'Bad' habits often form faster than good ones and can be much harder to break. But it's not because we lack willpower—it's because of this.
Many people mistakenly attribute their bad habits to character flaws such as laziness or lack of self-discipline.Most good habits don't naturally provide immediate reinforcement. However, people can learn to create their own sources of reinforcement., you need only look at how we’re wired to form habits. Humans are astonishing in their ability to habitualize almost any behavior.
Adults show the same disparities. Consider the ease of forming convenience food habits versus the difficulty of forming nutritious eating habits. Compare the minimal effort required to fall into bad sleep habits versus the challenge of creating goodhabits. Procrastinating versus becoming proactive. Spending money versus the habit of saving and investing. In each of these cases, the first habit comes swiftly and naturally to us; the second takes prolonged practice and is fragile even once formed.
If these bad habit-good habit inequities seem unfair, keep in mind that they are not new. Reflect, for instance, on the “seven deadly sins” from the Bible and you may notice a pattern: All represent instinctive human behaviors that easily become enduring habits despite their vices. And each “sin” requires considerable learning and labor to replace with more virtuous habits.
Good habits, in contrast, generally are reinforced only much later. Using the above examples, junk food provides immediate gustatory pleasure andrelease; staying up late and sleeping in offer rapid entertainment and comfort rewards; procrastinating instantly spares us effort and risk; and spending gives us a momentary rush of positive emotions, especially if we found a good deal.
The typical person, for instance, may train for weeks to months to see pronounced exercise benefits. By then, most have given up due to the combination of the lack of visible progress and the immediate rewards offered by alternative behaviors such as social events or entertainment. Without changes to the reinforcement dynamics, this is a difficult cycle to break. To form lasting exercise or other healthy habits, we must introduce our own immediate reinforcers into the behavior.
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