4 Steps to Break a Bad Habit (‘Atomic Habits’ Summary)

Smoking.

Porn.

Alcohol.

Fast food.

These are among the worst habits one can have.

Yet still, most of the population act on these habits and the result is widespread obesity, disease and depression.

Just as good habits are the foundation for success, bad habits can exert the opposite effect and be detrimental to your chances of success.

Here’s how to break these bad habits.

The Prefrontal Cortex

the prefrontal cortex (noun) - enables us to make rational, sound decisions. It also helps us to override impulsive urges. If acted upon, these impulses urges can cause us to act without thinking.

Due to the abundance of social media and how fast paced today’s world is, the prefrontal cortex’s activity is decreasing.

We are less aware and sometimes we just repeat our routines on autopilot.

This makes us less aware of the present moment hence we are more vulnerable to fall for the trap of bad habits.

The prefrontal cortex needs to be active in order to help us make better decisions.

A Healthy Brain

When it comes to impulse control there are several different ways to increase the activity of the prefrontal cortex.

These include exercise and optimisation of sleep.

But I would say the most important one is mindfulness.

Train yourself to become aware of the present moment.

If you are brushing your teeth, become aware of it.

If you are typing, become aware of it.

If you are angry, become aware of it.

Experience all the senses of the activity you are currently doing.

What will happen is that when you do get the urge to act on a bad habit you will make yourself aware of what you are feeling, increasing the chances of you deciding not to act on your impulse.

Another way to become more mindful about your bad habits is to become curious about the process.

Ask yourself ‘’why do I want to smoke?’’ or ‘’what is causing me to crave fast food?’’.

This will increase your prefrontal cortex’s activity and buy you more time to decide to not act on your impulses. Having more time to decide increases friction and the bad habit becomes more difficult to act on.

4 Steps to Break a Bad Habit

In the book ‘Atomic Habits’, the author James Clear talks about four ways to break a bad habit.

Applying these four tools in addition to becoming mindful will make it much easier for you to keep your behaviour in check.

1. Make It Invisible

The process of impulse generation for a bad habit starts with an environmental cue.

For example seeing a donut on your kitchen counter results in generation of an impulse to make you crave the donut.

So the first step is to eliminate these cues to reduce the chance of your brain generating impulses and therefore reducing the chance of you acting on your bad habits.

Some examples of how to make a habit invisible:

• Smoking: Avoid situations which make you anxious and want to smoke to relax.

• Alcohol: Avoid going to clubs and bars.

• Impulse purchases: Avoid using your credit card to purchase.

2. Make It Unattractive

In this step, your goal is to highlight the benefits of not acting on your impulses.

What will you gain if you avoid doing the bad habit?

What are the negative effects of this bad habit?

When you start to reframe how you look at a particular habit you become more aware and activity in your prefrontal cortex increases, increasing the friction between impulse generation and action.

3. Make It Difficult

The number one way to increase difficulty of acting on a bad habit is by increasing the number of steps required to do the bad habit.

For example, if you are addicted to porn download a website blocker.

This is an added step which will increase friction even further and give you more time to make conscious decisions.

4. Make It Unsatisfying

James Clear mentions two ways of making a bad habit unsatisfying:

• Get an accountability partner

• Create a habit contract

Make a deal with one of your friends so that they keep you accountable of your behaviour.

An example of this is that if you act on a bad habit you have to pay your friend 100 bucks.

This, again, will increase activity in your prefrontal cortex because you have now become aware of a consequence should you act on the habit.

And as I have stated multiple times: more prefrontal cortex activity = more friction = more time to make the right decision.

Consistency

An important point to conclude with is that you need to be consistent.

Consistent practice of the lessons in this post builds stronger connections between neurons in the prefrontal cortex and these practices become subconscious and therefore easier for you to maintain.