Habit can be defined as something a person tends to do repeatedly and continuously. A habit is basically doing something in a fixed way, and if you are not doing that thing you tend to become uneasy or start to have bad feelings. It is something that you do on a daily, hourly or weekly basis that you repeat over and over again, and it becomes really difficult to do anything else if you are not following on with your habit. Hence it would not be wrong to say that habit is something addictive and compulsive. The process by which some new behaviours become automatic is known as the process of habit formation. If you cannot start your day without a cup of tea, it means that having tea in the morning is your habit and you can’t do away without it. It is also possible that you can create some habits on your own by the process of repeating an act again and again. Like practising to keep cleanliness over a period of team leads to you forming a habit of keeping yourself and your environment clean. As behaviours are repeated in a consistent manner, there is an incremental increase in the link between that manner and the action. This increases the automaticity of the behaviour in that manner, but the process of habit forming is very slow. Habits can either help us or hurt us and may create a problem for us to achieve our goals. Hence habits may be of two types:

1. Good Habits or Positive Habits
2. Bad Habits

Depending upon the effect these habits have on a particular person there can be a classification. Those having some positive effects on our lives can be termed as good habits, for e.g. if a college student has a habit of getting up early in the morning and studying, then this can be termed as a good habit and would really help that student in achieving his academic goals. On the other hand there can be some habits which are opposite in nature and produces a bad effect on the human life and are termed as bad habits, for e.g. if a person has a habit of drinking tea more than the normal limits in a day may be harmful to his health and would be termed as a bad habit. It’s upon us to decide whether we take on some good habits or bend towards the bad ones which would ultimately destroy us.

Habit Development

Habit plays an important role in a man’s life. Habits make the man. We are what we repeatedly do. If we really want to be productive, we need to have the habit of planning about the things concerned. If we want to be physically fit, we need to have a habit of exercising daily. Similarly, there are many things in life which, if you want to achieve you need to have some habits related. Even if you want a successful academic year, you need to have a habit of studying for long hours. The habitual pattern of behavior plays an important role in building up of a person. It is also a true fact that it is very easy to make some bad habits and on the other hand extremely difficult and time taking to make some good or positive habits. Breaking some bad habits is very beneficial for a person, but even more helpful is to engage in some good habits rather than developing some bad ones. So it is better to involve yourself in some good habits. If you are not happy with your habits and really want some good habits in your life, then you can follow some tips to develop good habits:

• Concentrate one Thing at a Time: Many people trying to make some good habits are never able to do so because they always try to improve everything about themselves at the same time. Generally, people when feeling unhappy about their life make a list of all the things that they need to change and think that they might be gaining some good habits within no time. It makes them feel really pumped in the beginning. Changing one habit is hard enough; changing six at the same time is simply not possible. Similarly creating some new habits also is not an easy thing.  So it is better to start steadily with improving your one habit and once successfully done you tend to gain a sense of confidence and you can then move on further with creating some more positive habits.
• Start with a high Motivation Level: The human system is such designed that it works a lot on the basis of its mood and mental state. Motivation plays an important role in human goal accomplishment. Just as a rocket needs huge propulsion energy to escape gravity, in the same way, human needs to exert a massive amount of energy, in the beginning, to break a bad habit or create a new positive habit that would be very useful in the long run. In the same way, when humans need to develop a new habit or breaking an old one, there is a strong need of some kind of motivation which acts as a pump for us towards the accomplishment of our goals. So it is better advised to start with high levels of motivation and put in all your energy and also feels motivated thinking that you are going to make a new good habit that would be very beneficial for your body and mind as well.
• Set your Goals: It is advised to make a time chart for your new habit development and plan well in advance and give you at least 45 to 60 days. 45 days time is enough for a human to stick on to an activity and make it a habit. The idea behind planning for the time is that you may start to notice the changes and check out if the idea is working out or not. It would be very useless if you take 1 year to develop just one good habit. Hence you need to plan in advance the time to reach your goal. Once you start setting limits for yourself, you tend to work harder to achieve the goal on tome rather than just putting the thing on the next day. Basically, this is an average time you may take to build up a new habit and may depend upon person to person and their motivation levels. The number of days also depends on the type of habit you’re trying to form. Easy things like drinking a glass of water in the morning won’t take as much time as compared to hard things like making a habit of exercising daily.
• Replace a Bad Habit with a Good Habit: Habits are also something that keeps a person busy along with the course of time in his day. It seems that the only way to kill a bad habit is to replace it with a good one. Human life is all about changing, you can’t live with any kind of emptiness in your life. Nature abhors a vacuum; if you create a hole in your life and don’t actively fill it with something good, it’s going to follow the path of least resistance and fill with whatever is most handy, maybe your old bad habit. If a person wants to kick away his habit of having a lot of tea he can help himself by taking milk or juice instead of the tea that he wants to avoid.
• Stopping Bad Habits: Bad habits once picked up by a person are very hard to get away with. Wrong habits always harm you in one way or another. Most of these habits can be harmful to your overall health and wellbeing, and in fact, some of these health-destroying habits can actually become physical addictions. Hence it is better to analyze your bad habits and start working out to get rid of them before they become a serious threat to you. In order to stop a bad habit successfully, you need to give break to the unconscious automatic behaviour that forces you towards these bad habits. People generally make something a habit because of the pleasure or comfort related to it. Hence you generally pick up bad habits very easily. So basically need is to identify your bad habits and start working with full dedication and motivation. There are many techniques for removing bad habits once they have become established. It’s better if you recognize your bad habits and eliminate them as soon as possible. As soon you get older, it becomes more difficult to remove them, since you have been quite used to with your bad things from quite a time leading to the building of the habit, and each repetition has unfortunately left its mark till the course of time you were addicted to your habit. If you are addicted to some really bad habits that include drugs or alcohol, then It is recommended to seek professional support as trying to get rid by yourself can take a very long time.

Ways to Stop Bad Habits

• Admit that you have a Problem: It is better to admit that you are in need of some help. If you are having a problem dealing with some bad habit, don’t shy away in seeking help. Acknowledging that you have a habit you'd like to break is vital. Consider the ways that the habit alters or affects your life, and accept that you'd like to change this. Ask yourself:
  • Why is this habit bad?
  • What's holding me back from getting rid of it?
  • What things or people stop me from breaking the habit?
• Consider Environment Change: Our environments can cue us to perform certain behaviours, even if we're actively trying to stop. Hence it is better to avoid such an environment when going under the habit changing process. Find a way to change your surroundings and see if your bad habit becomes less tempting. If you like to smoke out on your patio, it is advised to remove the chair you sit in and replace it with a plant which won’t remind you of cigarette. If you tend to overeat at the same location at the dining room table, move to a different seat or rearrange your furniture such that you're facing a different direction than usual when you eat, this may prove to be a bit helpful. Subtle changes to the environment can make a habit less rote and force your mind to reassess what's happening.
• Change of Company: Considering a habit change? You need a change of company too if you are in a company that can force you or encourages you towards the habit that you are trying to quit. Even if they don’t force you against your will, watching them doing so may be a negative motivation for you. If you are trying to quit your habit of smoking then do try to keep away from some regular smokers, as watching them smoking may lead to an itching inside you to do the same, or some drinking friends may force you back into drinking if you trying to quit it, though their intentions may not be evil but still can be harmful to you.
• Have Patience: Behavioural conditioning is a long process, and breaking a habit takes time - as much as you'd like to, you probably won't stop doing it overnight. There are behavioural changes associated with habit leaving the activity. You may tend to become a little weak or upset. Set realistic goals and plan to have the behaviour wiped out in 30 days. If you get to the end of a month and find you need more time, take another 30 days. As long as you're still improving, don't pay too much attention to how long the process is taking because what is important to you is that you are improving. It is evident that eventually, you will get there.