How to break bad habits (3 Proven Steps)

December 04, 2025

“Time management is pain management.” — Nir Eyal

Why it works

Nir Eyal (pictured) is a leading expert on habit formation and focus. A former startup founder and Stanford lecturer, he’s best known for his bestselling books Hooked and Indistractable, which explore how habits form and how to regain control over our attention. Nir has also been one of my mentors ever since I began writing online in 2020, and he was the one who encouraged me to write my first book. I read an early copy of his upcoming third book, Beyond Belief, and absolutely LOVED it. It’s a brilliant guide to stop limiting yourself and achieve breakthrough results. You can pre-order it here. And for my US-based readers, I'm sponsoring 30 copies. To stand a chance to win, take 30 seconds and enter here.

In his previous bestselling book Indistractable, Nir busts the common myth that human motivation is governed by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. “Even when we think we’re seeking pleasure,” he writes, “we’re actually driven by the desire to free ourselves from the pain of wanting.” This mechanism helps explain why many bad habits take hold in the first place. When a behavior offers even brief relief from discomfort, our brains learn to repeat it, even when it works against us. As Samuel Johnson famously observed, “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”

Fortunately, we can break any bad habit, no matter how strong it might feel or how long we’ve been falling prey to it. In our coaching practice, we use a proven three-step method to help our clients pull this off. Below, we’ll look at each step and show how to apply them to three of the most common habits people want to break: doomscrolling, which drains time and leaves us mentally depleted; comfort foods, which send our energy levels on a rollercoaster ride and disrupt sleep; and alcohol, which undermines our health and well-being.

How to do it

Step 1: Identify the pain
If you want to break a bad habit, start by identifying the underlying pain you’re trying to relieve yourself from. When it comes to doomscrolling, comfort foods, and alcohol, the underlying pain is usually stress, worry, or anxiety. These feelings are completely normal, and wanting quick relief from them is part of being human. But while indulging in social media, a sugary snack, or a nightcap might help take the edge off a hard day, it eventually backfires. You feel worse the next morning after poor sleep, and over time, the physical and mental consequences will inevitably show up.

In Hooked, Nir recommends a powerful method for identifying the root cause of a problem. It originates from the Toyota Production System. Taiichi Ohno, one of its key architects, described this method as the foundation of Toyota’s scientific way of working. It’s known as the 5 Why Method, and it works just as well for breaking bad habits as for improving a company. By asking “why?” five times, you’ll uncover the pain that’s driving a bad habit. Here’s how applying the method helped me understand why I was doomscrolling in the evening:

Why #1: Why am I doomscrolling?
Because I want to know what’s going on in the world.

Why #2: Why do I want to know what’s going on?
Because I feel uneasy when I’m not up to date.

Why #3: Why do I feel uneasy when I’m not up to date?
Because uncertainty stresses me out.

Why #4: Why does uncertainty stress me out?
Because it gives me a sense of losing control.

Why #5: Why does losing control bother me?
Because when I’m stressed, losing control amplifies that stress.

Step 2: Pick a replacement habit
Once you’ve identified the pain that’s driving the bad habit, choose a better habit that you can do instead when the pain shows up. When you’re stressed, worried, or anxious, this new habit lets you address the underlying pain in a healthier and more sustainable way.

For doomscrolling, the replacement habit might be as simple and enjoyable as watching a show, documentary, or movie. While doomscrolling is draining and depleting, getting absorbed by watching something you like can be surprisingly restorative and relaxing.

For comfort foods, the replacement habit might be having a healthy snack, cup of tea, or decaf coffee. We all need to eat and drink, and an apple, a couple of nuts, or a cup of chamomile tea can provide relief without any negative consequences.

For alcohol, the replacement habit might be choosing an alcohol-free version of your favorite drink. Tasty alcohol-free beers are widely available now, and there are even wines and spirits that come remarkably close to the real thing.

Step 3: Make the old habit difficult
After you’ve replaced the bad habit with a better one, make the old habit as difficult as possible. Willpower won’t save you once motivation dips or a hard day hits, so adding some friction is key. Bonus points if you make the replacement habit as easy as possible so it becomes the natural choice rather than the old one.

For doomscrolling, try Intermittent Digital Fasting. Put your phone into its own bedroom (not yours) one hour before bed and let it “sleep in” for at least one hour after you wake up. While this might feel uncomfortable at first, it gets easier each day. You’ll dramatically improve your sleep and win back 14 hours a week. If you want to dive deeper into Intermittent Digital Fasting, including ideas for better ways to use that time, check out this article.

For comfort foods, stop buying them when you do your grocery shopping. You can’t eat what’s not in your house. Instead of comfort foods, stock up on what Max Lugavere calls Genius Foods: almonds, blueberries, dark chocolate, eggs, wild salmon, broccoli, avocados, extra-virgin olive oil, grass-fed beef, and dark leafy greens. Consumed in moderation, the first three make great snacks, and all ten offer an excellent framework for building one’s diet around low-sugar plants and properly raised animal products (get more tips on improving your health here). I personally eat five or more Genius Foods every day.

For alcohol, consider doing a Dry January. Announce this to your friends and family to create accountability. Also, stock up on your favorite alcoholic-free drinks. If you do not want to go cold turkey, limit your consumption to two to six drinks per week. Anything above that is really bad for you (here’s why). Here’s how I went from seven or more to two. First, halve the amount per glass (et voilà: now you can have 4 drinks a week). Second, resort to alcohol-free versions of your favorite drink whenever possible. Third, only drink on weekends or special occasions (nothing wrong with enjoying a good glass (or two) on Christmas or New Year’s Eve).

I used to struggle with all three for many years.

But when I finally identified the underlying pain, picked a replacement habit, and made the old habit difficult (and the better habit easy), things changed quickly and dramatically.

Despite having two kids under two, I now sleep, feel, and work better than ever and only rarely end up soothing myself with doomscrolling, comfort foods, alcohol, or any of the several other bad habits I got rid of using the three steps outlined above.

Here’s my challenge for you:

Pick a bad habit that you’ve been trying to break.

Use the 3 steps to break that habit this month (or next).

This might well turn 2026 into one of your best years ever.

Christian

PS:
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