What Never To Do When Trying To Stop Biting Nails

Many nail biters make a fundamental mistake when trying to stop nail biting. And without realizing it, they undermine their greatest efforts and cause all their best attempts to go up in flames. They start out well and find themselves more able than usual to resist the urge. With a heightened focus, they are more conscious of their biting habit and manage to keep a distance to their nails.

In many cases, the fingernails even start to grow out. They can already see how the white tips on the end of the fingernails start to become longer and longer. Sometimes, they even hear comments from friends and family saying that they are surprised to see their fingernails growing that long.

But then something happens: They catch themselves nibbling on their fingernails in an unguarded moment, but only after the damage has been done. They then blame themselves for a lack of self-discipline and beat themselves up.

The mistake is that they start out without any kind of plan. They simply think that if they only force themselves more vigorously and keep sticking to their resolution with enough self-discipline, they will be able to kick their habit.

They don't have any idea about what lies ahead and how they are going to manage it. It's a bit like building a house. You wouldn't just start out looking for a hammer, a couple of nails and a few wooden boards. You would carefully choose the architect, then get together the best workers and materials, and only then you would start building. But somehow when we are trying to break a bad habit such as nail biting, we think that we can just get out there and do it.

The reality, however, is that we have to question which techniques actually work and get results before we just jump into the process. That way we dramatically increase our chances of success and are more likely to reach out outcome of long, beautiful fingernails. We need to know which challenges we will be facing, how we will deal with it and what we can do to minimize such obstacles in advance. We need to get a clear understanding on what triggers nail biting, then have solid techniques to cope with the powerful urge and then know how long it will take.