Breaking Old Habits
Its easier than you think!
By Diane Alpeter
Here you go again. It’s almost time for orders. You lie awake every night imagining the satisfaction you would get if you could personally go to the Pentagon and tell them where you would like to move, when you would like to move and which house you would like to live in.
You know that is not going to happen. But like many military spouses, you may have the bad habit of trying to control the uncontrollable whenever you’re faced with a lifestyle change.
Face it—we all have bad habits. But experts say there is hope. There may be a way to wait for orders and sleep through the night.
Bad habits are often an involuntary response, a behavior formed over time, says Nancy Schimelpfening, a Navy spouse and depression expert for About.com.
“We live off base, so my worst habit is going to the Ralph’s store on the corner instead of using the commissary,” she said. “The payoff is the convenience. But the trade-off, of course, is that I’m not taking advantage of the savings or supporting this wonderful [commissary] benefit we have as military spouses.”
This Navy wife of 11 years said choosing between the payoff and the trade-off of a bad habit may enable you to make better choices.
“Now that you have weighed both sides of the issue (or bad habit), it’s time to make a choice,” she wrote on the Web site. “It’s no longer an involuntary act because now you know that you are making a choice every time you perform this action.”
Adam Khan, author of Self-Help Stuff That Works, agrees that breaking bad habits is a choice.
“But the reason it is difficult is not that your mind is pigheaded,” he wrote. “It is because you’re not in the habit of thinking certain things at certain times.”
Khan suggests creating a short slogan and repeating it about 10 times a day. If you have trouble staying on task, for example, your slogan may be “Stay on track,” he said. Repeating the slogan for a few weeks will enable you to form a new habit. The thought will begin to come to mind easily.
Army spouse Trish Hanley recognizes her bad habits and takes measures to correct them. After living in 4 countries and 5 states during the past 13-1/2 years, she has had ample opportunity to address her own habits and thoughts when it comes to moving.
“I want to control the uncontrollable,” she said. “I cannot control when we get orders. I cannot control where the Army sends us next. I cannot control when my household goods arrive at our new duty station. I cannot control when my husband is deployed or when he redeploys. I can overcome these bad habits by realizing what things in life I can control.”
Khan says that an inactive mind is like a warm, damp place where unhappy thoughts or bacteria grow.
“The best use of an idle mind is thinking about a purpose,” he said.
Your purpose may be how to correct those bad habits that have accumulated throughout the years.
“Be aware of what you are thinking and how you are reacting to situations,” said Hanley. “What do you say to yourself when you self-talk? Is it positive or negative?”
Experts agree that positive thinking may be the key to breaking bad habits, to sleeping better, to liking your new behaviors. So the next time you are up for orders, you may want to create a slogan, think about the payoff and the trade-off, and realize that you just can’t control the uncontrollable.