What is the one thing holding you back from becoming who you are supposed to be? Do you waste more time than you’d like to admit? Maybe you have a tendency to overindulge your cravings? Do you drink too much? Have you repeatedly tried to quit smoking but failed?
Whoever you are, whatever your circumstances: you are highly likely to have one or more bad habits holding you back from living a healthier, wealthier, happier life.
This is your ultimate guide to breaking bad habits. No bullshit, no vague concepts and no fluff. Just actionable and scientifically substantiated advice.
You don’t have to use all of the tips provided simultaneously – you should be able to see real results by merely applying one or two. If you consistently apply all 10, you would have taken a substantial step towards metamorphosing into a Sapiens Maximus – the best version you could be.
You should also check out our ultimate guide on building good habits. While these two articles have substantial overlaps, we have designed each article so that it stands on its own.
Breaking Bad Habits Tip #1: Cultivate Awareness
A critical component of breaking bad habits is developing awareness. How do you typically spend your time? Are there clear identifiable patterns? Habits, by definition, are automatic. This means that they dictate and shape your life without you really noticing.
Where The Heck Has The Time Gone?
It’s not uncommon to wonder at the end of a day where all the time has gone. To get a weekly screen report and learn that you spent an average of six hours per day last week on meaningless crap – from YouTube videos to mindless social media posts.
It’s painful enough to waste that much time in a single day. Don’t be in a position 10 years from now where you look back and wonder where the heck all the time has gone.
The key is to identify your unhealthy habits and break the bad cycles NOW.
Where It Starts: The Habit Cue/Trigger
To familiarize yourself with your bad habits cycles, you need to understand what is underpinning them. Each habit – whether positive or negative – has a cue or trigger. For example, you could get into a fight with your partner. Maybe have a bad day at work or go through an embarrassing situation to top it off. As soon as you feel upset, you instinctively stuff your face with anything you could put your hands on.
One hypothesis is that you use food as a means of comfort. Devouring food (especially unhealthy, “comfort” food) becomes a coping mechanism. It becomes the one thing you resort to when you feel upset. If you pay attention, and notice a clear pattern, you’d be in a position not only to identify the destructive behaviour but also, very importantly, the cue (e.g. feeling upset).
This knowledge is key when applying the other 9 tips in this article.
OK. But How Do You ACTUALLY Develop Awareness?
One thing you could do is use a weekly activity schedule (“WAS”). This is for example used in cognitive behavioural therapy and is, in our experience, tremendously helpful. You can find a downloadable WAS by doing a quick Google search. See for example the WAS on this (random, non-affiliated) website.
Fundamentally, it comes down to keeping track of what you do and developing awareness – whatever that looks like. Experiment and see what works best for you.
While this step seems obvious, it is often overlooked. Our tendency is to ignore our problems, look the other way. The truth makes us uncomfortable. However, the first step to fixing any problem is recognizing its existence. As Jordan Peterson puts it in Beyond Order:“Do not hide unwanted things in the fog.”
Once you become fairly familiar with your habits and their triggers, it’s time to wrestle with them. Breaking well-established habits isn’t going to be easy. However, the below tactics should give you a fighting chance.
Breaking Bad Habits Tip #2: Make The Necessary Mental Shift
Homo Sapiens has intuitively understood the power of self-perception throughout the ages. The Buddha said that “what you think, so shall you become”. Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote that “our life is what our thoughts make it”.
Interestingly, scientific studies demonstrating this basic precept are mounting. For example, one study on adolescents with heart disease has shown that self-perception explained the most variance in behavioural and health-related quality of life.
Another study led by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck showed that signs of deteriorating willpower and self-control (i.e. “ego depletion”) were manifest only in test subjects who believed that willpower is a finite source.
The outcome of these scientific studies and others is hardly surprising. It’s something people have intuitively understood since ancient times.
The point is this: the first step towards breaking a habit is to change the way you perceive yourself. It’s about having the right self-dialogue and, ultimately, a deeply rooted image of yourself that is compatible with your goals.
While this is the most abstract and hard to action tip on the list, it’s the most important. Below are some practical suggestions to help you implement it.
Draft a Personal Manifesto
In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill recommends writing a personal manifesto setting out exactly who you want to be and what you want to achieve. While Hill primarily focuses on monetary success, you could use this strategy for any objective. This includes the kind of person you want to become. Interestingly, Bruce Lee allegedly used this process himself. Below is a letter he wrote in 1969 well before achieving any of his success and fame.
“My Definite Chief Aim”:
“I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental super star in the United States. In return I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor.Starting 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness.” – Bruce Lee, Jan 1969
Draft a personal manifesto of who you want to be. Make sure you read it every morning and night. If your mind is already focused on a new identity that embraces health and wealth, you’ll be in a substantially better position than someone who is e.g. “aiming” to workout or save money but who self-identifies as lazy and wasteful.
Your self-perception and self-dialogue are immensely powerful. This is not some “New Age”, vague wooshy washy statement. Instead, as we have seen, it is a scientifically substantiated and supremely practical fact. It’s time you start using it to your advantage.
How Would [Role Model] Act?
“Without a ruler to do it against, you can’t make crooked straight.”
Seneca
Are there people you admire? What do you admire about them? People you admire a.k.a. “Role Models” don’t have to be people in your life. They don’t even have to be real. They could be completely fictional characters – from movies you’ve seen or books you’ve read.
The key thing is for these “Role Models” to have characteristics that you want to develop. You don’t have to aspire to be like these people in every way. You could instead cherry pick the characteristics that you most admire about them. For example, a fitness icon could be a degenerate person. You could still model your fitness journey after them but look for moral guidance elsewhere.
The key thing when breaking a habit or, more fundamentally, developing a new identity is to ask yourself: How would [Role Model] deal with this situation? Would they reach out for that extra fudgy chocolate brownie when upset or would they consistently choose healthier options because discipline > fleeting feelings?
By comparing your intended action against the action of a “Role Model”, you make what’s crooked straight. Gradually, if you behave like your “Role Model” long enough, you develop whatever characteristics you admire about them.
Win the “Identity Election”
James Clear uses a good analogy in Atomic Habits. Once you decide who you want to be, prove it to yourself with your daily actions. Just like an election, your new identity doesn’t have to unanimously win. It just needs to get a majority of the votes.
When done consistently over months and years, the virtuous cycle becomes ever stronger. Your desired identity dictates your daily actions and your daily actions further reinforce your desired identity.
Breaking Bad Habits Tip #3: Set Your Environment for Success
Willpower is overrated. A key to long-term sustainable change is optimally designing your environment. Objective is for you to minimise reliance on fleeting emotions such as willpower and motivation. This concept has been widely discussed in the habits building literature – from Atomic Habits to Tiny Habits and beyond.
As James Clear puts it: “you could either be the victim of your environment or its architect”. Our environment has tremendous influence over our behaviour, whether positive or negative. It’s time you start using this fact to your advantage.
So how exactly should we design our environment? As already mentioned, every habit starts with a cue or trigger. One way you could use your environment to your advantage is to make unwanted cues/triggers invisible.
If you want to quit sugar, you shouldn’t keep hoards of chocolates and sweets in your kitchen and rely on willpower to abstain. Sooner or later, you’re going to slip. After a bad day, the chance of you successfully abstaining is close to zero – especially if you have a tendency to resort to food as a coping mechanism (as a lot of people do). Instead of relying on willpower, you should get rid of anything sweet in your house. If you want to quit alcohol, don’t socialise with your friends at bars. If staying at a hotel, ask the staff to remove all alcohol from the mini-bar before your arrival.
Fundamentally, when trying to design your environment, focus on (i) eliminating the cue/trigger of your bad habit and/or (ii) making the performance of the bad habit impossible or at least substantially more difficult/costly.
This strategy is also powerful for building good habits – you can check it out here.
Breaking Bad Habits Tip #4: Find A Substitute
In a nutshell, and in its simplest form, a habit consists of (i) a cue/craving which triggers (ii) a routine that leads to (iii) a reward. For example, a cue might be (i) feeling upset which triggers (ii) binge eating which leads to (iii) a (short-lived) feeling of comfort/pleasure.
You might want to stop your habit of binge eating. However, the cue/craving (e.g. feeling upset) is invariably bound to arise. Once you identify the unhealthy dynamic (using tip #1 above), a key way to break the cycle would be to substitute the old, undesired routine with a new, healthier one.
For example, next time you feel upset, acknowledge this emotional state. Once you detect the cue/craving, you are going to instinctively feel the urge to binge. However, this time, equipped with awareness, make an effort to pause and mediate for 5 minutes instead. There is no shortage of options when it comes to guided meditations – Headspace and Calm are two good ones.
It will undoubtedly feel uncomfortable and forced in the beginning. Your cravings will continuously lure you to the rocks – as the Sirens tried to do with Odysseus. However, the first time is the most difficult and it only gets easier from there. With time, your brain starts associating feeling upset (trigger) with meditation (routine) – ultimately leading to a calmer emotional and mental state (reward). You can use any other desired routine instead of meditation, depending on what works best for you. For example, you could swap meditation for having a cup of tea or going on a short walk.
Key point is that you should replace your destructive habit routine with a healthier one – you can’t afford to have a void because this would be the surest way to relapse.
Breaking Bad Habits Tip #5: Make The Habit Unattractive
There are different ways you could make a habit unattractive. We discuss one of these below (tip #9 on creating accountability). This tip however is about cognitively wrestling with a habit.
In many instances, our minds play tricks on us. We rationalize why doing the bad habit is good – or at least not as bad as it actually is. We convince ourselves, cognitively, that doing the habit “one more time” is fine or even encouraged in some instances (YOLO and all that kind of crap). Even worse, we might not even think about the consequences altogether.
The key is to list out the distinct disadvantages of performing this habit – both immediate and long term ones. Be as clear and precise as possible. For balance, you should also list out what you think the advantages are.
Usually with bad habits, the advantages are illusory. After careful examination, any advantage other than the immediate pleasure derived is likely to fall apart. If you do this exercise correctly, by the end of critically assessing the pros and cons, you should be incensed as to how you didn’t quit this habit AGES ago.
Smoking: A Non-Sensical Activity?
This is at least partially why many people accredit Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking with breaking their smoking habit. By the end of the book, smoking seems like the most ridiculous idea ever. After thoroughly thinking about it, you realize that there is no logical way you could defend your smoking habit – any justifications you come up with are excuses for your biological dependency.
Equipping yourself with the necessary knowledge to push back against your mind’s tricks and indifference is key. However, it is by no means sufficient. You could know without a doubt that something is highly detrimental to you. Yet you might struggle to quit – as is common with addictions. This tip is therefore not sufficient on its own: it works in addition to / together with the other ones in this article (and medical assistance, where relevant).
Breaking Bad Habits Tip #6: Don’t Break The Chain (“DBC”)
Get a calendar. Make sure you hang it somewhere conspicuous. For each day you abstain from your bad habit, put a big X over that day. After couple of days you’ll have a chain. Your mission is simple (but by no means easy): grow this chain without ever breaking it.
While you could technically use a digital habits tracker, we found that doing this with a physical calendar is more effective. There is something oddly satisfying about manually drawing an X for each successful day. However, ultimately, the principle is the same. If in doubt, try both methods and see which one works best for you.
Fundamentally, this habit seems to work because it gamifies your attempts to break bad habits. Relapsing becomes immediately painful, as you would technically have to restart from ground zero. Growing the chain therefore becomes a concrete, tangible, visible way of trying to win – or at least not lose.
Breaking Bad Habits Tip #7: Never Miss Twice (“NMT”)
Although the recommendation is to never break the chain per the above, life happens. When you slip for a day, don’t despair. Consistency is key – but consistency doesn’t mean perfection.
When you slip for a day, the NMT rule serves as a safety net. By ensuring that you don’t slip on two consecutive days, you substantially weaken the bad habit’s hold over you. In a worst case scenario, you would still abstain from your bad habit at least 50% of the time.
This rule helps you with the most important rule of all: staying in the fight. Occasionally being down, but never out!!!
Breaking Bad Habits Tip #8: Abandon Binary Thinking
Most of us are susceptible to all or nothing thinking. Whenever we “slip”, our mind convinces us to go all the way. After all, tomorrow is a new day. Since I already failed today, I might as well go for it and fully indulge my cravings. The one bar of chocolate therefore turns into a binge eating fiasco. One drink turns into way too many.
This approach is as ridiculous as it sounds. Yet it happens more often than we would like to admit. Below are suggested steps you can use to combat binary thinking.
Combating Binary Thinking Step #1: Detect Binary Tendencies Early
Be mindful of your thoughts and catch binary thinking tendencies early. As soon as you “slip”, make a conscious effort to pause for a moment and reflect. Have some water and breathe. One way you could develop this “awareness” of your emotions and thoughts is through meditation.
Combating Binary Thinking Step #2: Cognitively Challenge Your Binary Tendency
Realize that the black and white division – the all or nothing approach – is a mere figment of our imagination. Instead of perceiving your diet as binary, think of it as a spectrum.
For example, eating sugar might have taken you a bit further along the spectrum, but it is by no means a justification for allowing yourself to go further into the red zone. Same with all the other habits you are trying to quit.
If thinking in terms of a spectrum isn’t working very well for you, find something that does (while maintaining the same fundamental idea of a continuum). For example, you could think of a bad habits account. The more you indulge in your bad habit, the more points are deducted from your account. The more you abstain, the more points are added. Thinking in binary terms is therefore non-sensical – your body and mind keep the cumulative score.
Combating Binary Thinking Step #3: Adopt A Helpful Emotional Response
If you are like most of us, when you slip, you are likely to feel guilt, shame and frustration. The key is to replace these feelings with a sense of acceptance. What’s done is done. Importantly, have a sense of curiosity. Approach your slips like a scientist approaching a failed scientific experiment. What went wrong here? How can I fix it next time?
Don’t rely on your memory – make a record of your thoughts instead. Next time you catch the binary tendency (per step 1 above), refer to your notes. It’s very much you against you, so keep experimenting until you succeed.
Combating Binary Thinking Step #4: Leverage Your Environment
Ideally, you should not rely on willpower alone once you “slip”. Instead, you should make further indulging impossible or at least very difficult.
For example, if you have just failed your NOFAP challenge, don’t stay in your dark room and contemplate your existence and the meaning of life. Put on your clothes and go on a walk. Be around people. Stay busy.
Ultimately, the key is to be mindful and to catch these tendencies early in the thought process. Once you do, with trial and error, you will find what works best for you. In turn, abandoning binary thinking will drastically increase the efficiency of your attempts to break any bad habits.
Breaking Bad Habits Tip #9: Create Accountability
It is hardly controversial to say that we are wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The challenge comes from the mismatch in timelines – what is often pleasurable in the moment is painful in the long term and vice versa.
The key here is to use this basic fact to your advantage. You need to create a dynamic whereby (i) your failure to abstain from a bad habit becomes immediately painful and (ii) your success in doing so delivers immediate pleasure. One way to do so is to create accountability.
Some Ways For Creating Accountability
There are various ways to get there. One interesting tactic is to make your efforts public. For example, there has been a growing trend of various YouTubers publicly committing to a challenge. Matt D’Avella, a top notch YouTuber, has tried various public 30 day challenges. Every time he fails to execute, I would imagine that the prospect of public humiliation (or perceived public humiliation) hangs over his head. By creating accountability, having nothing to show for at the end of the day is no longer a failure that will haunt you at some point in the future. It becomes an almost immediate, costly failure.
Other people use different strategies. For example, automatic donations to an opposing political party. Yet another one would be sharing your progress with someone you respect and whose opinion matters to you. For each strategy, there are a number of apps you can find and use – often free of charge.
Breaking Bad Habits Tip #10: Develop a Support System
Jim Rohn famously said: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
While you should take this quote with a pinch of salt, it is certainly true that your social environment plays a massive role in your development and, more generally, success.
As Darren Hardy puts it in The Compound Effect: “According to research by social psychologist Dr. David McClelland of Harvard, [the people you habitually associate with] determine as much as 95 percent of your success or failure in life.”
Having an adequate support system and surrounding yourself with the right people is just as vital when you’re trying to quit bad habits.
If you want to eat healthy and train, limit the time you spend with friends who are overweight and would rather be couch potatoes than get physically active.
Generally, to the extent possible, design a social environment that aligns with your objectives. If this is not possible at the moment, as the saying goes, stand by yourself instead of standing with the wrong crowd. Slowly, as you focus on your objectives, the right people start coming into your life.
In the meantime, and regardless of anything else, your Sapiens Maximus tribe is here for you.
Bottom Line
In this article, we discussed 10 well-proven strategies for breaking bad habits. We appreciate it’s a lot to take in – as always, we try to provide you with loads of substantive, actionable content. However, don’t feel overwhelmed. If you consistently apply one of the tips or a combination, you will be doing yourself a ton of good.
We recommend that you also check our ultimate guide to building good habits. From cleaning up your diet to developing an exercise routine, building good habits and breaking bad ones is key.
Together, these two articles should provide you with an executional framework that will serve you well regardless of your objectives. However, as we always say at Sapiens Maximus, it’s not knowledge that’s power but rather applied knowledge. So make sure you put the tips you learnt in this article to practice.
As always, we wish you good luck on your journey to strength in adversity, calm amidst the storms, relentless resilience and uncompromising health.
Your self-proclaimed family –
The Sapiens Maximus team
Sources & Further Readings
(1) Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones – James Clear
(2) The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change – Charles Duhigg
(3) Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything – BJ Fogg
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