Habits are habits that we tend to repeat in our daily lives. However, for some people, they feel uncomfortable associating any specific pattern of repetitive action with a specific individual or trait. For example, some people would rather be associated with driving than to be associated with their habits of laziness. There are some people who may not like to be called a “buddy” because of their habits of selfishness. But at the end of the day, what is important to a person is the quality of love and affection that he/she develops with his/her partner.

Habits can be anything that you do without your awareness or choice. Thus, if you are a person who likes to smoke cigars on occasion but you never become addicted to it, these habits are not habits. A habit can be an unconscious behavior that becomes automatic with repetition. The following are some habits that are not good and should never become an obsession:

– Habit loops: You may have experienced a situation where you were motivated by an external stimulus such as food or money. However, your mind went blank as you did not possess any memory to guide you towards taking the action. You were left with no choice but to go with the tendency and this led to repeated habits, the first being smoking. In order to break out of the habit loop, you should make a conscious decision to quit before the cue is ever triggered.

– Basal Ganglia: Some behaviors are based on unconscious habits that develop over time. For example, while picking your socks up after sleeping, you may develop the habit of putting your hand under your nose. This may be an unconscious behavior that has developed with you. However, this is a harmful habit that needs to be changed as it can cause nose picking and throat choking. When you want to eliminate these behaviors, you should identify the unconscious causes of them and then eliminate them.

– Automaticity: Habits are generally automatic processes that take over whenever you take a certain action. For example, when you eat your meal, your digestive system goes into autopilot and starts breaking down the contents of your stomach automatically. If you do not eat your meal, your digestive system will again go into autopilot and start breaking down your food. There is an amazing principle called the law of automaticity, which states that the more you do something once, the more likely you are to do it again. Thus, your habits are the same as your automatic behavior patterns, which make them very hard to change.

Therefore, to get rid of habits and behaviors, you must change your routines. Your habits and behaviors will never change unless you put forth a consistent and determined effort to change them. However, putting forth such effortless effort enables you to get rid of bad habits and replace them with beneficial ones.