collectively form the habit. Here are 7 tips to stopping unwanted behaviors.
1. Know the cause
Without knowing what causes you or your pet to behave in a certain way, you would not be able to directly attract the problem and eliminate it. Look at your pet or yourself for a week or so and note everything that has to deal with the behavior that you want to eliminate.
2. Eliminate triggers
After finding out the causes of the behavior, change the environment so to eliminate the pressure that cause the behavior to arise. Even after you change the environment, some behaviors can still persist, and when they do, move on with the next tip.
3. Create punishment situations
Punishment should be painful so that the brain associates it with negative rewards. Constant punishment will force the brain to think of ways of avoiding it,and that is really helpful for behavior change.The only precaution to take is moderation of the punishment to prevent resistance may develop after too much pain.
4. Stay positive
Some behaviors take time to change. Always be optimistic and the attitude will rub off to everything that you do.
5. Use rewards
Whether you are changing your behavior, a pet’s behavior, or someone else’s behavior, give rewards whenever something positive happens. Rewards help to rewire the brain so that it is always anticipating more, and this leads to an eventual change of behavior.
6. Replace the behavior
It is easy to revert to the unwanted behavior when there is nothing else to do on its part, and the best way to guard against this tendency is to come up with alternative behaviors. As you encourage the stoppage of a behavior, so should you promote the adoption of a more positive one.
7. Add on the progress already made
Changing complex behaviors takes time, and is very hard. Breaking the task into simple steps is beneficial because it reduces the stress associated with behavior change. Once you are able to create change in tiny sizes, building on that success will help you make changes on other aspects on the behavior and eventually you will have changed something that seemed too hard in the beginning.