Why Are Habits Such a Hard Habit to Break?
Breaking a habit frequently requires a lot of conscious effort.
People love quick-fix solutions.
From diet and exercise programs to pills to life hacks, modern society has a love affair with seeking and finding the quick fix. Get it done as fast as possible with as little effort as possible.
The problem is that quick fixes are nearly never true fixes.
For example – going on a diet can help a person lose weight. And it will continue to work for as long as you follow the plan. But soon as you’re off the diet – usually weight starts to be found again. (Diet, in this context, is a specific weight loss plan rather than a lifestyle change.)
Then, some want faster – so they seek the latest pill or similar drug to accelerate the fix further.
I find that the quickest fix tends to be the most fleeting fix. It seldom holds. The quick fix is like putting duct tape over a cracked window on a submarine. It won’t be long before the quick fix proves ineffective against the water pressure – and inevitably fail.
When it comes to habits and changing or breaking them – the quick fix nearly always fails. Why? Because habits are complex, multifaceted, and it takes time to build your habit in the first place.
Rome wasn’t built in a day
Habits are a part of the subconscious mind. Ergo, they are deeply embedded in your psyche.
Like values and beliefs, they are planted and take root over time.
Time is the issue. You don’t instantly form a habit. That’s not how habits are made.
Habits form via repetition. To create a habit, you need to consciously repeat said habit over and over – until it becomes subconscious.
It can take days, weeks, months, and even years to form a habit.
And that’s when you do it actively. You can also form a habit passively.
Something you subconsciously repeat can become habitual. And despite not intentionally working to create said habit, it becomes a regularly rote and routine occurrence.
Chewing on your fingernails is a perfect example of an unintentionally created subconscious habit.
Habits take time to create. And that’s why they take time to change or break.
Because of the interest in quick fixes, we often find it hard to accept that something that might have taken years to form will need more than seconds to be changed.
This is the first challenge in changing and breaking habits.
Habits are a hard habit to break
It took time to create any given habit. Thus, it takes time to change or break that habit.
But consciously acting to change or break habits requires mindfulness.
Mindfulness, in this context, is conscious awareness. Specifically, conscious awareness of the habit, what it is, what triggers it, how it impacts you, and other important details.
If you don’t know the habit, you can’t break it or change it.
No, you don’t need to go all the way back to its creation. Neither do you need to know if it was consciously or subconsciously created. But you need to know what, why, where, when, and how it is to change or break the habit.
Why? Because breaking and/or changing habits takes effort. Genuine, intentional effort.
Action is effort
Mindfulness is conscious awareness of yourself. Specifically, your of-the-moment mindset/headspace/psyche self.
To gain that conscious awareness, you just need to recognize what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what intentions you have, and the actions you are or aren’t doing.
Identifying what you’re thinking, plus what and how you’re feeling, is how you can become consciously aware of anything and everything in your subconscious. Your beliefs, your values, and your habits, too.
But if you desire to change or break them – now you need to employ mindfulness of your intentions and actions.
When you seek to change or break a habit, there’s always a why. There’s a reason behind the desire to expend the effort to make the change.
For example – I desired to break my habit of chewing on my fingernails. Why? Because it can be painful, kinda icky, is an unflattering look, and simply doesn’t serve me.
Identifying the why provides the impetus to expend the effort to change and/or break habits.
This is where the intention and action part of mindfulness comes in. You must have an intention to change and/or break a habit. And then take action and act upon it.
What action?
Building new habits is a construction project
Are you familiar with the process of construction?
Let’s say you are renovating your kitchen. You generally start by hiring a designer. Then, you hire contractors to implement the plans. Additionally, you need to buy new appliances, get permits, and lots of other niggling details.
You were quoted 10 days for the work. Except, one day it rained so hard and got so damp, no work could be done. The delivery of the new appliances was delayed three days due to a supply issue. In demolishing the old kitchen, you came across what might or might not be asbestos and needed to investigate.
The 10-day project somehow balloons into a month. But in the end – you have your new, renovated kitchen.
Now, replace the word “kitchen” with “habit,” “designer” with “intention,” and “contractors” with “actions.”
As to the rest – permits, appliances, niggling details, and the various delays – these are factors outside of yourself. This includes obstacles, unexpected happenstance, other people, bad moods, and other matters that will simply be.
It takes perseverance to change, break, and/or build new habits. Recognizing and acknowledging that it’s seldom easy makes it less difficult to roll with the punches and handle the unexpected along the way.
Habits are a hard habit to break, and that’s not easy. But one key means to the end, when you seek to change your life how you desire it to be, is to break and/or change habits that don’t serve you. Hence, despite the challenges, the result of changing and/or breaking habits is a worthwhile endeavor.
Do you see why habits are such a hard habit to break?
This is the five hundred and ninety-second exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
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