How do you break a bad habit without willpower and effort?

Most people assume that breaking a habit must be hard, but that’s only partially true. There’s just one piece of knowledge you need to have, then it all becomes easy.

What knowledge? Read on.

First, you’ve got to ask yourself a question: Why do people think it’s difficult to break a habit?

It turns out, most people don’t understand how habits work. How do they start and what keeps them going? Why do they keep going after you’ve tried to put on the brakes?

A highly lucrative ‘habit busting’ industry has grown up around this, because it’s such a mystery to most people. The front runners are the ‘stop smoking’ and ‘lose weight’ industries.

This is at the heart of the confusion: most people confuse habits with addictions.

An addiction is a behavioural pattern that generates intense pleasure and its lack generates intense pain. Examples: heroin, gambling

A habit is something you do regularly, triggered by everyday events, that you deeply want to do. Examples: biting your nails, smoking


And there’s that vital piece of knowledge – a habit is something that you deeply want to do.

Or – and here’s the clincher – something that a part of you wants to do.


People who struggle to quit smoking, for example, are fighting themselves. A part of them wants to stop and a part of them wants to smoke. Both parts of them expend energy, but the smoker part has an advantage:

  • ingrained patterns
  • a supportive environment
  • a variety of regular triggers

To break a habit, you need to decide whole-heartedly (with every part of you in agreement) to stop. Then you will break the habit with no further effort.

When you know and understand this, breaking a habit is truly effortless.