(What Most Habit Change Advice Misses)
How do you break a bad habit?
It’s one of the most often asked questions in human history—and one of the least successfully answered.
Bookshelves worldwide are full of advice about changing bad habits into better ones. And they have been for centuries.
Yet despite all the recommendations that are available on how to break bad habits, those habits are as common today as they ever were––if not more.
Consider that for a moment! What this means, when you truly examine it, is that none of the mainstream tips on habit change actually work for most people.
Otherwise, anyone who wanted to change a deeply ingrained habit would just follow the advice and be done.
What we see instead is the exact opposite: intelligent, successful people caught in holding patterns of “trying” to change, forever.
Does this mean that we cannot break bad habits? That, no matter how unpleasant a habit feels to remain a part of our lives, or what negative effects it has on our mental health, we’re stuck with it?
Not in the least! It simply means that, if we are serious about breaking bad habits, we need to look deeper than tips and tricks.
We need to truly see why and how habits persist in the face of our efforts to change them.
And the first thing to see is one that can be quite challenging to grasp at first…
There is no such thing as “good habits” or “bad habits.”
There are only the habits that we have, and the results that they create.
We live in a judgmental world that labels everything under the sun as good or bad, right or wrong, correct or incorrect.
Of course, some habits cause real harm: substance abuse, emotional eating, violence. The second we moralize them, though, we trade understanding for guilt. And guilt gets us nowhere.
In fact, the very act of labeling habits as bad or wrong reinforces a binary mindset that limits our personal growth and self-awareness.
When we single out a habit that we have as “bad”, this doesn’t result in us instantly dropping the habit.
It actually strengthens the habit, and stretches its roots even deeper into our minds, by suppressing our curiosity about why we have it in the first place.
As soon as “badness” enters the equation, our brains think: “Oh no! If it’s bad, I have to get rid of it. No matter what!” With little further attention paid to why that habit even exists in our lives.
It also triggers what psychologists call reactance. When we or someone else calls one of our habits “bad”, we instantly sense that it’s trying to be taken away from us––which makes us cling to it.
Think of a teenager being told not to vape or drink alcohol because “it’s bad for you.” Does that make them more likely to stop? Or just get more creative about hiding it?
The whole lens of “breaking a bad habit” serves only to further cement that habit into place.
This is not a pie eating contest, or a wrestling match. It’s a delicate part of our inner world.
Which leads to the second overlooked truth behind true and natural habit change…
If we experience any difficulty breaking a habit, then secretly, we like it.
Now, when I say “secretly, we like it”, I’m not saying you “like it” in the way you like a piece of chocolate cake.
I don’t mean that every single moment you spend engaged in the habit is pleasant. Or that you enjoy all of the ramifications that it has in your life.
There may be things about this habit that you flat out despise! Yet, if it persists, there is some aspect of the habit you cannot bear to part with.
That’s the truth few wish to see: that the habits we say we hate are often the ones we secretly rely on to survive.
Abusing substances relieves painful thoughts. Eating junk foods hits the pause button on anxiety and stress. Biting your nails is a breather from boredom.
All habits form for a reason. Before they are good or bad or any other label, they’re real. They serve a specific, meaningful purpose in our emotional world.
And this one truth invalidates many of the social media tropes on habit change:
- “Start small”
- “Reward yourself for each day you don’t do it”
- “If you can just go 21 days, the new habit will stick”
Why? Because all of these recommendations try to forcibly change instincts that come from deep inside.
You would never try to topple a brick wall by pushing it with your bare hands. Yet that is exactly what most of the common advice on changing problematic or unhealthy habits amounts to.
Habits don’t persist because we haven’t found the “way” to get rid of them. They persist because we avoid a clear-eyed awareness OF them.
We don’t truly see what these habits are costing us. Or how reflexive and unconscious they often are. And THIS is why they continue, no matter what we “do” to change it.
Luckily, even if the limitations of habit change advice don’t feel good to hear, it does light the way for long term growth and happiness.
If there’s a habit you want to change, first discover the deeper reasons why it’s part of your life.
What’s fascinating is that most people (including many personal development experts) will tell you that truth and understanding are a waste of time:
- “Don’t overthink it”
- “The reasons don’t matter”
- “Just act! Change the habit now!”
This is because true self-honesty can be intense and uncomfortable. Sometimes, what we find are things we would rather not see.
So, instead of going there, we retreat into the safe haven of advice that makes us feel like we’re taking action…while actually gluing us to the very habits we would love to change.
Should you decide to explore the true nature of your habits, much of what you’ll find is personal, and cannot be predicted by me or anyone else.
However, one very likely finding will be this: there is no bigger vision for your life that makes your unwanted habits unacceptable.
If (like many people) you just sort of wake up every day and “do your life” on autopilot –– same coffee, same schedule, same conversations –– then this very inertia nourishes the habits that you have.
It’s as if your brain thinks: “Yeah, I know on some level this habit isn’t serving my best self…but I don’t even really know what that is. And it feels good sometimes. So why stop?”
Once you craft a burning vision for a life you love, this passive acceptance of poor habits begins to fall away.
Suddenly, your mind stands guard at the portal of your life. Flagging counterproductive behaviors and habits as the threats to your vision that they are. And generating the natural motivation to drop them.
The only questions left are: what is your vision?
Who do you truly want to be?
And what would they do?
Instead of trying to change an unwanted habit, create a vision that makes it obsolete. Listen to my free 13-minute guided meditation, Building the Vision of Your Dreams, and discover why change isn’t about force. It’s about seeing and living inside the energy of what you would truly love.
Thank you.
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