How to Break Bad Habits That Perpetuate Your Stress & Anxiety
Last week, I shared with you a simple 4-part strategy for building good habits. Not only will this reverse and prevent lifestyle burnout, but it’s also a powerful approach for creating that elusive work-life balance everyone’s always preaching about. And it actually can lead to happiness.
But finding happiness isn’t just about doing more of the good stuff. It’s also about doing less of the bad stuff. So I’m here today to share with you how to break bad habits. Again, credit to James Clear (and this podcast) for distilling it into four easy-to-understand criteria.
You Know What You Need to Do to Improve Your Stress Level
Most of us know what we need to stop doing — we need to stop scrolling Instagram, stop drinking wine every single night, and stop criticizing ourselves. And we have periods where we set better boundaries and try to improve our lives, but it’s hard to really get those unhealthy choices gone for good. Something always comes up that gets us off our game – a stressful day, a lazy coworker, an embarrassing mistake. And then we’re back where we started with zoning out on memes.
So what’s the secret to actually making ourselves follow through with ditching the unhealthy behaviors?
Habits.
And what’s the secret to kicking bad habits?
4 things.
The 4 Criteria You Need to Ditch Bad Habits
Just like with establishing healthy happiness habits, breaking bad habits involves four simple criteria. These criteria simplify the process of breaking bad habits and are much more effective than what we usually do with changing our habits…which is wing it, make a major overhaul in our lives, and basically just hope for the best.
As we go through these criteria, let’s use an example. Let’s say the habit you want to break is to stop hitting snooze.
1. Your Bad Habit Needs to be Invisible
First, your bad habit needs to be invisible. You know how your box of wine is prominently in the front of your fridge? It’s visible, and that’s why you pour yourself a glass each night. You know how your potato chips are at eye level in the pantry but the celery sticks are in the back of a drawer in your fridge? The chips are visible, the celery is invisible….so guess which you grab?
To break the habit of hitting the snooze button, the button needs to be invisible. So maybe you get yourself an alarm clock without a snooze button. Yep, those exist (at least for people who still use actual alarm clocks…). No actual clock? You bet they make apps that have alarm clocks with no snooze button. Make it invisible.
2. Your Bad Habit Needs to be Unattractive
Now that you’ve made your bad habit invisible, it’s time to make it unattractive. There’s gotta be something you’d RATHER do than your bad habit so that the choice of the bad habit is less attractive.
To break the habit of snoozing, it needs to be less attractive and less valuable than the other things you could be doing at that time. Consider scheduling something for early in the morning that you absolutely love doing…like watching your favorite show on Netflix. Only allow yourself to watch the show first thing in the morning so that if you snooze through it you lose your show time. Or consider surrounding yourself with people who don’t have this bad habit. We emulate the people around us, so consider spending more time around people who don’t snooze. Maybe schedule breakfast with them or join their morning workout.
3. Your Bad Habit Needs to be Hard
If there’s one thing the revolution of convenience has done to us, it’s made us demand even more convenience. I mean…we used to actually wait several minutes for every single page of a website to download. Can.you.imagine???? Man, that was inconvenient. So these days, if it’s not easy, it ain’t gettin done. Period.
To end the snoozing habit, it needs to be inconvenient to hit the snooze button. Put your phone across the room instead of on your nightstand. Install an app that makes you solve a puzzle or go to some other extreme length to hit the snooze button.
4. Your Bad Habit Needs to be Unsatisfying
Finally, your bad habit needs to be unsatisfying. There’s a reason you developed and maintained this bad habit…it probably feels good and is rewarding somehow. But you also know it has some drawbacks, otherwise you wouldn’t consider it a bad habit.
If you’re gonna ditch the snooze button, it needs to be unsatisfying and unrewarding to snooze. So maybe you set Alexa or an app to play really loud, aggressive music or sounds you hate as soon as your alarm goes off. I’m not sure anyone can sleep through heavy metal or Gilbert Gottfried.
Reduce Your Anxiety, Stress, & Overwhelm By Ditching a Bad Habit
Did you notice these four components of breaking a bad habit are actually just the reverse of building a good habit? Yep. Build a good habit by making it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. Break a bad habit by making it invisible, unattractive, hard, and unsatisfying.
I walked you through an example, but it’s important for you to take the time to actually think through how YOU would make these changes with the specific habits YOU need to break. So go ahead and grab this PDF download where I give you space to dive deep into the habits you want to break.
Ever noticed that you get anxious when someone asks you what you did on the weekend? Next week, I’ll tell you why that happens. Don’t miss it.
Talk to you soon,
Dr. Finch
P.S. If you skipped to the end, I outlined 4 criteria that help us break bad habits. Grab the PDF to work through the criteria for your own habits.
P.P.S. Remember, this is education, not treatment. Always consult with a psychologist or therapist about your mental health to determine what information and interventions are best for you. See the disclaimer for more details.
Hayden C. Finch, PhD, is a practicing psychologist in Des Moines, Iowa, dedicated to helping you master your mental health.
