The Lazy Person’s Guide To Breaking Bad Habits
Because grind culture is so 2008.
Everyone has a bad habit. Or twelve.
We all want to get better, but we come up with excuse after excuse —
“It takes too long.”
“I want to, but I just don’t know how.”
“I always lose motivation.”
“I try, then by day 3, I rebound.”
“30 days to build discipline? Too much!”
No matter. Today is your lucky day. I’m going to share the four steps that I’ve used to break (most of) my bad habits.
I am not a magician. Nor am I a motivation guru. I’m a normal person, who has normal bad habits. However, I’ve come up with a foolproof system that has done two major things:
A) It’s broken most of my bad habits
B) It’s allowed me to improve every (yes, every) aspect of my life in the last 12 months.
Let’s get it.
1) Think About It (5 minutes)
Easy peasy. What is your worst bad habit? Close your eyes. Get it crystal clear in your mind. The first step to solving it is identifying it. Here is a good prompt for you to get the gears turning:
“What’s your biggest daily source of shame?”
Maybe it’s procrastination. Overeating? Undereating? Can’t even spell exercise? Maybe you’re a chronic nail-biter. Perhaps you’re addicted to people-pleasing? The list goes on and there’s no wrong answer. Just pick one thing that you’d love to improve in the next 25 minutes.
2) Start With Why (5 minutes)
My old weakness?
Sugar, baby.
I won’t get into details, but let’s just say that at the rate I was going, I’m lucky I’m not pre-diabetic. Sugar was my inhaler, and I was Kirby.
So if I can change, you can too.
The next step is simple. You need to uncover what needs are being met by your bad habit. You can find this out by asking one question, 5 times:
“WHY?”
Seriously, it’s that easy. Ask yourself WHY 5 times.
Here’s my personal example, for reference:
My bad habit = I stuff my face with sugar.
Why?
Because it makes me feel better.
Why?
Because it reduces my stress.
Why?
Because it distracts me from my problems.
Why?
Because my life is full of things I don’t enjoy.
Why?
Because I’m not prioritizing the things that make me happy.
Bingo.
My core need?
To have a happier life.
I ate sugar to treat the symptoms of my unmet need — without actually fixing it. In fact, this is one of the reasons why bad habits, addictions, and self-sabotage even exist. We use these tools to numb ourselves to the pain caused by unmet needs, instead of just filling the deeper need. Distractions are unsustainable. The more we distract ourselves, the more we neglect our growth.
Eating sugar didn’t solve anything, it just allowed me to treat my feelings at a surface level. It was short-lived. And when it died, reality was always there, staring me in the face. I had to figure out a way to really deal with my problems — sans daily pancreas murder.
Once you know what core need is being filled by your habit, it’s time for step three.
3) Solve Your *Real* Needs (10 minutes)
Sugar wasn’t satisfying my needs. This is because it was a numbing tool, not a solving tool.
Like all bad habits, eating sugar felt good at first. Then it didn’t. Instead of making me feel happier, eating it often ended up making me feel worse about my day.
The more sugar I ate, the guiltier I felt, which led to more stress. More stress led to more sugar, which led to more stress, which led to more sugar…you get the picture.
Once you know what your core needs are, you need to fill them with solutions. Find actual resolutions (not numbing agents) for your needs. Also as a side note, this is why quitting cold turkey never works. If you try to quit cold turkey, you will fail. Why?
Cold turkeys neglect our core needs.
If there’s nothing filling the need, it will become backlogged. With backlog comes buildup. The more you ignore your needs, the louder they get. Your core needs will NOT go away. Eventually, they will get so loud, you’ll crack. If they are not being filled, you WILL break your quitting streak.
Instead of quitting without a backup, you need to be more systematic.
You must find a healthy, yet satisfying substitute.
This substitute must be a solution to your needs. To quit my sugar habit, I did some quick math:
I want to have a happier life (my core need)
+
“X” (solutions for core need)
= Escape from sugar jail.
For me, “X” equaled decreasing things in my life that didn’t make me happy. It was also equal to increasing things that did make me happy. I basically Marie Condo’d my whole existence.
By making a happy life an intentional goal, my stress levels collapsed. (My next article will be on the exact steps you can take to make more intentional goals, so stay tuned!)
I moved to my dream city. I now only do what I want. I prioritize what I like and am ruthless with the rest. I don’t waste time on things or people that I don’t absolutely love. I’m chill like 95% of the time, and life is good.
By honoring my core need to be happier, my sugar cravings basically evaporated.
Occasionally, I’ll give myself something sweet just for the heck of it. But it’s not as satisfying anymore. There is now such a thing as “too sweet”.
The same thing will happen to you, with any habit. Solving your core needs will make your bad habits unattractive. Unattractive habits die easy.
4) Use Automation to Kill Your Triggers (10 minutes)
Once I improved my core need, I was able to cope better with controllable stressors. If something was bad and in my control, I decreased it. However, life is full of stressful things that are sometimes beyond my control. I call these triggers. Triggers are random, external things that can ruin your habit streaks. The best way to handle them? Plan for them. Expect them. Stop pretending they don’t exist.
Instead of assuming nothing will ever go wrong (it will), I incorporate it into my habit plan. I do this through automation.
Automation is the new discipline.
The beautiful thing about automation is that you don’t have to think about it. You just… do it. That way, during times of high, unexpected stress, I can still avoid relapsing into bad habits.
In the case of my sugar habit, I did this by coming up with three rules for myself. It took me 10 minutes to brainstorm these:
- If I’m sad, I’m not allowed to eat sugar.
[Result? No emotional eating.]
2. If I want sugar, I can only have it after eating everything else I’m supposed to (3 solid meals w/ veggies, fruits, and 64 oz of water). If I haven’t eaten these things first, tough nuggets.
[Result? Consistent meals mean consistent blood sugar, no drops mean no strong cravings, if I’m full on veg I’m too full for sugar.]
3. No sugar for breakfast. Ever.
[Result? You don’t crave it all day.]
These rules are hard and fast. So when life throws punches, I don’t need to use up any brain space to stick to my good habits. I just revert back to my 3 rules.
Rules eliminate willpower. I just follow them and the results happen. If you come up with 3 easy rules like this, you’ll be able to coast. Discipline is dead. Automation is king.
In just 30 minutes, you can create a system that allows you to kick all of your bad habits to the curb. Or, a system that allows you to generally kick life’s ass. Your pick. I won’t judge.
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