How to Change Your Bad Habits by Practicing Mindfulness

A woman smoking a cigarette and trying to change bad habits

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Why Buddhism Is True" by Robert Wright. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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Do you want to learn how to change your bad habits? How can mindfulness help you overcome self-destructive practices?

According to Robert Wright, mindfulness is an effective way to change your habits. He says that mental modules are like muscles—they strengthen in response to repetition or weaken in response to disuse.

Keep reading to learn why mindfulness is the key to self-improvement.

Mindfulness for Habit Change

To learn how to change your bad habits, reinforce or deplete modules by simply applying the above practice (step back from, observe, and let pass the feelings that drive an urge). If you want to reinforce a habit, mindfully choose to do so. Likewise, you can mindfully choose not to reinforce unconstructive modules.

For instance, say you mindfully observe and let pass an urge to get angry at someone who insults you. By doing so, you’ll weaken your “anger module” by teaching it that anger isn’t rewarding. At the same time, you’ll strengthen your “self-improvement” module by practicing mindfulness and gaining the reward of releasing an unproductive impulse.

Wright says this approach works better than relying on willpower because resisting impulses doesn’t allow them to pass. And if you’re constantly straining against all sorts of habitual urges, you’ll tire and break before long.

Two Ways to Change Habits

Behavior scientist BJ Fogg offers another method for changing your habits—one that doesn’t involve mindfulness. He argues that successful behavior change requires three elements: motivation, ability, and a trigger. His key insight, explained in Tiny Habits, is that instead of trying to increase motivation or relying on willpower, we should make positive behaviors so small and well-triggered that they’re almost impossible to fail.
For instance, rather than planning to meditate for 30 minutes, you might start with just one mindful breath after brushing your teeth. The idea is that over time, keeping up with that one little habit will encourage you to expand on it, so that eventually you’re meditating for 10 or even 30 minutes.

Like Wright, Fogg recommends circumventing willpower, saying that willpower changes throughout the day and is too unreliable to base an effective strategy on. To disrupt bad habits, he suggests intervening in one or more of the three elements of behavior: motivation, ability, or prompt. For instance, to stop a habit of scrolling social media first thing in the morning, you can intervene at the “ability” element by not bringing your phone into your room at night. With that little bit of friction, you can stop the habit in its tracks.

Fogg’s approach is different from Wright’s, yet they could complement each other. You might use Fogg’s framework to design and establish tiny habits, while leaning on Wright’s mindfulness-based approach to manage your inner impulses. Learning to rise early and hit the gym, then, could look like setting your alarm (the trigger), putting on your gym clothes (the tiny habit), and practicing mindfulness to weaken the mental module that wants to smash the snooze button.

How to Change Your Bad Habits by Practicing Mindfulness