We’ve all been there in some way. Addiction is something that can threaten to tear our whole lives apart if we let it. And while a lot of us have “harmless” addictions like sugar, there are plenty of us who have a little bit too much to drink at the weekend, or we feel like we need to have a cigarette to calm down. And then one turns into 25, it can happen. And peer pressure or things like “social drinking” have become an excusable way to consume vast quantities of it. It’s not fun, and if you ever recognize that you may have a problem, you need to address it.
There are so many professional resources at your disposal or facilities like drying-out clinics or counselors, and while these are a great help, the reason behind controlling addiction starts with one thing, your mindset. To delve deeper into this, the reason we crave something is because it makes us feel good in one way or another. A lot has been spoken of how we get a dopamine “hit” from our smartphone, and why social media can be dangerous for developing addictive personalities, it is because it is giving us something that makes us feel good, albeit briefly. So, inevitably, we go back for more because we like the feeling. The same applies for any substance or food or anything you’d care to think of, which is why it’s so hard to break the cycle.
So how do we make sure we’re in the mindset to give up? Well, it’s not just about flicking it on like a switch, if it were, we’d all be able to give up everything. It’s all about finding the right mindset that will help you exert control over your cravings. Control is the operative word, and you are the only person that can help yourself in this matter, which is why it’s hard for people to see their loved ones succumb to addiction because they can't do anything to fix it. They can try and help in whatever way they can, but ultimately all the influences around are merely new triggers for you to make that step to overcoming an addiction.
One simple way your mindset can work for beating an addiction is by changing your attitude. You may have seen self-help seminars where people are talking to themselves and repeating affirmations. This can easily sound like the work of a hippy Zen master who eats grass and is away with the fairies, but the one thing you should take away from positive affirmations is a scientific one. It is a fact that your brain cannot tell the difference between what is reality and what is fiction. Have you ever gone into a task and thought “I'm not going to be able to do this” and then, what a surprise, you can't do it. You already told yourself you weren’t going to be able to do it and because you believed it, lo and behold, that’s what happened. It’s also known as the self-fulfilling prophecy. Many people complain of feeling stuck in their lives and find fault in everything else around them, not themselves. This is purely about mindset, nothing else. If bad things happen to you all the time, you expect bad things to happen. It’s all glass half-full stuff.
So try positive self-talk. And it’s not just about the act of doing it that will accomplish it. The best actors, athletes, politicians and anyone you'd care to think of have very likely tried this process. And they’ll tell you that it was about visualizing that trophy or seeing that accomplishment in sheer 3-D, as tangible as possible is what spurred them on, because they tricked their brain into making this a reality. You can find many tools online for this, but even by saying to yourself for 15 minutes a day something like “I’m completely unstoppable” over and over again, and mean it, you are going to believe it. Of course, this is one tool to beating addiction, the one thing to make results appear and stick with you is all about making a lifestyle for you that limits these triggers. In the modern world, you can get anything from around the corner, and it will set us all up for bad habits to reappear. So bear in mind that forming a habit can take up to two months for it to become automatic in your mind. So if you try anything, take control of your mindset first, and it will help you to overcome
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