5 Reasons Why You Can’t Break That Bad Habit (And How To Beat Them)

Why do people persist in unhealthy behavior? I took a poll. You may be as surprised as I was by the answers.

You might think, as I did, that we simply need to educate ourselves about the costs of the unhealthy behavior and the benefits of the healthy one.

Nope. That answer got no votes at all. We know what’s bad for us. We do it anyway.

I’ll Take Immediate Rewards Over Long-Term Gains

The runaway #1: “I enjoy the short-term benefits of the unhealthy behavior too much to quit, regardless of the long-term cost.”

This cognitive bias has a name: “hyperbolic discounting”. It’s our tendency to massively downplay the value of future rewards relative to immediate rewards — even if the future rewards are much bigger, and even if the future isn’t far away.

When I have a cocktail too close to bedtime even though I know it’ll disrupt my sleep and leave me feeling crappy the next morning, I’m committing this error. Feeling good all morning is worth far more to me than the momentary pleasure the cocktail gives - but hey, that’s tomorrow!

Some ways to fight hyperbolic discounting:

• Make “Future You” real. Treat Future You the way you’d treat a friend you care about. Make the choice that your friend Future You will thank you for. Don’t inflict a cost on them.
• Make the future reward real. Visualize in vivid detail the good life you’ll be living if you don’t make the unhealthy choice now.
• Reduce the immediate reward. Most of that reward isn’t real, isn’t tangible. It’s habit, distraction, peer pressure, laziness. So dig deep: why do you really want to do the thing? Strip that away, and the immediate reward becomes less appealing and easier to reject.
• Make yourself accountable to someone else. If their approval alone isn’t enough to motivate you, make the cost more real by handing them money to donate to your most-hated charity if you slip up.
• Automate the long-term choice so that you don’t even have the chance to make the short-term one. Example: an automated payroll deduction to your retirement savings account. Habits are also a form of automation (how to do this is a topic for another day).

I Can’t Quit And I Don’t Know Why

The close #2: “The unhealthy behavior is serving an unconscious psychological need.”

This is a tough one. Consciously, you’re doing everything you can to break the bad habit. But you always fail, and you don’t know why.

It’s because the unhealthy behavior is actually serving a function that you’re not conscious of. For example, it may have developed in childhood as a way to gain a sense of control over a traumatic situation.

To break such a behavior, you first have to identify the function it serves. In some cases, cultivating self-awareness will be enough. For deep unconscious drives, therapy may be needed.

I Don’t Have The Know-How, Time, Or Energy

The top also-rans:

“I don’t know the steps to take to implement the healthy behavior.”

The knowledge you need is at your fingertips, more so than any time in human history. Important: you don’t need to know all the steps, just the first few. Then stop researching and get doing.

“I don’t know how to break the unhealthy habit and form a healthy one.”

Read one of the fantastic books on making/breaking habits that have been published in the past dozen years. Then put it into practice. My go-to is “Atomic Habits” by James Clear.

“I don’t have the time or energy to do the healthy behavior.”

Time? First, start small — just 15 minutes a day. Second, true, you have a finite 24 hours, you’re using every minute of it on something, so you will have to give something up for the new behavior. Keep a time diary for a week. Chances are you’ll find 15 minutes that don’t matter to shift to something that does.

Energy? First, look at that time diary. Which activities are sapping are sapping your energy, that you can cut back? Second, if you’re chronically low-energy, perhaps the healthy behavior to prioritize is sleep.

Thank you to everyone who responded to my poll.

Thrivespan is the system for building a life that thrives, now and as you age. And it starts with empowering you to break through your personal obstacles, so you can start taking the actions you need to build the life you want.

What are your obstacles? Share in the comments!

Mindset, Exercise, Nutrition, Sleep, Relationships, Passions, Finances: the 7 Pillars of Thrivespan.

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