Want to ditch a habit? Address its roots.
By: Taylor Riedeman
Tags: Habits, Human Behavior, Roots, Self-awareness, Change Your Life

“What’s with the scowl?” My colleague pinged me separately during an afternoon Zoom call.

I was multi-tasking — deciphering an email with my video turned on. I looked pissed.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been called out for the focus-scowl — I’d say my last three bosses have mentioned it. But, like grinding my teeth or answering texts with “sounds good”, my focus-scowl is an enduring habit that influences how people perceive me.

I’ve seen photos of myself reading as a child — the focus-scowl thing is new. But how did I develop it? And, more importantly, how do I go about changing it?

Habits feed off a need

“We are the sum of our actions, and therefore our habits make all the difference.” — Aristotle

We accumulate habits big and small throughout our lives as we move through the world coping with emerging needs, repeating what works, and eliminating what doesn’t.

For this reason, habits can either be symbiotic or parasitic creatures, making a home for themselves in our identity. And we grow accustomed to having these habits around, moving through life guided by a lifetime of accumulated, automatic actions.

Tossing your shoes by the bed

Leaving empty coffee mugs by the sink

Sighing when you receive an email from that person.

Developing awareness over the habits you currently have can help you remove what’s working to make way for something new.

And with every reinforcement of the habit, a new association generates. And those associations work beneath the surface like roots, anchoring the habit to your foundation — your identity.

To quit a bad habit, you first have to untangle it from the parts of you that have grown around it. But those roots are not attached to the habit itself, they’re nourished by the feeling that habit evokes — the guaranteed reward that comes, like dominos, after the cue, craving, and response.

Not the nail-biting, but the release of tension. Not staying up late, but the fear of missing out.

Want to ditch a habit? Analyze the roots.

With time and reinforcement, some habits begin to hold more intimate meaning in your life. A glass of wine in the evening is more than just a glass of wine, it signals the end of the workday, or socializing with friends.

So start looking at all the connections that anchor it in place. Some will be easy to remove, others will take months of dedication to uproot.

If you want ditch meat for a plant-based diet, look at its role in your life.

Maybe you’ll find eating meat is like social drinking — you’re way more likely to order chicken wings when hanging out with friends. Or maybe it’s deeper than that. And you habitually allow your friend to choose the happy hour spot, which will inevitably produce the cue you know — maybe just on a subconscious level — will trigger the craving and the subsequent domino effect to response and reward.

Shine a light on the areas where the habit is disguised as something meaningful, so you can address the triggers that connect you to that habit loop.

Connect to the feelings and associations of the habit, and you can lift it out to make way for something new — something that fulfills that same need more healthily or positively.

Be ready to replace the habit with a new tactic.

Out with the old …

When quitting a bad habit, it’s easy to get hung up on the “quitting” part. But that’s only half of the equation. Habits run deeper than the act itself, and to successfully remove the habit from your life, you need to transfer that time and energy toward something else. You need to replace it.

If you don’t have a plan for what you will replace that time and energy with, you could set yourself up to fill it with something unintentional, and likely just as unhealthy or unproductive.

Let’s say you watch TV to relax after work. Relaxing after work is a meaningful association. Protect what’s meaningful to you and change the vehicle for that meaningful outcome. Change the tactic — or what is known as the response to the craving. Whatever you choose, the new tactic still needs to be relaxing, because wanted to relax is the craving.

What healthy or productive choice would you like that to be? If you’re not sure, then consult the higher intention. Do you want to improve mental health? Feel more connected and engaged in your life? The higher intention will give you clues as to which tactic can replace the habit. Maybe that’s meditation. Maybe that’s chopping vegetables. Only you know what relaxes you.

Anchor the new habit with fresh roots

To reinforce the new habit, practice it at the same time as the old habit. And practice every day.

Remember my focus-scowl? I have a theory: In another job in another office, co-workers continuously interrupted me during my most critical morning productive hours. The focus-scowl developed as a means of signifying “Do not disturb”. I changed my face to look so intensely focused, that I looked entirely unapproachable. Clever.

It worked, albeit with some consequences. Nevertheless, that tactic became a habit — one that no longer serves me.

In this new job, in a virtual office, I want to present myself as a pleasant and approachable person to my colleagues. My strategy: Be present during the meeting. That means no multitasking.

Here’s the habit hot-swap: I place my zoom tab to full-screen so I can’t open my email. I also noticed I have a habit of checking emails before a meeting. To avoid the multitasking habit, I have to address the pre-meeting habits too.

Now, before meetings or any other interaction, I ask myself, “How do I want people to feel around me or when engaging with me?” It’s a lot of work, but when I remember that the focus-scowl is just a shitty old habit I’ve outgrown, I persevere.

With intention, reinforcement, and a little patience, you can change even the most enduring habits.

In Summary:

If you want to ditch a bad habit or introduce a new one,