Highlights: How to stop bad habits + start good habits • The four laws of behavior change
A father was out walking in the woods one afternoon with his daughter when he paused in front of a tiny little tree 🌱 just beginning to sprout. “Pull that sapling from the ground,” the father said to his daughter. The young girl shrugged her shoulders, knelt down, and easily pulled up the sprout from the soil and handed it to her father.
“Daddy?” the girl said, “Why’d you ask me to do that?”
Rather than answering his daughter, the father pointed to a slightly larger, more established sapling that had grown to about knee high to the girl and said, “Now pull up that one.”
With a bit of effort, the girl yanked up the tree and pulled it out of the soil, roots and all.
“Now pull that one,” said the father, pointing to a more developed evergreen that stood as tall as the girl.
The little girl looked at her father, “Daddy, this one might take awhile, can you help?”
“I’m helping you more than you know, my child,” said the father. “Now, please pull it from the ground.”
The little girl rolled up her sleeves and got to work. She grabbed a few strong sticks and branches lying nearby and began to pry up and loosen the roots. Then, with all her might, and every ounce of strength she could muster, she finally pulled the tree from the ground and let it fall to the ground in front of her father.
At this point, the little girl was sweating profusely, with dirt all over her clothes.
And just as she was brushing the bits of dirt and soil off of her shirt, she heard her father’s voice, “We’re not finished yet, my love…”
“Now, pull up this one,” said the father, as he stopped in front of a fully grown oak tree that stood so high the little girl could barely see the top.
“I can’t do that, Dad!” Said the little girl, with a mixture of disbelief and frustration.
The father looked at his daughter, gave her a calm smile, and said, “My child, you’ve just demonstrated the powerful influence that habits can have over your life… Just like the trees in this forest—the older they get, the stronger the roots become, the harder they are to uproot. Some get so big and so strong, you might hesitate to even try.”
Habits can be hard to change.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t change them. It simply means that some habits are tougher to change than others.
And with the right strategies, you can change the habits that are holding you back and transform them into habits that propel you forward and toward your greatest goals and ambitions.
That’s what we’ll be tackling today—how to stop bad habits and change them into good habits.
Learn how to stop bad habits + build strong habits with four simple rules.
Let me introduce you to the four laws of behavior change, which are a simple set of principles we can put to use anytime we’re wondering about how to stop bad habits and replace them with better ones.
Here they are:
- Make it obvious
- Make it attractive
- Make it easy
- Make it satisfying
Let’s break each of these down, along with examples for each…
1. Make it obvious.
Don’t hide the books you need to read or the fruit you want to eat, display them prominently to remind yourself to form better habits.
For example: Establish a running habit by placing your running shoes at the foot of your bed. This makes the behavior you want obvious.
2. Make it attractive.
Read the books you like to read, and it’ll encourage you to read more.
For example: Make establishing a running habit more attractive by getting a nice pair of running shoes and some new workout clothes.
3. Make it easy.
If you want to eat more fruit, eat the fruits that are easy to eat.
For example: If your target habit is to eventually go jogging for at least 45 minutes per day, 5 days per week, you can make it easier to create this running habit if you start small—by scaling this target habit down to a tiny habit, such as “Jog for five minutes a day.”
4. Make it satisfying.
If you’re satisfied, you’ll want more.
For example: If you want to make your running habit more satisfying, prepare a delicious, healthy meal to enjoy when you’ve finished your run.
BOOM.
That’s how you apply the laws of behavior change to the habits you want to build…
But what about the bad habits you want to stop?
Reverse the laws to stop bad habits.
- Make them invisible,
- make them unattractive,
- make them difficult, and
- make them unsatisfying
1. Make it INVISIBLE.
If you’ve tried and failed at learning how to stop bad habits like binging on junk food—and you want to replace these bad habits with healthier ones—a great first step is to hide all the junk food in your kitchen or get rid of it altogether—making it invisible.
2. Make it UNATTRACTIVE.
Junk food feels great while you’re eating it. Diabetes does not.
Think of the latter—the unattractive thought of potentially getting diabetes—if you’re working on stopping your junk food habit.
3. Make it DIFFICULT.
Make it difficult to partake in your bad habit of eating junk food by asking a family member to hide it for you.
4. Make it UNSATISFYING.
Find the nutrition label on your favorite junk food and look up the ingredients you haven’t heard of. Once you learn what they REALLY are and how much damage they’re doing to your body, it’ll be less satisfying if you still decide to binge.
Actionable insights
How to start good habits using the four laws of behavior change.
Whenever you want to build a positive habit, ask yourself the following questions:
- How can I make it obvious?
- How can I make it attractive?
- How can I make it easy?
- How can I make it satisfying?
How to stop bad habits using the four laws of behavior change.
Whenever you want to stop bad habits, ask yourself the following questions:
- How can I make it invisible?
- How can I make it unattractive?
- How can I make it difficult?
- How can I make it unsatisfying?
Wanna take a deeper dive into stopping bad habits and building strong ones?
Check out my course, Build Strong Habits.
