At my latest session with Doc Fraser on Thursday we somehow got on to the subject of habits. Actually, I know very well how we reached this topic. It is a perennial favourite of ours which is unsurprising considering how many bad habits I have developed over the years.

I treat myself badly. I am slavishly self-critical in all aspects and I don’t expect anyone else to treat me any differently. I actively wait for the criticism to come and am completely caught off-guard if it doesn’t. So, my homework over the coming few weeks is to focus on developing good habits which replace the bad ones.

By using the “Red Flag” technique, every time I recognise a trigger for these bad habits to kick-in I have to wave a virtual “Red Flag” and change those negative, unhelpful thoughts into more positive and realistic ones. Effectively I am back to changing ANTs into ARTs…..which translate as Automatic Negative Thoughts into Automatic Realistic Thoughts. That’s not to say that everything in the garden becomes rosy overnight because that’s not realistic. Positive thinking isn’t about fairy tales or rainbows or pretending that everything is ok. It’s about being realistic, resilient and managing whatever life brings you more effectively.

Bad habits use a lot of energy which I can ill-afford to waste so I will try to concentrate on forming lots of new ones.

Helpful

      Alternative

    Behaviour

      Influencing

   Thoughts.

The good news is that I have the power to do so. If I have the power to form bad habits, I have the power to exchange them for good habits 🙂