Repeated thoughts and actions carve pathways in the brain. Over time, those pathways become easier to travel. This is how good and bad habits are formed.

Bad habits have to be consciously broken. We can’t overcome them by paying attention to them only occasionally. The mental pathways are already well established. To change them, we must become mindful of them every day, interrupt them as they arise, and deliberately choose better thoughts and behaviors.

Habits are the result of repeated decisions. That means you can choose to change them. It isn’t easy, but it’s possible. Only you can do it. No one else can do it for you.

Create an environment that makes good habits easier and bad habits harder. Remove distractions, reduce temptations, and distance yourself from unhealthy influences.

Breaking a bad habit is an act of refusing self-sabotage. Every time you interrupt an old pattern and choose differently, you create a new pathway.