The Small steps method

This is a combination of the first two methods of cold turkey and replacing your habit loop. For
people that really want to get rid of their bad habit but know that going completely cold turkey is not
going to work for them this is a good method.
What you have to do here is to take a close look at your behaviors and identify the triggers for the
bad habit. By doing this you can take small steps to gradually limit your indulgence in your bad habit.
A good example of this is to cut down the number of cigarettes that you smoke each day. So if you
regularly smoke 20 a day reduce this down to 19 then 18 and so on over a period of time. It is a
good idea to do this on a weekly basis. So week 1 you will smoke 19 a day, week 2 18 a day etc.
Having a regular milestone interval (such as a week) forces you to work towards the next
milestone (from 19 to 18 a day for example). If you do this consistently over time then these small
changes to your bad habit will help you to stop it altogether.
If you have a craving for candy then work out how much candy you consume each day. Reduce
this over time until you hardly eat any candy at all. The same goes for drinking alcohol and other
bad habits that you may have.
This is not a perfect method but it does work. We recommend that you assume from the beginning
that you may slip occasionally when you are using this method. If you do slip then don’t beat
yourself up. Just get back on the horse the next day and continue with your good work.
If you can quantify a bad habit (how many times do you do it over a certain period such as a day)
then this method has a very good chance of working for you. It does require discipline and
persistence which are good character traits for you to develop anyway.