Focusing on halting habitual poor behavior before it starts is critical to changing those ingrained behaviors.  Essentially, the idea is to direct your attention on unwanted behavior before you engage in it. Elevating your performance in this regard may lead you to less chewed finger nails. From psychologytoday.com:

According to research by Jeffrey Quinn and his colleagues, the most effective strategy for breaking a bad habit is vigilant monitoring – focusing your attention on the unwanted behavior to make sure you don’t engage in it. In other words, thinking to yourself “Don’t do it!” and watching out for slipups – the very opposite of distraction. If you stick with it, the use of this strategy can inhibit the behavior completely over time, and you can be free of your bad habit for good.

I habitually look at fantasy football rankings and breakdowns while working. This diversion can take me off course on important tasks. Hold on a sec, my boy just fired me over the Fantasy Index. LeVeon Bell is the number 1 ranked back in a PPR this week. Okay, I’m back. See? Damn. It seems that I’ll have to think more, not less, about the gridiron.

The plan is simple. As I work, I remind myself that I won’t check anything pigskin related. I can allocate other times of the day to tend to similar matters. This is an efficiency technique for me, but there are other, more serious habits you may be trying to conquer. I may become more efficient during my workday, but you may be attempting to save your own life by quitting smoking, for example.

If you are trying to stop smoking, swearing, or chewing your nails, you have probably tried the strategy of distracting yourself – taking your mind off whatever it is you are trying not to do – to break the habit.

Obviously, if you crave a cigarette, watching your favorite Seinfeld episode as a distraction is a fruitless exercise. The study itself is eye opening:

What strategies can people use to control unwanted habits? Past work has focused on controlling other kinds of automatic impulses, especially temptations. The nature of habit cuing calls for certain self-control strategies. Because the slow-to-change memory trace of habits is not amenable to change or reinterpretation, successful habit control involves inhibiting the unwanted response when activated in memory. In support, two episode-sampling diary studies demonstrated that bad habits, unlike responses to temptations, were controlled most effectively through spontaneous use of vigilant monitoring (thinking “don’t do it,” watching carefully for slipups). No other strategy was useful in controlling strong habits, despite that stimulus control was effective at inhibiting responses to temptations. A subsequent experiment showed that vigilant monitoring aids habit control, not by changing the strength of the habit memory trace but by heightening inhibitory, cognitive control processes. The implications of these findings for behavior change interventions are discussed.

It’s a pretty powerful thought: we can effectively change our behavior by repeating the negative actions to ourselves over and over. It also seems farfetched. However, I can openly state since implementation of the technique, I haven’t altered my fantasy lineup. And now I have a player in a bye week starting tonight. Ughhh. Success sucks.

Kap