By Eloise King First published: July 18th, 2010

With a little willpower, anyone can break the bad habits they don’t want to keep. The experts show us how.

No one likes their bad habits. Whether it’s something benign like biting your fingernails, or a more complex problem with more at stake, like smoking, changing your ways and regaining control over your vices can be easy – once you have the right tools. The experts tell us how to break your bad habits.

Create a belief system

The expert: Jacob Galea, life and business coach.

The approach: Galea trains you to build a strong fighting spirit, a positive mental attitude and a belief system for personal life control.

Your eight-step plan to beating a bad habit

1. Build awareness around your bad habit by writing a list of pros and cons. “The biggest factor in breaking a habit is having proper awareness around it in the first place,” he says.
2. Write a second list of how your life would improve without the habit.
3. Relax, close your eyes and watch a mind video of yourself living your life without the habit. “If you’re a smoker, watch yourself eating an apple instead of lighting up,” he says. “Your mind doesn’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s imagined, so you can dilute the craving of a bad habit by changing the way you see it in your mind.”
4. Focus on the positive emotions that arise from living without your habit, both in real life and in your mind.
5. Surround yourself with friends who support you in your goal. “Having peers on your side is one of the strongest ways to break a habit,” Galea says.
6. Keep your mind busy with a sport or hobby that excites you.
7. Reward yourself regularly. “People often wait until they’ve reached a destination to celebrate, but life is about the journey. If you go from one pack of cigarettes to half a pack a day, celebrate. It’s a return on your investment in life.”
8. Repeat the process outlined above regularly and never give up.