{"id":28457,"date":"2021-03-10T22:16:02","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T02:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=28457"},"modified":"2025-10-03T10:14:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T14:14:14","slug":"how-to-stop-bad-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-stop-bad-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Stop Bad Habits in Just 3 Simple Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you want to know how to stop bad habits? How can you use the habit loop<\/a> to break bad habits<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thee habit loop<\/a> is the system of cues and rewards that help us form habits. You’ll need to understand the habit loop in order to learn how to stop bad habits, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to learn how to stop bad habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: This article is part of\u00a0Shortform\u2019s guide to habits<\/a>. If you like what you read here, there\u2019s plenty more to check out in the guide!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Stop Bad Habits<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Up until now, we\u2019ve focused on building new habits \u2013 Pepsodent causing a new tingle, Febreze adding a new smell. But you likely want to stop your bad habits too \u2013 eating without control, procrastinating, or getting distracted at work<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time, habits become deeply ingrained. Over many iterations of the habit loop, the transition between cue, craving, routine, and reward become automatic.<\/strong> Think about any personal habits that you want to break, and how hard they seem to change. Once you get a cue and craving, it can seem almost as though you lose control and act on auto-pilot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, research into successful methods of behavior change have revealed the best practices of changing your habits<\/a> and learning how to stop bad habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Stop Bad Habits: The Steps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Use these three steps to stop your bad habits. Remember, your brain relies on the habit loop system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 1: Identify the Cues and Rewards<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

First and foremost is understanding your own habits<\/strong>. First, identify the cues or triggers that kick off your habit.<\/strong> Every time you feel tempted with a craving, make a note to yourself on paper. Then think about what happened recently, or what you felt recently, that kicked off the craving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, understand the reward you get after the routine<\/strong>. This could be a physical one, like food, or an emotional one, like relief of boredom or feeling socially connected. Think deep, and ask yourself \u201cwhy?\u201d five times. Often, the real root cues and rewards are not the superficial ones that first come to mind<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example: say you want to stop snacking at work. Periodically, you feel the urge to get up from your desk, go to the kitchen, and find something to eat. Superficially, you think that you snack to satisfy your hunger. But you might find that you do this even when you\u2019re not hungry.Instead, after introspection, you find that your real<\/em> cue is that you get up when you feel lonely. Getting a snack gives you an excuse to go to the kitchen, where someone\u2019s usually hanging out. You then strike up a conversation, while coincidentally eating chips. The real reward is the social connection with another person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 2: Change the Routine<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Once you identify your cues and rewards, you want to work on actually changing the habit and learning how to stop bad habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out that it\u2019s incredibly hard to completely eliminate old habits<\/strong>. For some reason, even after a long time, experiencing a cue can trigger old habits despite your best intentions. This is why alcoholics and smokers can fall off the wagon after just smelling cigarette smoke or having one taste of alcohol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, there is one Golden Rule: to change a habit, keep the same cue and the same reward, but change the routine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because your brain\u2019s already wired in the habit, it\u2019s hard to totally resist the temptation of the cue and the craving, for the rest of your life. Instead, a more successful strategy is to replace the routine with something more productive, so that you get the same reward at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this works because often it\u2019s the routine that you want to eliminate \u2013 whether that\u2019s eating junk food, drinking, or binging Netflix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example: Alcoholics Anonymous<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

One of the most successful examples of habit change<\/a> and learning how to stop bad habits is Alcoholics Anonymous. Its famous 12-step program forces the recovering alcoholic to go through a few important steps. For example, step 4 asks to make \u201ca searching and fearless inventory of ourselves,\u201d and step 5 asks to admit \u201cto God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.\u201d In these steps, it\u2019s hard not to make a list of all the reasons you drink, and the urges that started the behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often, alcoholics drink not because of the physical feeling of intoxication, but because of the accompanying emotional relief<\/strong> \u2013 an escape from your everyday problems, a distraction, catharsis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To change the habit, AA forces its members to replace the routine of drinking with engaging socially at meetings<\/strong>. Their goal is to attend 90 meetings in 90 days, and new members get a dedicated sponsor as a personal companion. The recovering alcoholic can keep the same cues (like anxiety about a life problem) and rewards (distraction from the problem or relaxation). But the routine is entirely different, and much healthier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example: Winning the Super Bowl with Habits<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In 1996, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were one of the worst football teams in the NFL. Tony Dungy arrived as head coach with a new strategy \u2013 force the players to develop deeply ingrained habits so they don\u2019t ever have to think during a game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, on each play a defensive lineman, would focus on only a few cues \u2013 the positioning of his opponent\u2019s back foot, the distance between him and the next player. Depending on what the cues are, the player then has an automatic habit of reacting. If it\u2019s a pass play, he\u2019ll immediately circle around the offensive line and sack the quarterback. He doesn\u2019t need to think about it \u2013 he can just explode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If these could truly become habits, then the behavior would be automatic. And Coach Dungy believed that their team didn\u2019t need to have a more complicated playbook \u2013 they just needed to be faster. Football plays happen in fractions of a second, and thinking gets you in trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This strategy, and countless sessions of drilling habits until they became automatic, ultimately led the Buccaneers to the Super Bowl. Coach Dungy then took his techniques to the Colts, who won a Super Bowl themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 3: Believing in Yourself<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a last component of habit change that\u2019s important \u2013 belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the deepest and darkest days, when your cravings feel unbearable, it is critical to believe that you DO have the power to make your new habit a permanent behavior.<\/strong> You must believe that you can cope with the stress of the craving without falling back to your old behavior. You must believe that things will get better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faith is a big component of AA \u2013 belief in a higher power<\/a> is a big part of the 12 step program<\/a>. Researchers currently believe that the belief in God itself isn\u2019t the critical piece \u2013 rather, just believing in something spills over into powering belief in the alcoholic herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being in a community is helpful for this \u2013 a community can make the big goal of change believable. Hearing the stories of other people who have successfully changed their habits gives you belief that you can do it too. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, if you want to change a habit, try to find other people who have successfully done it themselves. Try to find a subreddit or local meetup with other people who are on the same journey as you. And believing in your ability to change, one step at a time<\/a>, can help you learn how to stop bad habits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you want to know how to stop bad habits? How can you use the habit loop to break bad habits? Thee habit loop is the system of cues and rewards that help us form habits. You’ll need to understand the habit loop in order to learn how to stop bad habits, too. Keep reading to learn how to stop bad habits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,9,160],"tags":[226],"class_list":["post-28457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-psychology","category-science","tag-the-power-of-habit","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Stop Bad Habits in Just 3 Simple Steps - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learning how to stop bad habits can improve your quality of life and help you live healthier. 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