How to eliminate habits?

Regarding habits, I have quite a few that I KNOW I don't want to continue. But, I always seem to remind myself of this fact AFTER or DURING my 'carrying out' of the habit.

It recently occurred to me that I need to PLAN what I will do instead of doing the 'habitual things' that I've been doing for a long time. But, even then I end up performing the habits. It is frustrating to me, especially when I 'KNOW' that it is only me who can 'break the habit' and therefore experience the good state of 'doing otherwise'.

Has anyone ever had any habits that they have gotten rid off? How did you do it? (I'm referring to habits of the type such as wasting time on an activity when I know there are other, more important things to carry out). I personally think that it is a matter of self-discipline but has anyone got any other ideas?

rafal

The lack of self-discipline is strictly speaking not a "habit" - it is arguably the HARDEST thing to overcome in Life.

One day I helped a person who was biting nails for 15 years or so. My advice was simple: ASK your Higher Self (your OWN consciousness) to ALERT you when you start doing it. Just bring it to your attention - so you can make a CONSCIOUS CHOICE. The person smiled with disbelief, but decided to try out the idea.

After 15 minutes he RAN to me to express his amazement: his hand seemed to STOP an inch from his mouth every time he lifted it to bite his nails.

I wittnessed him being free from his habit for many months. It was last year...

Tom

I have been biting my nails after a long period of being free from it. I've been analyzing myself so many times, trying to find out when and why I'm doing it.

I've noticed that I'm biting not when I'm nervous, but when I feel like I'm improving my intelligence and understand things better. Like when I'm reading this forum and getting really good ideas, my hand is unconsciously drawn to my mouth.

I'm telling it to you people because I think it might help. I'm not afraid of developing my intellect, but I've been biting too many times when I feel like I'm doing fine to see it as a coincidence. [Andreas]

You know, that is very interesting, because now that I have been watching myself closer, I smoke much more when I'm really interested in something. What in the world is going on with that?

Belle

To me it is quite simple. When our conscious mind is BUSY with "interesting thoughts" - all other issues get neglected and all our weaknesses (such as compulsive behavior) show up.

Tom