The habit loop: How to break it.

In my last post, I discussed habit loops as described by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits and what really leads us to throw in the towel on our healthy habits. You might want to review that before diving into this post where we’ll tackle how we can use this knowledge to break that loop.

We used the example before of a long, stressful day at work. We are returning home and we are wracked with thoughts of how terrible the day was: “I’ll never get this all done. There is too much to do.” with a side of “I should be able to keep up. I’m not good enough.” These thoughts leave us feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and unworthy – all negative feelings that we don’t want to experience so as soon as we walk through the door. We head for the kitchen and we grab the cookies to stuff down those emotions and give ourselves a little dopamine hit from the sugar.

This is just one example. We may also have habit loops that lead us to sit on the couch watching Netflix when we would like to be working out, or getting to bed earlier. We may have a habit of overdrinking when we’re out with friends. Maybe we tend to snack late at night once the kids have gone to bed. All of these things are habit loops that can be redesigned so let’s look at how we might do that.

Breaking down the habit loop

There are 4 parts of a habit loop: the cue, the craving or urge, the action, and the reward. We’re going to walk through strategies you can use during each stage of the loop to help break the habit.

1. Eliminate the cue

The obvious cue in our stressful day, cookie eating example is walking through the door to the kitchen but it’s actually more than that. It’s also wrapped up in the toxic thoughts that are running through our heads leaving us with uncomfortable emotions. Eating that cookie might seem like an automatic reaction to the cue of walking through the door to the kitchen but it’s actually in response to the emotions we’re feeling. So, we have a few different things we can address when it comes to eliminating the cue for this habit loop.

a) Change the routine

The simple surface-level change is to slightly change the routine. Maybe you enter the house through a different door or maybe instead of heading straight for the kitchen, you go and change your clothes, wash your face, brush your teeth, pet the dog, whatever might redirect you away from autopiloting your way to the kitchen and the cookies. However, for many of our behaviours, this will not be enough, and we’ll have to dig a little deeper by addressing our emotional state.

b) Reduce the toxic thoughts

The next step to modifying the cue in this habit loop is reducing the toxic thoughts that are running through your head that are resulting in feelings we don’t want to feel. This is a whole technique about which I’ll write a whole other post but start with just monitoring what you say to yourself throughout the day. Do you have crappy self-talk? Are you giving yourself a subtle beat down through the day with:

“There is never enough time.”
“I’m a terrible mom.”
“I’ll never get this right.”

Most of them are flat-out lies or at the very minimum unhelpful and unkind. These subtle thoughts running unchecked are what leave us with that stressed, overwhelmed, unworthy feeling at the end of the day. If we didn’t generate those feelings, we wouldn’t need the cookies to soothe them.

c) Plan good self-talk

Decide how you WANT to feel at the end of the day. Maybe calm, accomplished, confident? What thoughts would lead you to feel this way? Write those thoughts down and practice them. Examples may include:

“There is time for everything.”
“I can figure this out.”
“Being a great mom does not require perfection.”
“I’m learning to manage my time.”

These types of thoughts help to reduce the impact that our toxic thoughts have. They’re like a crash mat to ease the blow. You might still have toxic thoughts but adding this good self-talk to the end of those thoughts can help.

So instead of “I’m a terrible mom” running through your head all day leaving you feeling defeated, an unworthy you have “I’m a terrible mom. But being a great mom does not require perfection.” And your brain starts to question whether you’re so terrible after all. This turns down the temperature on the defeated and unworthy feelings and starts to turn up the calm and confident ones.

2. Make the craving or urge unattractive

When the urge or craving does hit, try to get curious about it. Urges often come with a sense of urgency, hence the name, which can make us feel rushed, anxious, tense, wound up. Our brains are not good at feeling multiple emotions at the same time, so this is when we want to take steps toward changing that emotional state.

a) Take 3 deep breaths

This can help immensely with calming your body and turning that urgent feeling down just a notch so that it doesn’t feel quite so time-sensitive. This creates a pause that can allow you to do something different this time.

b) Starting getting curious

Start collecting some information that might come in handy for determining if there is a pattern here: where are you, what time is it, what is your emotional state, who is around, what action preceded this? This not only shifts your emotional state away from anxiety and toward curiosity, but it will also help you determine just what might have led to the formation of this habit loop in the first place.

c) Take your curiousity a little deeper

Ask yourself what you are really having an urge for by getting curious about what reward is driving this. What is the basic need here? Do you need a break from those toxic thoughts? Are you tired and turning to food for energy? Are you feeling down and want a hit of sugar for a dopamine hit? Have you been restricting certain foods and now have an urge for what you feel you can’t have? Have there been some emotions you’ve been stuffing down all day – frustration, anger, sadness, that you just need to stop and feel? They won’t hurt you, they only last about 90 seconds and you’ll feel better afterward if you just let yourself feel all the feels…

d) Make the craving or urge unattractive

Take a moment to consider your long-term goals. Does this craving align with those goals? How will you feel if you give in to this urge? How will you feel if you don’t give into this urge? Imagine yourself successfully just letting the craving pass. You may want to check out this post on managing cravings to help with this.

3) Make the action difficult

When it comes to the physical act of grabbing that cookie, we want to put whatever we can between us and the action to make it as difficult as possible.

a) Out of sight, out of mind

Having them sitting in a jar on your kitchen counter makes them easier to eat than tucked away in a cupboard out of sight.

b) Insert a new activity

Consider inserting a new activity that will give you a similar reward, particularly one that you can't do while eating cookies. Think about what you discovered when you got curious. What do you really need? Rest? Adventure? A cup of tea? A few minutes of reading? Create a list of things that will fulfill the basic need you’ve identified and start trying some of those on.

4) Make it unsatisfying

We want to make an effort to make the experience of the action we don't want to do a little less enjoyable so that we don’t reinforce the habit. Meanwhile, we want to reward any actions that are in alignment with the habits we want to create.

a) Be very mindful during the action

Go ahead and have the cookies but sit in a chair, at a table and eat them slowly and mindfully. This is an excellent learning opportunity for those that aren’t sure if they’re eating the cookies because they taste good (I just love food) or if they’re eating the cookies out of an emotionally driven habit.

If you’re eating the cookies just because you love the taste of cookies, this slow, mindful eating process will be enjoyable. You’ll be able to savour each bite and extend the pleasure window through your slow eating. If you’re eating the cookies due to an emotionally driven habit, this slow, mindful eating will prevent you from being distracted from the thoughts that generated the feelings the led to the urge in the first place. You’ll find that the food just isn’t as satisfying when you can’t shove the cookies down and instead have to listen to your thoughts at the same time.

If slowly savouring the cookies drives you a little crazy, there is more going on here than just a love of the taste of cookies and if your brain doesn’t get the satisfaction it’s looking for by eating the cookies slowly, it starts to break down the reward part of the habit loop.

b) Celebrate the good

If any of the above steps helped you to break your habit, you MUST celebrate as soon as it happens and every time you repeatedly break that loop.

If, during the curiosity phase, you’ve found a new activity that you think will fill that basic need instead of cookies, go ahead and give it a whirl and when you successfully execute it, be sure to celebrate that too!

Give yourself a high five in the mirror, quietly tell yourself how awesome you are, pump your fist, add a little ‘shine’ as BJ Fogg describes it in his book Tiny Habits. This rewarding of not doing the hold behaviour and/or executing a new desired behaviour helps to break the old habit loop and form a new one.

Where to begin on your habit loops?

Admittedly, there is a lot here so start small.

First, pick one habit loop that you'd like to tackle then pick one strategy from one of the 4 components of the habit loop, run an experiment and see if it works. Keep in mind that you're not going to break a habit overnight and the first few strategies you try may not work so be compassionate with yourself. Be sure you're wearing your scientist's lab coat and not our judge's robes. Every experiment you run just provides you with more information to use next time.

Need some help breaking or forming habits of your own? Behaviour change is exactly where health coaches excel. Click here to book your free consultation today.

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