Your 20s are a time to start building good habits that’ll sustain you for life and break a lot of bad habits. This is a guide on how to get rid of bad habits that are holding you back especially when you’re young.

Bad habits are like poisons. They make you lose your integrity, focus on the short term and bring regrets early in life. While Good habits help you move forward – while bad habits take you backwards.

It takes time, effort and dedication to change bad habits and behaviours. When you’ve worked hard enough to make such changes, be mindful of and avoid those people, places, and things that would drag you back to your old behaviors!

How to Get Rid of Bad Habits in your 20s and Find your Integrity again

1. Become more self-aware of your bad habits 

Are you determined to let go off of your bad habits. First step is recognition. Find out what causes your bad habits, why they were formed and make a plan to stop them.

If only others can see your bad and toxic habits and you pretend not to see them then it makes it almost impossible to change.

Raise your self-awareness to not just what you do; but to all the other factors that contribute to your bad habits.
What you feed your body, friends your keep, things you watch – open your eyes and start seeing the effect they’re having on you.

Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of. – Anonymous

2. Decide to change your bad habits

I belong to several groups habits transformative groups e.g. No fap, 7 habits of highly effective people.

One of the most important thing people do from day one of joining these groups is to decide what they want to improve on or eliminate in their life.

Deciding to change involves your thoughts, visualization setting goals and the actions you take.

The Power of Positive Thinking:

This is the ability to change your thoughts from negative to positive in order to create better habits.

Set small, achievable goals

Give yourself easy objectives so that you don’t get discouraged and continue working towards breaking bad habits.

Visualize your success

See yourself completing the task or goals you have set out for yourself in order to better stay on track.

Take action that is aligned to your highest values

If a habit is not aligned to your highest values – then why do you do them in the first place?

In your 20's, you should focus on building your:

– Body
– Mind
– Empire

Not on:

– Partying
– Bad Habits
– Social Drama

— Limitless Reader (@LimitlessReader) June 11, 2022

3. Change your bad habits by starting new, better habits

Replace bad habits with good habits. It’s critical that you develop healthy, consistent behaviors. You will never become stuck with negative habits that prevent you from achieving your goals if you have enough habits to keep you active throughout the day.

When you take out bad habits you realize you need to replace them as the mind hardly exists on a void. Good habits will prohibit negative habits from infiltrating your life.

So take the effort to start learning and investing better habits you want to see more of. You just gotta realize that repetition hardwires the good, the bad and mediocre habits.

Habits take time to build, don’t think it’s an overnight change. Several studies say it takes up to 14 days to change a habit.

Example is the “𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝟭𝟴- 𝗧─ 𝗣. 𝗠. 𝗦 Method: This is a method where you take 14 days to break a bad habit and replace it with a good one.

4. Focus on discipline over motivation to build better habits

I realized most of our bad habits are caused by two things: stress and boredom. These two factors make people resort to bad habits because they feel zero motivated to keep up with any good habits.

Lost a job? Lost some money in your business? The new girl wouldn’t return your calls anymore? It’s in these moments that motivation plays zero roles in helping you stay away from bad habits. Discipline is better than motivation in hard moments.

Learn how to say no through discipline. Want some ideas check out these visuals James Altutcher talks about saying no to on Notepd.

5. Be transparent

There’s zero need playing “firm” and “strong” when you know you’re having challenges. Show you true emotions, let others know what’s really going on instead of fronting tough.

When I was learning how to play drums – if someone said I didn’t know how to play – I would increase my pace and beat just to cover up the shame. Where do you think it left me on my drumming journey? I abandoned the skill.

Don’t allow others put so much pressure on you -transparency doesn’t mean stupidity or zero self-awareness. You could still listen more, speak less, and take time to think through decisions while being transparent.

6. Keep the right company

Never underestimate the power of association.

If you want to quit or limit alcohol but still hang around with people that only look forward to booze at weekends – then you’re not making any conscious effort to change.

Start hanging around more with the kind of people you want to be like and limit your company with those that drag you backwards.

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones. – Benjamin Franklin

7. Create a support network through Accountability Partner(s)

Find people who will help hold you accountable and encourage you as you work on developing better habits.

Most people wait until their pain gets really deep and someone volunteers to be their accountability partner before accepting to have one. Drop your ego aside and talk to someone you know you can trust.

A Coach is an easy and effective alternative to close people around that can hold your hands and push you closer to your goals.

8. Seek help

There are different options these days to seek help so you can get rid of bad habits.

Therapy, Rehabilitation centers and letting go to your Creator are forms of help. The latter is why people pray. It could be your most important way to get help from the divine source.

9. Change your level of tolerance

Tony Robbins has a famous quote that says we get what we tolerate.
Does the pain of your bad habits outweigh what you could be benefiting if you had changed your habits?

How much of rock bottom would you permit? Shift your tolerance and give yourself permission to expect more from yourself and life. What’s one decision you can make today that will save you from making ten more decisions in the future?

Example, Cigarette smoking is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. To quit, start by setting a date to quit and getting rid of all cigarettes and ashtrays in your home. Then, develop a plan to deal with cravings, such as writing, exercising or deep breathing.

Health is the only area of life that makes all things better as a results of prioritizing it.

— Dan Go (@FitFounder) June 18, 2022

10. Face your fears 

I realized why people do all sort of crap as a resort to feeling overwhelmed, afraid or angry is because they’re afraid to face reality.

Would you rather remain broke and overspend to impress others or start living below your means to build real wealth?
People resort to procrastination – so they can avoid making a decision.
You want to quit your job – but you’re afraid of all the so called “security” you were promised.

Sometimes facing your fears could be gradual e.g. wait until your side hustle income exceeds your monthly pay to quit your job.

11 Bad Habits to Stop in your 20s:

– Not taking Responsibility
– Saying YES to everything
– Having no time for exercise or physical activity
– Having a poor diet.
– Complaining all the time.
– Gossiping
– Taking things personally.
– Holding on to the past
– Overthinking
– Sleeping late
– Pornography
– Getting Drunk with Alcohol.

Still need help in eliminating bad habits. Check out his Twitter thread from Joe Holka:

These 9 tips will help you overcome bad habits immediately:

— Joe Holka (@JoeHolka) June 12, 2022

CONCLUSION

Decide today to eliminate bad habits by learning from your past mistakes, regrets and pain.

It would be insane to expect different results repeating the same bad habits. Sometimes ask whether it’s possible to have discipline in eliminating bad habits without motivation e.g from friends. I’d say yes.

Replace all your bad habits with new ones starting when you’re young: Eat healthily, start a business, go to the gym, read daily, etc.