At this time of year, people often want to rid themselves of negative habits. Changing a habit is not an easy process. Habits are beneficial because they’re automatic. We engage in habits without thinking, which frees our brains up to focus on other things. When we have good habits, like arriving at work on time or being optimistic, we create a positive, ingrained forward motion that we don’t have to think about. We can then use our energy to focus on things.
However, the same is true of bad habits. We engage in these behaviors without much thought, and they can damage our personal lives and careers without us being aware of them.
Every habit you have — good or bad — follows the same 3–step pattern.
- Reminder (the trigger that initiates the behavior)
- Routine (the behavior itself; the action you take)
- Reward (the benefit you gain from doing the behavior)
Using the 3 R’s listed above, let us break down a typical habit. For example, answering a phone call…
- Your phone rings (reminder). This is the reminder that initiates the behavior. The ring acts as a trigger or cue to tell you to answer the phone. It is the prompt that starts the behavior.
- You answer your phone (routine).This is the actual behavior. When your phone rings, you answer the phone.
- You find out who is calling (reward).This is the reward (or punishment, depending on who is calling). The reward is the benefit gained from doing the behavior. You wanted to find out why the person on the other end was calling you and discovering that piece of information is the reward for completing the habit.
You can break bad habits and, in most cases, replace them with positive behaviors.
This can seem overwhelming. But stop and think about the last time you kicked a bad habit for good. It felt great, didn’t it? Remember, your bad habit could be damaging your reputation and career, and it’s well worth putting in time and effort in to overcome it.
Keep in mind that there isn’t a “one size fits all” approach to bad habits. You’ll likely need a combination of strategies to be successful!
Why Bad Habits are Hard to Break:
The main reason that bad habits are hard to break is down to what researchers call our “cognitive script” – these are the unconscious, automatic thoughts that we have when we encounter a situation. These unconscious thoughts are based on previous experiences. So, if the situation is one that we’ve encountered many times before, we engage in ingrained behaviors without thinking about what we’re doing. Our actions have become habitual. Much of the time, bad habits are also hard to break simply because they begin as enjoyable activities, which we want to repeat. (For example, we might enjoy surfing the net instead of working, or sending emails from our smartphones during meetings.) This is because, when we do pleasurable things, our brains release dopamine, a chemical that activates the brain’s reward center. This encourages us to do those things again, and the activity becomes a habit.
So what helps us break bad habits?
Bringing the habit into your conscious thinking
Figure out when — and why — you bite your nails, crack your knuckles, or engage in any other bad habit. “If you can notice when you are doing it and under what circumstances and what feelings are attached to it, you might be able to figure out why you are doing it and be able to stop,” says Susan Jaffe, MD, a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City. Studies show that having a conscious plan helps you get started with overcoming bad habits. You can’t just say “I’m going to stop wasting time surfing the Internet” and expect to succeed. You have to come up with a concrete plan to make this happen. A good way to do this is to incorporate habit-breaking into your personal goals. This helps you ensure that you review your progress on a regular basis, and work on your most damaging habits first. Once you’ve come up with a plan, add prompts and milestones into your list as a reminder of what you want to achieve.
Developing Self-Discipline and Self-Awareness
Studies have also found that constant self-vigilance is necessary to break a bad habit. This means watching yourself for slip-ups, and reminding yourself why you want to break the habit in the first place. To do this, work on your self-discipline and willpower, so that you can develop the persistence and motivation you need in order to stop the behavior. In addition, build self-awareness to stay aware of how you are thinking and feeling. (Self-awareness is also key to recognizing your bad habits in the first place.)
Putting It in Writing So It Really Sinks In
“Log it,” says Janet L. Wolfe, PhD, a clinical psychologist in New York City and author of several books including What to Do When He Has a Headache. This will help you establish a baseline, she says. “Put down the antecedents, the emotions surrounding the knuckle cracking and what goes through your head when you crack your knuckles,” she says. “This will make your bad habit more conscious.”
Wolfe suggests keeping the log for at least a week. The next step is to analyze the data and look at what your usual triggers are. “Do you do it when you are anxious or bored?”
James Claiborn, PhD, a psychologist in South Portland, Maine, and the co-author of The Habit Change Workbook, agrees. “Write out a list of the pros and cons of this behavior and keep a record of when you do it,” he tells WebMD. “Measurement of anything tends to change it and makes people much more aware in the first place.”
Choosing the Right Approach
Some people find it effective to quit a behavior all at once, while others have more success limiting the behavior slowly over time. As such, it’s important to find an approach that works well for you. (This will probably depend on the type of habit you’re trying to break.) To use the Internet example, instead of going “cold turkey,” you could limit yourself to five minutes of surfing every hour. Then at weekly intervals, you could cut this down to five minutes every two hours, five minutes every three hours, and so on.
Acknowledge
Rationalization is the art of coming up with facts to defend something that is indefensible. The moment you can see through the smokescreen of your rationalizations and admit that something you do is compulsive and harmful is the moment you can start to take action.
Isolate
Part of the rationalization process is seeing your habit as the inevitable result of other things in your life. For example, “I binge on ice cream because I’m frustrated, because my job is lousy, because I have a bad boss.” This leads to the very wrong conclusion that the only way to stop binging on ice cream is to get a new boss. No one denies that your life will be better by improving your work situation. However, the problem at hand is eating too much ice cream, period. By isolating the action you want to change, you can address it directly — and succeed more easily.
Pairings
Isolating a habit makes sense when the perceived trigger of causes is long or complicated. But research shows that sometimes, it does help to tackle a few bad habits at the same time, if they are closely linked. For example, if you watch lots of TV and snack too much while doing it, then attack both habits at the same time. You’ll have a greater chance of success this way.
Want
Facts are weak motivators. For example, knowing that your daily butter and bagel is increasing your heart-disease risk by 17 percent likely won’t get you to give it up. To change, you also need the support of your heart and soul. Only when your desire to end a habit is deep and strong will you have the drive and willpower to succeed. So seek deeper, more emotional reasons to make the change. Ponder the future you want, and the joys that await you. Let them motivate you to act.
Bait and Switch
Once you realize when and why you are biting your nails, cracking your knuckles, or engaging in any other bad habit, the next logical step is to find a not-quite-as-annoying temporary or permanent replacement for it. “If you are a nail biter, try gum,” Jaffee says. “For throat clearing, the competing response may be some sort of slow exhaling because it is impossible to do that and clear your throat at same time,” Claiborn says. “Develop a way of breathing whenever you feel the urge to clear your throat. You can see some changes in a very short period of time. There will be a major reduction in throat clearing within days.”
If knuckle cracking is your way of coping with stress, Wolfe, says, “Try getting your hands in a position where you won’t be able to crack your knuckles. Or stroke the fabric of your sleeve, doodle, or do something else with your hands.” Meditation may also help break bad habits, she adds. Once you have identified the triggers, you can do meditation to distract yourself next time you are in a trigger situation.
Continued in part 2…