the only way I know to ultimately find the kind of love we all long for.

8.  Playing opossum on the couch to evade all forms of exercise

There is nothing that will steal the joy out of a person’s life quicker than health problems.  However, you don’t have to look far to find a person taking a very short-sighted approach when it comes to exercise and eating right.  Neither of these is all that hard, expensive or time-consuming.  They just take a little discipline and ingenuity.  I don’t understand why people don’t get up and get active!  It is the single best thing we can do for ourselves!

9.  Throwing daggers of blame while blindfolded at anyone in range

Some people will throw blame at just about anybody but themselves.  It is always the other person’s fault that their relationships suck, their career is at a dead-end and the collection agent knows their whole family by first name.  Accepting responsibility for our lives and making a conscious decision to do everything we can to make this one life we have worth living is the only solution to our dilemma.  When will people learn?

10.  Flipping out when it is suggested they should learn something new

I never cease to be amazed at how strongly people resist and fear change.  They will do everything within their power to avoid, divert and even sabotage anything that is going to make them have to learn something new or change in anyway.  Change is a necessary and healthy part of life.  Our routines are not pets!  People need to learn to grow!  It doesn’t hurt as much as they think!

Retraining to Quit These Stupid Tricks

We are not circus animals!  We have a choice in our behavior.  All we have to do is decide to retrain ourselves.  How do we get people to quit these self-destructive tricks?

Well, you’ll find a lot of great advice by continuing to read Pick The Brain.  In addition, you can find a lot of great information on good habits and smart living on my blog.  Hope to hear from you soon!

Jeff Nickles is a guest blogger for PickTheBrain. He writes about living life to the fullest at MySuperChargedLife.com.

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