How to Break a Habit

4 Steps to Break a Bad Habit—For Good

By Dr. Darrell Ferguson

We all have them—those stubborn, besetting sins that just seem to always get the best of us. They can range from an annoying habit you wish you could kick, all the way to a full-blown addiction that’s ruining your life.

Whatever the severity, the principles for lasting change are the same.

Every January, millions of people make resolutions to change and most go by the wayside well before February’s arrival. Why? It’s because they resolve to change, but they don’t make any plans for change. Most people put more thought into planning a vacation than they put into making changes in their character.

David Ramsey says, “Resolutions don’t work. Goals do.” That’s a good statement, but I would add, “goals and plans for how to reach those goals.” To arrive somewhere you must first map a course.

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. (Proverbs 21:5 NIV)

Merely making a resolution to change without doing any planning and then applying diligence to carrying out those plans is what the proverb means by “haste.” And haste will lead to failure.

One reason why mere resolutions so often fail has to do with the way God designed our brains. Most of our behavior throughout the day does not come from a series of conscious choices. Rather, most of what we do is driven by habit. For every conscious decision we make, there are a hundred other things we do without giving them any thought at all.

This is a wonderful gift from God. Recall the first time you drove a car. Seat belt, emergency brake, check mirrors, foot on brake pedal, shift into gear… the number of things you had to consider was overwhelming. It seemed almost impossible. But now you can do it all in the dark while carrying on a conversation and turning down the radio. God designed our brains such that when a behavior is repeated enough times it develops a neural pathway like a deep rut in a road that enables us to do that behavior on autopilot, without conscious thought. Life would be impossible without this ability.

The problem comes when those ruts (habits) are dug in wrong directions. Every time a destructive behavior such as getting drunk, viewing porn, or eating too much is connected with a sensation of pleasure, it strengthens the neural pathway. It digs that rut deeper and pulls behavior in that direction in our automatic responses.

This is why, in the words of John Ortberg, “Habits eat willpower for lunch.” Resolutions rarely work because once the wheels fall into the deep ruts of habit, steering them back out is next to impossible. The very design of our brains contributes to the stickiness of sin.

The good news is that the neural pathways can be changed. The key is to back up to the point where the rut first begins in the road, and, through repetitive behavior, begin digging new ruts—building new neural pathways that cause your unconscious, habitual reactions to be godly.

You can dig new ruts—ones that go the way you want them to go. Here’s how:

1. Pinpoint where the bad ruts begin

Think about the behavior you want to change. At what point does your autopilot take the first turn in the wrong direction? What feelings tend to cause you to drop into those ruts? For an overeater, it might be a response to stress. For a drinker, perhaps it is the well-worn left turn triggered by emotional pain or social pressure. For the porn addict, boredom might be where the ruts begin.

In most cases, the ruts in the road are related to how you have trained your brain to respond to various feelings. When we feel anger, emptiness, sexual desire, pain, boredom, fear, or anxiety; we begin moving down well-worn paths of thinking that lead to the behaviors we wish we could quit. Begin by discovering what usually triggers your habit.

2. Set clear, measurable, attainable goals

This might sound obvious—“My goal is to kick this habit.” That’s not specific enough. The goals should relate to how you respond to the triggers you found in step one.

Those feelings that trigger your habit are going to come. That’s life. The key is to respond to them the right way. To do that, you must have a clear idea of what the right response would be. Give careful thought to what it would look like to react in a better way to those feelings—a response that would move you in the direction of your goal.

Make sure you get this on paper. You will need to see it in front of you in moments of temptation.

3. Develop action steps

Here’s where the planning comes in. If your goal is a fun vacation on the beach, you plan out the steps that will bring that result (get time off work, book a flight and hotel, etc.). If you want a finished basement, you plan out the steps to getting that done. And if you want to start responding differently to certain feelings, it requires the same kind of planning.

Write down three or more action steps that would wake up your conscious mind at those crucial moments so you’re making conscious decisions rather than reverting to auto pilot when those kinds of feelings come up. Think carefully. What thought processes and actions would be most likely to steer in the right direction before you drop into the old ruts?

4. Get help for hard cases

If you have tried to change and failed, you’re stuck. Whether you call it an addiction or a besetting sin, some behaviors just seem to be extra stubborn when you try to change.

These ruts run so deep that outside help is required. That’s okay. God designed us to need help and accountability in our spiritual progress. It’s part of the beauty of how God designed family life in the church.

For especially troublesome behaviors, seek out a biblical counselor who knows how to apply principles of freedom from God’s Word to your specific struggle or enroll in an intensive course such as this one.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1 NIV)

You have been enslaved long enough. Take twenty minutes today to sit down in a quiet place and make a plan.​

My mission is to apply the Word of God to the hearts of men and women in ways that deepen knowledge of God and stoke the fires of love for him.

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