How To Stop A Bad Habit

• Habits are things you do often without thinking about them.
• Habits are formed by associating pleasure or pain to something.
• You can develop new habits by rewarding yourself for a certain behaviour.
• Breaking bad habits can be easy once you know how!

In this article on self discipline we will be taking a look at the psychology of habits, how habits are formed, breaking bad habits and how habits affect your level of self discipline.

If you are able to generate good habits, by breaking bad habits, you will be well on your way to living a successful and disciplined life.

Whilst the information in this article can be used to create new habits for yourself, it could equally be used on other people to influence their behaviour.

In particular, creating habits in children and habits in relationships. This is known as behaviour shaping.

What Are Habits?

In simple terms, habits are the things you do on a daily basis. Usually these habits are done automatically, without stopping to think about them first.

People have all sorts of different habits. For example, some people like to smoke, bite their nails, watch TV or read a book. These are all habits, because they are repeated patterns of behaviour.

Good Habits

Habits can broadly be divided into 2 types, good habits and bad habits. Good habits are repeated patterns of behaviour that benefit and enrich your life.

For example, reading for 1 hour each day could be considered a good habit because it increases your overall knowledge, and improves the health of the brain.

Bad Habits 

Bad habits are repeated patterns of behaviour that do not benefit your life, and may even harm or destroy it. For example, watching TV all day will decrease your vocabulary, reduce your intelligence and damage your health.

Habits And Success

Habits are therefore extremely important when trying to lead a more self disciplined and productive lifestyle. With bad habits, success will be very difficult.

But with good habits, success is likely to come much more easily and quickly.

How Do Habits Form?

Everything we do or say is learned. For example, we learn how to behave as children by the reward or punishment we receive from our parents.

When we received a reward we were motivated to repeat a certain behaviour, so that we could experience that reward again.

When we were punished we were motivated not to repeat that behaviour, so that we would not receive that punishment again.

This simple principle of a desire for pleasure and an avoidance of pain, is the foundation upon which all habits are built.

Once you understand this, you will be in a much greater position of power to change your habits. If you change your habits you will change your actions, and ultimately change your life.

How To Break Bad Habits & Create New Habits

Most people think that punishment is the best way to develop new habits, or change old habits. However, numerous experiments on animals and children have shown that the most effective way to modify or create a new habit is by using a reward.

Although punishment can be effective, it also causes feelings of resentment towards the punisher.

As a result, the person may repeat that same behaviour again, simply to spite the punisher.

Harsh punishment may also psychologically damage a child later in life, causing them to become a social dropout and resent authority figures.

With this knowledge we now know that if you want to change something about yourself, one of the best ways to do it is by using the principle of reward to create new patterns of behaviour within yourself.

Breaking Bad Habits

Here are some ways you can shape your behaviour, by using rewards and punishment to break bad habits and create new habits. 

Breaking Bad Habits With Rewards

This simply involves giving yourself a reward for doing something. For example, if you have finished an important piece of work you could treat yourself to a night out with friends.

You can use this principle to help you in breaking bad habits, or on any new behaviour you wish to develop.

For example, if you want to read more, try eating a sweet or having a piece of chocolate for each page you read. In my case, my mum used to give me 1 penny for every page I read.

Breaking Bad Habits By Withholding Rewards

If you don’t do something then you don’t get a reward. This method is often used by parents on children as a method of breaking bad habits.

My mum used to tell me I could go only go out and play, if I finished my homework. If I did not finish my homework, I would not get my reward (going out to play).

By withholding a reward you automatically increase its value, and therefore the desire to obtain it also increases.

Breaking Bad Habits With Punishment

This is perhaps the least effective means of shaping behaviour and breaking bad habits, although it is useful under some circumstances. If you can associate pain with an activity, you will be motivated to avoid it.

One way you can do this is by making yourself do something you dislike, if you do not do something you should do.

Another method involves wearing an elastic band around your wrist, and purposefully pulling it back and letting it go to cause yourself pain when you do something you would like to change.

This method is often used for removing negative self talk and breaking bad habits which you have been struggling to change.

Conditioned Behaviour

In order for rewards to be effective, they must be repeated for several weeks before any new behaviour begins to develop.

During this time your brain will physically change its wiring, in order to reflect that new habit. This process is know as conditioning, and was first demonstrated by Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov in an experiment he did with dogs.

In this experiment Pavlov gave food to dogs, when the dogs saw the food they began to salivate. Later he rang a bell when he gave the dogs food. Soon Pavlov was able to make the dogs salivate simply by ringing the bell, without giving them food.

What happened here was simple conditioning response, whereby the dogs learnt to associate food with the sound of a ringing bell.

You can use this same principle to shape your own behaviour with rewards, and condition yourself to become more disciplined.

Changing And Breaking Bad Habits

People like to do the same things, and become comfortable with their habits. Changing these habits often causes stress and anxiety, because the person begins to do something they are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with.

As a result, many people who try to change their habits often go back to their old habits because it gives them comfort and a sense of security.

By overcoming these painful feelings and using rewards to change your behaviour, you are almost certain to develop new success generating habits.

In a previous article I discussed methods for overcoming anxiety when faced with change.

When To Use Rewards To Create Habits?

In general there are 5 different ways you can use rewards: not at all, consistently, intermittently, deferred or immediately.

No Reward

If you choose not to reward yourself for a certain activity, you are unlikely to create a new pattern of behaviour.

Consequently you will go back to your old bad habits very quickly.

Consistent Reward

This involves giving yourself a reward for everything you do. Whilst this may seem effective in the short term, it may promote a long term dependency on that reward in order to repeat that behaviour.

If that reward is withheld the person may become angry, resentful or suffer feelings of stress and anxiety. Similar to how a drug addict may feel if they do not get their drug.

Intermittent Reward

Intermittent reward is one of the best ways to generate new habits. It involves randomly giving yourself a reward, or rewarding yourself for certain activities.

This is best seen in slot machines where the majority of the time you will loose money, but occasionally you will win big.

This uncertainty principle causes the gambler to keep gambling, because they never know when the next reward will be.

If you use this reward system on yourself or other people, do so every 3 or 4 times a behaviour is repeated. This will be enough to develop a new habit, whilst also keeping the perceived value of the reward at a high level.

A reward which is given too often looses its value, and therefore the desire to obtain it.

Deferred Reward

When using deferred reward, you do so with the promise of some kind of reward in the future. This may include a holiday at the end of the month, or the promise of success in the future once you have taken the time to establish a business.

Deferred reward is commonly used by many successful people, however it does require you to distinguish between short and long term gratification.

Deferred reward is an excellent way to build habits, and also promotes thinking in a long term perspective about life, whilst also increasing self discipline.

Immediate Reward

This type of reward occurs straight after a task is completed. The quicker you receive the reward, the greater affect it will have on you.

This method is commonly used at school on young children, whereby they are given a gold star for good behaviour or good homework.

The child then learns to associate this reward with a certain behaviour, and so becomes motivated to repeat that behaviour in order to obtain that reward.

Which Reward System Should I Use?

There is no set reward system that everyone should use, so instead you should decide upon which reward system is best suited to you.

Although generally speaking, intermittent and deferred reward mixed in with a little punishment and reward withdrawal, are the most effective at developing new habits.

Remember, these same principles you apply upon yourself can also be applied to other people. If you have children you can reward them for certain patterns of behaviour to develop habits of success in them.

If you are in a relationship you can use this reward system to create new habits in your partner, by rewarding them when they do something you would like to see repeated.

Maintaining The Value Of Rewards

However, in order for this reward system to be effective you must be careful how often you apply a reward. If you apply rewards too frequently you may create a dependency upon that reward. You may also reduce the perceived value of the reward, thereby decreasing the desire for it.

Rewards must also be proportional to the activity you are trying to repeat. Too great of a reward for a small activity (i.e. having a holiday for reading a book) may lead to a dissociation between the activity and the reward.

This means that the person soon forgets why they received the reward, as it was out of proportion to what they did.

Likewise, if too small of a reward is given then the person may not associate enough pleasure with that behaviour, and so will not be motivated to do it again.

Don’t Reward Bad Behaviour!

It is also important that rewards be used to create new habits only when you are trying to repeat a certain behaviour.

For example, if someone does something you dislike but you are still nice to them and give them a reward, the reward will loose its value and you will not shape their behaviour.

They will learn to associate the reward with good and bad behaviour, and so their old habits will remain.

This is often seen in abusive relationships where one partner abuses the other, but the abused continues to act the same way to the abuser. Often continuing to cook, clean and care for them. Essentially rewarding the abuser for their bad behaviour.

Therefore if you are trying to change habits in other people (i.e. shape their behaviour) apply rewards only for behaviours you would like to see repeated.

For behaviours you would like to remove, withhold the reward or apply punishment. This does not mean physical punishment, but rather emotional punishment.

This can simply be done by being “cold” to another person, talking less than you normally would to them and just generally treating them as if they meant nothing to you. This is sometimes called a “whatever attitude”.

The Masters Of Behaviour Shaping

Where do we see these techniques applied? Well, there are two masters of behaviour shaping that we all can relate to.

The first are animal trainers. Animal trainers know that the best way to create new habits (patterns of behaviour) in animals is to apply a reward for a certain activity.

For example, if the dog sits down he gets a treat. If the dog doesn’t do a trick, he gets punishment by not receiving the reward, or not receiving a pat on the head. The dogs behaviour is guided, motivated and shaped by pleasure and pain.

The Female Is More Deadlier Than The Male

The other masters of behaviour shaping can be found in the human female species, or in other words women! A clever temptress can easily shape a males behaviour, and “wrap him round her finger” if she knows what she is doing.

Women use the principle of reward in 3 main ways. Emotional, by making the male feel a certain way. Physical, by using physical acts to invoke pleasure in the male. And appearance, by dressing in a sexually provocative way to excite the male.

All of these are forms of reward, or the possibility of a reward, should you “play your cards right”.

However should you displease this seductive temptress the reward will be withdrawn, and punishment may be applied.

This usually comes in the form of emotional detachment, verbal abuse or absence of the woman (either permanently or temporarily).

Final Thoughts On Creating Habits

As you can see, the principles of reward and punishment are absolutely essential in creating and maintaining new habits in yourself and other people.

When habits are formed that new pattern of behaviour will be repeatedly automatically, with ease and without thinking. It will become a natural part of your behaviour.

At this point it will no longer be necessary to use rewards to repeat that behaviour, however it may be wise to reward occasionally to maintain that habit for the long term.

I use this same principle when writing articles. Rather than have a page of pure text, I like to add in the occasional picture.

This serves as a reward for the reader, by livening up the text and making the content seem more interesting.

The reader is then motivated to read further in order to experience that reward again, much more so than if no picture were present.

However, I do not apply this reward consistently (i.e. after every paragraph) as this would reduce the value of the reward. Instead I add pictures intermittently throughout the text.

So as a final recap, what you should remember from this article is that whenever you want to repeat a certain behaviour in yourself or others, use the reward system for at least 30 days to create a new habit.

If you want to remove a certain behaviour withdraw the reward, or apply a punishment. These simple principles are the very foundation upon which behaviour shaping is built. Master it, and you will master not only yourself, but also other people.

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