Bad habits- we have all got them, but sometimes they take over our lives, and we wonder how we could stop doing them. We don’t need to put up with them.
I write this blog as we enter a New Year and people think about changing bad habits.
What is a habit?
A habit is a behaviour that becomes automatic through repetition.
Habits can be positive or negative.
Bad habits are a personal thing.
You might not want to tell anyone about them, but some habits are so easy for others to see, for example, nail biting.
Some bad habits make you feel embarrassed, ashamed, dirty and out of control.
Every January, you promise yourself this year will be different.
You may have already put some effort into changing a bad habit, but your willpower and effort are dwindling.
Some clients tell me they have made many attempts to stop the problem, but it seems to fall by the wayside after a few weeks.
You tell yourself that this year it’s going to be different.
You really want to change, but deep down, you feel a bit stressed and anxious about the effort it will take.
You wonder if you will be successful this time.
You want to stop a habit that drains your energy, confidence, or health, but you don’t know how and wonder whether other people have similar habits.
Bad habits you want to change
Let me give you some examples of bad habits that you want to change. It might be:
- Stopping smoking or vaping
- Comfort eating and putting on weight
- Nail biting
- Procrastinating and not getting things done
- Overthinking about everything makes you feel stressed and anxious
- Drinking more alcohol than you want to admit
- Constantly putting yourself last and trying to please everyone
- Always running late
- Skin picking
- Overchecking things
- Behaviours that show you lack confidence and self-esteem
You start with motivation. We seem to have so much more motivation in the New Year.
You believe you have got lots of willpower.
So, you begin the process of change.
You may even last a few weeks.
Then life happens.
Stress creeps in.
Old patterns returns.
If this feels familiar, you are not weak.
You are human.
And there are clear psychological reasons why habits are so hard to change, especially for women juggling work, family, and emotional load and people in demanding jobs.
Here are seven reasons why bad habits can be difficult to shift and may come back.
1. Willpower is not enough; it fades when life gets stressful.
Willpower feels strong at the start.
You get recharged as you enter the New Year.
Everyone is supportive, and you believe you can do it.
You have the willpower. But it is limited and often tied to the environment you are in.
This is because willpower alone has to develop a pattern to change a habit. You see, your brain is designed to save energy.
When you rely only on willpower alone, you are fighting your own nervous system.
Small wins along the way can help, but other factors, such as stress and anxiety, can become a barrier.
Research consistently shows that willpower declines under stress, tiredness, and emotional pressure.
This is why habits return when life feels busy or overwhelming.
2. Your bad habit once served a good purpose.
Every habit has a job. Even the ones you hate that become bad habits. For example, that glass of wine might help you relax and switch off from work when your job is demanding. Or snacking on sugary foods might soothe boredom or anxiety.
In January, many people think about stopping smoking.
You might wonder what purpose smoking serves, as we all know that it is bad for your health.
Well, smoking might be the excuse to leave a busy office for a smoke to calm down and change the environment at work. For some people, smoking makes them feel wanted with a group of others who also smoke.
That bad habit is the behaviour. It’s learned from times before when a cigarette made you feel better.
Over time, your brain links:
- A trigger
- A response
- A sense of relief or reward
This creates an automatic pattern.
The habit may no longer help you. But your brain remembers that it once did.
However, until that emotional need is addressed, your brain will keep returning to the habit.
This is why logic alone does not work.
3. Stress pushes you back into old patterns.
The most significant barrier to overcoming bad habits is stress.
Stress changes how the brain functions.
In modern life, demands can trigger the ‘fight or flight’ response in the brain. The sympathetic nervous system is triggered, and stress hormones are released.
Key areas of the brain are involved.
- The amygdala. This is often described as the ‘fear centre’ of the brain as it processes emotions from our sensory nervous system.
- The hippocampus. This is an area of the brain associated with memory.
- The Prefrontal Cortex. This is the front part of the brain involved in thinking, emotional control, and decision-making.
- The hypothalamus. This part is like a control centre involved in producing stress hormones.
When stress rises, the brain shifts priorities.
It relies less on reflective, deliberate thinking and more on shortcuts to save energy.
So, it depends more on familiar, well-rehearsed responses that it knows work rather than learning new ways.
You know you want to stop, but something takes over, and you do it again under pressure!
This is why habits resurface during busy weeks, emotional moments, or poor sleep.
If you go back to a bad habit, you are not failing. Your body is rechanneling.
Your nervous system is trying to protect you.
4. You are trying to change behaviour.
Behaviour change can be difficult.
Let’s take the bad habit of smoking as an example.
You always drive past the shop that sells your brand of cigarettes. Will you need to go a different route to stop reminding yourself of cigarettes?
You like mixing with your friends and having a cigarette together, and you don’t want to change that. However, you need to understand that just because you become a non-smoker doesn’t mean that you can’t still be that friendly, social person who loves to hang out with your friends. It means quitting stops a behaviour, not changing who you are.
Furthermore, behaviour can be linked to how you think of yourself. If you still see yourself as ‘someone who struggles ‘ or ‘someone who always falls back’, and someone who doesn’t achieve success, then your subconscious mind will follow that story. In this case, you need to become the person that you want to be.
Change becomes easier when your mind begins to see you as capable, calm, and in control.
This is where deeper work matters.
5. Habits feel automatic when you want to change
Did yoy know that many people believe that up to 90 per cent of behaviour is driven by subconscious patterns? Gerald Zaltman at Harvard University first proposed this in his research and book on marketing and purchasing decisions. However, habits are not driven by the subconscious alone. In addition, more recent cognitive and behavioural research indicates that this estimate is lower, as attitudes, values, and goals influence behaviour.
Modern cognitive science shows that habits are driven by automatic processes learned through repetition, emotional learning, and context.
In plain terms:
- Your brain learns shortcuts
- These shortcuts reduce effort
- Over time, behaviour becomes automatic
This happens through well-studied mechanisms such as procedural learning, conditioning, and habit loops, rather than a single hidden ‘subconscious controller’.
When stress is high, the brain relies more heavily on these automatic patterns. This is why habits return when life feels demanding, even when motivation is strong, and this internal conflict feels exhausting.
Hypnotherapy works with the mind to change old patterns and behaviours, not against it. That is why many people find it effective when other methods have failed.
6. You are trying to do it alone.
You have tried before, and now you are doing the same, trying alone.
Let’s use the example of always running late. You underestimate the travel time, or you believe that you can do more in a short time. So you repeat the pattern.
Again, there is a purpose for this behaviour.
Chronic lateness can be linked to perfectionism. Or it can be a subconscious rebellion against the stress of doing something.
Firstly, if you don’t understand why you are behaving in this way, then it can be harder to change. Changing behaviour needs support.
So you now know why you behave this way, but you still can’t change. The next step is to understand the barriers and methods of change. Maybe you don’t have coping mechanisms to reduce pressure, or you don’t use a diary or timetable to block out time. Change is harder when you don’t understand the process.
Support helps regulate the nervous system, build accountability, and reduce shame.
Many people believe they should be able to cope.
But support is not weakness.
It is a strategy.
7. You are focusing on stopping, not replacing.
The brain does not like space.
When a habit disappears, something needs to replace it.
Let me use the example of stopping smoking again.
Some people will stop using vaping or nicotine gum. They replace the old habit of smoking with a new habit. The problem is that they might choose another bad habit, like eating sweets.
In this case, without a new emotional strategy, the old habit returns because weight gain will be noticeable and lead to other problems.
Effective change focuses on what you are moving towards, not just what you are stopping.
Effective change starts with the desire, moves to a plan, new behaviours, and maintenance to prevent a return to the old habit.
How to change a bad habit
Here are some tips that will help.
- Identify the problem
- Question yourself as to why you do it.
- Get prepared mentally and physically.
- Set a date to stop.
- Relax and remove distractions and barriers to change.
- Get support.
Hypnotherapy and counselling help by offering stress and anxiety reduction, relaxation and a repetition of positive suggestions to reframe and change the bad habit.
Hypnotherapy can also help you gain confidence in the new habit and feel back in control.
Want to know more?
If you are serious about changing a habit and need support, I can help.
Regards
Linda
