Kick a Bad Habit

This article is from the March 2016 edition of the Toastmaster magazine.

Habit change is simple, but not always easy. It requires sustained effort and focus—in other words, willpower. But you already know that. If you’re like most people, you have failed at least once in trying to change a habit. You may even be wondering whether it’s worth trying again.

It is possible to succeed. Millions of people change their habits over time, although not always on the first try (especially when it comes to addictive behaviors such as smoking, overeating, shopping, drinking and watching too much TV). The key is understanding how habits are formed, preparing yourself for challenges, and applying psychological techniques in training new habits to override the counterproductive ones. As a Toastmaster, you may have created and overcome a few bad habits over time. Procrastination? Tardiness? Here is how to overcome a bad habit.

How habits get established
Habits are learned patterns of behavior that get deeply ingrained through repetition and reward. Every habit has multiple interconnections throughout the brain, including the deeper areas below the level of conscious thinking.

Most habits make your life more efficient by putting routine tasks on autopilot. Imagine how exhausting it would be to think about each little step in tying your shoelaces; or where to find the light switch each time you enter a dark room. You do hundreds of things like this without effort, saving time and energy throughout your day.

Other habits make your life more difficult: procrastination, wasting time on your phone, taking on too much, chronic lateness, just to name a few. Even though you typically feel bad later on, there is still some reward value in maladaptive habits: a burst of immediate gratification before the regret sets in.

For example, let’s say you’ve resolved to quit snacking after dinner. You’re doing ok until around 8 p.m., when you remind yourself that you still need to write the speech you’re supposed to give at your 7 a.m. club meeting the next day. Then you remember you’re also supposed to be Toastmaster of the meeting. Stress starts to build and your default reaction is to get rid of this tension as quickly as possible. Without thinking you walk to the kitchen. Since you’ve learned from past experience that food has a calming effect, it’s a lot more rewarding to mindlessly reach for the ice cream than to face a task—even though you know, rationally, that it’s not going to help get the task done.

What happens when you try to change a habit?
Try this simple experiment: Clasp your hands together, interlacing your fingers. Notice which thumb is on top. Now try it again, with the other thumb on top. Feels strange, doesn’t it? Don’t you have the urge to go back the way you’re used to doing it?

That’s what happens when you try to change a habit. It some-how feels “not right.” You’re not just doing something different, you’re feeling uneasy. Thus, the first few times you avoid snacking after dinner, you’re probably going to feel uncomfortable. Your logical mind tells you that you’re not hungry, but your emotional urge to snack is very strong. You want it, and you want it now!

What will you do? It all comes down to how well you can tolerate the discomfort, which depends partly on how much mental energy you have at a given moment. It takes a lot of mental energy in the form of self-control to resist a strong emotional urge.

Behavioral scientists have found that mental energy gets depleted in a similar way to physical energy. Just as you can become physically tired after several hours of moving furniture, you can become mentally tired after a day of stressful decisions and tasks. That’s why people slip off their diets and snack more often in the evening, after exercising self-control all day.

The good news is that, just like your physical muscles, you can build up your willpower “muscles” through repetitive practice. Muscles get fatigued with use, but when they recover they are stronger, so that you can do more work with less effort. The more you practice self-control, the less mental effort it takes over time.

Essentials for successful habit change
Because willpower is easily depleted, you have a better chance of success if you also make a few tweaks in your thinking and your behavior:

Think in terms of retraining.Habits are learned patterns of behavior. With frequent repetition, your new habit will over-ride the old one and become automatic—just as it does when you train yourself to use a new piece of equipment or improve your golf swing.

Minimize stress where you can. Research has shown that even a few minutes of stress can reduce your capacity for self- control. Although you can’t avoid all stress, try to pace yourself whenever possible. Minimize contact with people who stress you out. Above all, don’t skimp on sleep. Fatigue is a form of stress that can quickly derail your best intentions.

Conserve your mental energy. Using a budget analogy, assume you wake up every day with a dollar’s worth of energy. Don’t squander it on petty worries or decisions, or you may not have enough left over to resist urges and temptations.

Focus on changing just one habit at a time. Each habit that you work to change requires additional mental energy and willpower. If your goals are to win your district speech contest, lose weight and socialize more with your colleagues from work, focus on each one at a time, or, you’re likely to feel overwhelmed and give up altogether.

Expect discomfort. When you change habitual behavior, discomfort is inevitable. However, it does eventually subside. To endure the discomfort, you’ll feel stronger if you view it as a challenge rather than an affliction.

How long does it take to break a habit?
Habits aren’t broken, so much as gradually replaced with new behaviors. With practice, these new behaviors become ingrained over time.

There is no research data on how long it takes to change a habit because it depends on many factors, including situational triggers, stress and the level of emotional reward or relief that your old habit provides.

Instead of thinking in terms of breaking a habit, consider it a process of managing behavioral and attitudinal change—a new habit in training.