Step by Step Breaking a Bad Habit

Everybody has a bad habit, sometimes is small and doesn’t change much in that person’s life, but sometimes can be big, and in this case that person is supposed to work on that. I mean breaking a big habit. How?

First of all, we have to find at least one really important reason: why? Why should I break my bad habit?
For example smoking person should quit it for her own health, or person being always late for appointments should change this habit for her better and bigger chance in life. In addition, two persons are interested in becoming a director of a big company and they have several courses about that. One of these persons is constantly late for the courses. Which person has a better, bigger chance if we start from this point?

Next step is strong promise for ourselves:” I have to do it.”
We know promises can not be broken, even promises given ourselves. This is very short step, but really hard.

Third step to break a bad habit is following: we should find something that we can do instead of our own bad habit. We can find anything that we always would like to do, but we didn’t because we were short of time, or any other reason. One example might be someone who watches too much television and is dreaming about learning how to swim, or how to play golf. Why instead of watching television doesn’t this person take swim lessons? Or somebody who is drinking too much alcohol and dreaming about buying a boat, why instead of spending money for alcohol doesn’t is he going to realize his dream?

And the last step, which can help us with our perseverance, is reward. We can promise ourselves prize if we are able to break our bad habit. This reward doesn’t have to be expansive or big, that may be something that we always want to get or want to do.
I hope that four steps to change or break a bad habit can be helpful for many people.