Everyone's #1 question is usually how to get over their BFRBs. The answer is that there won't be a way over or around, you will have to go through and work with them. This entry is meant to help distill this sort of behavioral change down to 5 major variables. Perhaps the most important thing I've learned as a general approach is that surrender contributes to change more easily and sustainably than any overt management efforts.
I may add to or modify this list over time, but it does encapsulate that change is about much more than pure will:
Objectivity - This is 90% of the work to me. Most people have such judgmental thoughts and feelings about their BFRBs that they can't incorporate the reality of them into their planning or decision making. Imagine someone who chronically loses track of time. They desperately don't want this to be true so they keep acceptance of it at bay, clinging onto belief (even if entirely wishful) that they will remember to feed the meter or move the car when it's street cleaning this time. Tickets and towing fees pile while no ameliorative measures are put in place. Once this person can come to terms with the fact that they have weaknesses when it comes to time, they can begin setting alarms, using mobile parking/payment apps, or handing over the task of moving the car on street cleaning days to their partner! Objectivity is required to be able to evaluate a situation like this clearly, and to determine what is needed within it. Too often what we WANT to be true gets in the way of dealing with what IS true. Returning back to BFRBs, this means that you have to be able to approach you and your situation with enough non-judgment to be able to anticipate pulling-prone moments, to say when you really would like to continue biting for another 5 minutes, or to recognize that what you really need in this moment is not smoother skin but a hug from a friend.
Ownership - The capacity to choose does not always translate to the willingness to choose. We can be stubborn as human beings, and resistant to doing things we feel like we "should" or that someone else wants of us. This is true with BFRBs too. Even if you possess enough objectivity to make clear decisions, the feeling that your good outcome is going to belong to someone else is hardly reinforcing. This is why someone else swatting your hand away or telling you to stop usually inspires the opposite. It is also why reminders to track, suggestions to go for a walk, or utterances of, "I knew you could do it" or "I'm so proud of you" can irritate even if well intended. Unless this was aid or feedback you explicitly asked for, it can feel like unwelcome insertions of another's feelings or preferences about YOUR behavior. Even if it is a "bad" behavior, it is still YOUR possession pertaining to YOUR body. Change will not come until you feel agency over your moment-to-moment decisions to pull or not pull/pick or not pick/bite or not bite, which is understandably difficult to cultivate internally in a society that features clearly and ubiquitously expressed opinions!
Momentum - This one is rather simple but commonly overlooked. Momentum has to do with the energy to keep going. It is MUCH easier to maintain a state of non-pulling when you're boasting a whole head of hair - there is something you can concretely feel you're protecting. Inversely, it is really hard to get motivated when you have all your fingernails whittled down to barely-there stubs. The resignation of "What's the point?" is strong. A feeling of POSSIBILITY is critical to motivation, so be compassionate that you may not be able to do the most with the least.
Facilitative environment - Not all this work is internal. There is a real external world that plays into your success. I have not come into my "success" (always subjectively defined) with my BFRB from internal work alone, but it was my internal work that helped me to initiate concordant, external changes. This included changes to my occupation, which is now based primarily on human instead of computer interaction, and on private practice instead of corporate membership; my hobbies, which grow the relationship with my body to offset the one with my mind; and my people relationships, which I have narrowed down to compassionate, flexible thinking, and emotionally honest types. You can do all sorts of intellectual or insight-oriented work and not see progress if you remain in toxic workplaces or with ill-fitting people.
Whole and real relating - It can be hard to give up your BFRBs when they are a physical manifestation of your private truth that you don't have it all together. Individuals with BFRBs tend to hold oppressively high standards for themselves, and picking, pulling, and biting can serve as a confined place for not caring, not thinking, and not controlling. It can also be the container and the proof of your messiness, failures, and fear so that you can temper the burden of total perfection. But everyone deep down wants to be seen as they truly and fully are, and if you can learn to allow for your needs, questions, and suffering to be represented openly, outwardly, and in their original form, there will be no need for them to be expressed on your face, scalp, back, hands, or legs. Choosing to relate to yourself and others in a whole and real way means that it will be OK to not have it all together - this will be an expectable part of being HUMAN. It requires a decentering of your lifelong preoccupation with what is smart, good, agreeable, or right, and favoring of personal congruence instead. The things you don't know, the times you hurt or hate, and the times you just don't feel like it will no longer be dangerous. Refuge isn't necessary when you live with freedom!