Q I have many bad habits I should like to change. How can I change them?

A Firstly, let's clear up what a habit is. A habit is something you do so often that it comes natural. You don't actually say what your bad habits are but I wouldn't suggest that you try changing all of your bad habits at once. Let's try a couple first.

Do this exercise on your own.

Write down three of your worst habits, the ones that if you changed them would make a positive difference in your life.

Now write down the consequences of your habits. For instance, you might have a habit of using your car to go everywhere. The consequences might be that you use a lot of petrol on short journeys and you get less exercise than you could.

Now write down one new habit that you would like to adopt for each bad habit that you wrote down. Don't worry about how you can do it yet, just write down the new habit that, if you adopted it, would make a positive difference to your life. Now write down the benefits of adopting your new habit.

For instance: I am not going to use my car for any journey under one mile. The benefit will be that I will use a lot less petrol and I will get a little fitter along the way. Statistically if you do something for 21 consecutive days you will form a new habit. Good luck.

Updated: 09:00 Monday, September 30, 2002