Why Habits Don't Work
Table of contents
- Embrace the struggle; it's the key to true success, not the comfort of automatic habits.
- Sometimes, the path to change isn't about small steps; it's about making a bold leap that shakes everything up.
- Transform your mornings by ditching distractions and tackling the essentials first. Speedrun your day for a fresh start and watch your productivity soar.
- Every day is a new spawn point; set yourself up for success today to avoid the chaos tomorrow. Procrastination only makes the burden heavier.
- Stop procrastinating and start setting yourself up for a better tomorrow today. Your future self will thank you for embracing the struggle now.
- Your day shapes your night; make bold changes today for a better tomorrow.
Embrace the struggle; it's the key to true success, not the comfort of automatic habits.
You are unlucky because the person that will inherit all of your hard work tomorrow will not be you. You will wake up as a different human being who will spawn into your life. They will have a clean kitchen, they'll have food in the fridge, they'll feel hungry in the morning, and they'll be well-rested. That person is going to reap all the benefits of your hard work. This is where you have to be very careful because as long as you are embracing the struggle, you will be fine.
Today, we're going to talk about why having habits don't work. Now, this may sound kind of weird, right? Here we are, with a bunch of research showing that habits are really great, and people who are very successful have good habits. Everyone's all about building good habits—habits, habits, habits. However, in my own life, as well as with a large fraction of my patients, there are just people who are not habit people. They are fundamentally inconsistent. They are not like those farmer types who wake up every day at the same time, do the same things every day, and go to bed at the same time. Instead, they are a little bit more like hunters. They wake up early, go out into the environment, and see what they can find. They are much more dynamic.
The problem is that if you are a dynamic person, habits can be very, very hard to build. Then we have this idea that unless you build habits, you will not be successful in life. So today, we’re going to teach you all an alternative to building habits. If you're one of these dynamic people—which means inconsistent and lacking follow-through, like myself—there are ways you can be just as successful, or even more successful, than someone who builds habits.
What we're going to focus on today is the basics. We are not talking about habits that are super ambitious, although arguably this could be ambitious. We are going to teach you all today, if you're someone who struggles with habits, how to do the basics. We’re talking about exercising, meditating, eating healthy, going to sleep, and doing some amount of admin stuff. This is all of the crap that is not enjoyable in life, but if you are able to check all of these boxes, these are the sandbags that kind of hold you back.
At the end of your week, when you've gone to work and completed some of the important stuff in life, there’s all the crap that you should do: I should exercise, I should meditate, I should cook at home, I should eat healthy, I should go through my mail instead of procrastinating on all this stuff. It’s all this crap, and we’re going to teach you how to do that without necessarily focusing on habits.
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The first problem with habits that we don’t really consider is that habits promote laziness. Now, you may listen to this and say, "Dr. K, what are you talking about? The whole point of a habit is that you're disciplined, and discipline is the opposite of lazy." No, let’s understand scientifically what a habit is. A habit isn’t an automatic action; the habits that you have don’t require effort. That’s what makes them a habit—they are automatic and don’t require a struggle.
We love the idea of a habit because we think, "Man, I wish I had good habits; then I would not have to struggle to exercise and eat healthy. My life would be easy if I could turn all the good actions into habits." The desire to create a habit-fulfilled life is a thirst for laziness, a thirst for a lack of struggle. I want everything to happen automatically; I don’t want to struggle with my stupid head up here. I want to wake up and then do everything before I even realize it, in the same way that I lose myself in this or that. I want all of the special good things to be done that way.
Now, this creates a huge problem because the goal of habits is to get rid of laziness, but the path to habits is the opposite of laziness. It is a struggle every single day.
Sometimes, the path to change isn't about small steps; it's about making a bold leap that shakes everything up.
Struggling with habits is a common theme, and that's why we love the idea of a habit. I wish I had good habits; then I would not have to struggle to exercise and eat healthy. My life would be easy if I could turn all the good actions into habits. The desire to create a habit-fulfilled life is essentially a thirst for laziness—a thirst for a lack of struggle. I want everything to happen automatically. I don't want to struggle with my stupid head up here. I want to wake up and then do everything before I even realize it, just like I lose myself in various distractions. I want all of the special good things to be done that way.
However, this creates a huge problem because the goal of habits is to get rid of laziness, but the path to habits is the opposite of laziness; it is a struggle every single day. Building a habit is very hard, and if you're a fundamentally lazy person, the appeal of no longer having to struggle means you probably haven't built the habits. I'm not saying that habits are bad; in fact, they are really good. There's a lot of great evidence behind them. However, in my clinical experience as a psychiatrist, I have found that human beings are different, and the habit pathway doesn't work well for a lot of people.
There is a group of people I have worked with for whom drastic change in a short amount of time is actually the most successful way forward. This is not about making a 1% change in my life every day for 800 days; some of us simply can't do that. I've had plenty of patients who stop using substances by going cold turkey. I'm not going to cut back on my cigarettes by 25% every week until I stop; it's like I have to stop now. Similarly, in relationships, we often see that people don't gradually break up; instead, they might say, get the hell out of my apartment, I'm going to block you on everything.
Interestingly, I have worked with a group of patients who have joined the military. I know it sounds insane, but about 60 to 70% of the patients I've worked with who have joined the military think it is an awesome thing to do. I'm not advocating for joining the military; I believe it's an individual choice, and this is not sponsored by the US Army. However, some people really love that they joined the military, and why is that? It’s because it instituted a drastic change in their life. It gave them structure; they started eating, exercising, waking up every day, and making their beds.
Having done a fair amount of veteran work, I can say that most of them are pretty happy with their decision to join the military. Even those who may dislike certain aspects of their service or particular officers tend to be satisfied overall. The key takeaway is that for some people, making a drastic change in a short amount of time is actually the path to success. However, many of these individuals also stumble down the road. While they can manage drastic change for a short period, the challenge lies in sustaining it.
Another example I want to share is related to diet. When I have worked with people who made dietary changes, it’s not about gradually cutting back on carbs; instead, they often say, I'm going keto. Many people who make drastic dietary changes, like going on a FODMAP diet or starting keto, do so by tossing all the carbs in their house out and buying a bunch of protein and vegetables. They commit to a drastic change, such as now I'm doing keto for 30 days.
Drastic changes work for some people, yet as a society, we do not acknowledge this enough, nor do we support these individuals adequately. Now, let’s talk about the basics: food, sleep, exercise, meditation, and admin tasks. The best approach, honestly, is to speedrun all of this the moment you wake up.
If we really look at it, most people wake up in the morning and grab their cell phones. They lounge around for about 45 minutes, maybe have a cup of coffee, or watch a little TV. This is where the struggle begins.
Transform your mornings by ditching distractions and tackling the essentials first. Speedrun your day for a fresh start and watch your productivity soar.
Starting a keto diet can often lead people to make drastic changes in their lifestyle. Many individuals think, "I'm going to toss all of the carbs in my house out, I'm going to go to the grocery store, I'm going to buy a bunch of protein and vegetables, and like now I'm doing keto for 30 days." While such drastic changes work for some people, we as a society do not acknowledge this enough, nor do we support these individuals adequately.
Let’s discuss the basics: food, sleep, exercise, meditation, and admin tasks. The best approach, honestly, is to speedrun all of this the moment you wake up. Most people, when they wake up in the morning, grab their cell phone and lounge around for about 45 minutes. They might have a cup of coffee, watch a little TV, or scroll through social media. After this, they sit down at their computer, have their coffee, and open the same website they always do. This routine leads to spending excessive time on the phone, which is detrimental.
On average, a human being uses their cell phone for about 4 hours and 37 minutes per day. To combat this, we need to speedrun all of the unnecessary activities right when we wake up. The first rule is to not be anywhere near a device; a device should not be within arm's reach. You might wonder, "What if there’s an emergency overnight? How am I going to wake up?" As a doctor, I can tell you that the number of emergencies I receive on my cell phone is probably just two or three a year.
Instead of relying on your cell phone as an alarm, consider other options. The key thing to understand is that once you start this routine, it’s game over for procrastination. Keep your phone away from your bed. For the first 90 minutes, you will find it challenging; building habits is a struggle from day one and will likely continue to be a struggle for a while. You must accept that it’s never going to be easy.
So, what should you do? Wake up, exercise for 30 minutes, meditate for 15 minutes, and spend about 15 minutes doing admin tasks like paying bills or sorting through your mail. After that, take a 10-minute shower to clean yourself up. If it takes you a little longer, that’s okay. Then, prepare a basic breakfast, such as a couple of slices of toast, two eggs, and some fruit, which takes about 20 minutes to prepare and eat. If you don’t eat eggs or don’t like toast, there are plenty of other meals you can prepare within 20 or 30 minutes that will meet your dietary needs.
You might think, "But I don’t have 90 minutes in the morning!" However, you could set your alarm clock a little earlier. Yes, you might feel tired, but that will help you sleep better later that night. These are all positive changes. By the time you reach 90 minutes into your day, you will have accomplished a lot.
Now, you might ask, "What about consistency?" That’s an excellent question. Let’s talk about spawn points. Every day when you wake up, you "spawn" into your life. There’s past you and future you. The problem is that past you often neglects future you. The reason you want to develop good habits is that you’re inherently lazy; you don’t want to struggle. If you adopt this mindset, you might leave the dishes in the sink for future you to deal with or think, "I’ll go through the mail tomorrow."
However, when you wake up the next morning, you’re faced with all these tasks hanging over your head. This leads to feelings of being overwhelmed, as you think, "Oh God, I have to do the dishes, I have to go through the mail," and so on. As a result, everything piles up, and we experience negative emotions.
Every day is a new spawn point; set yourself up for success today to avoid the chaos tomorrow. Procrastination only makes the burden heavier.
Spawn points are a concept that we don't quite understand, but every day when you wake up, you essentially spawn into your life. There exists a past you and a future you, and the basic problem with life is that past you has no problem screwing over future you. The reason you want habits is because you're lazy; you don't want to struggle. If that is your ethos, then you will leave the dishes in the sink the night before, thinking, "Future you can deal with it." You might say, "Oh, I'll go through the mail tomorrow; future you can handle that."
Then, what happens? When you wake up in the morning, you find yourself overwhelmed with all these tasks hanging over your head: "Oh God, I have to do the dishes, I have to go through the mail." All the stuff piles up, and we experience negative emotions. It becomes too much to deal with first thing in the morning. When it feels overwhelming, do we tackle the little part that we can manage? Of course not! Once we cross the threshold from okay to deal with to too much to deal with, we end up doing none of it. We think, "Oh my God, it's so much work!"
Recognize that every day, you control your spawn point for tomorrow. You have a choice regarding the condition in which you want to wake up. Do you want to wake up tomorrow to a clean sink or a sink full of dirty dishes? Do you want to have some meal prep done? For instance, do you want to boil 12 eggs tonight so that you have boiled eggs ready for tomorrow morning? The key thing to understand is that you create the spawn point for tomorrow.
The problem arises when we are faced with doing a task. Why do we procrastinate? It’s because of the struggle. Your mind tells you, "Oh, if you do it, you can just do it tomorrow." However, your mind makes a critical miscalculation: it assumes that if you do it today and if you do it tomorrow, the cost will be the same. This is incorrect. The cost increases every moment you wait.
You might say, "But Dr. K, how is that true?" Consider this: going through 10 pieces of mail is not the same as procrastinating. When you procrastinate, things get worse. For example, taking out the trash today is not a big deal, but when you wait two days, it stinks more. What about working on your term paper or letting your boss know that you need some time off? We often procrastinate because we don't want others to think we're lazy or because we don't want to ask for an extension. Then, we wait until the last minute and, after the last minute, we ask for an extension, saying, "Sorry, I know the paper is due today, but my grandfather died two weeks ago."
When we procrastinate, things indeed get worse. Your mind will try to trick you into believing that it will be the same amount of work in the future. For example, renewing something is way less work than reapplying for it if it has expired. So, be careful when your mind tells you, "Oh, we can do it tomorrow." It’s not going to be the same; it will be worse. Every day that goes by, it gets worse, and you know it.
Prepare to pay the cost and set yourself up for a better tomorrow. Control your spawn point. What you need to protect against is yourself. Help yourself out; this is what controlling the spawn point means. On any given day when you face procrastination, remember that we're going to do drastic changes today; tomorrow we'll worry about tomorrow. The reason we don’t tackle these tasks is that we allow tomorrow to be where the solution lies.
“I'll take care of it tomorrow,” we say, but then we spawn in tomorrow and look around, thinking, "I don't want to do any of this stuff. I'll do it tomorrow, over the weekend, or I'll start on Monday." As a result, no habits ever form, and they won't form if we keep this mindset.
So, focus on today; this is all the time you have for drastic change. Join the military in your mind. Practically, what does this mean? It means you need to get your ass to the grocery store or whatever your equivalent is, as best as you can. Buy food that is healthy and do not buy food that is unhealthy. It becomes much easier to eat unhealthy food when it is available. The number one thing that determines what goes into your body is what is available—that's a fact.
Stop procrastinating and start setting yourself up for a better tomorrow today. Your future self will thank you for embracing the struggle now.
I'll take care of it tomorrow. Then, you spawn in tomorrow, look around, and think, I don't want to do any of this stuff. You tell yourself, I'll do it tomorrow, or I'll do it over the weekend, or I'll start on Monday. As a result, no habits ever form, and they are not going to form. So, don’t worry about it; focus on today. This is the only time you have for drastic change.
Join the military in your mind. Practically, what does this mean? It means get your ass to the grocery store or whatever your equivalent is, as best as you can. Buy food that is healthy and do not buy food that is unhealthy. It becomes way easier to eat unhealthy food when it is available. The food that goes into your body is determined by what is available. That’s a fact of physics, not even biology. If I'm stuck on a boat and the only thing available is hard tack and water, that’s the only food I can eat. I cannot physically eat food that does not exist.
Some of you may say, Okay, but Dr. K, I buy healthy food, but then I end up ordering Uber Eats anyway. Fair enough, because you're avoiding the struggle. So, set yourself up for a future A Better Tomorrow. Set yourself up for the spawn point of tomorrow. We want to buy food, and the moment that you feel like, Oh my God, I don't feel like cooking, in that moment, you might be tempted to order some takeout. That’s where you have to embrace the struggle.
How do you want to set yourself up for tomorrow? It’s not even about today. Today’s going to suck; accept that. There’s nothing you can do. I mean, you can make today better, but making today better will come at the cost of tomorrow. How do you want to wake up tomorrow? Do you want to have eaten some of the food, or do you want to have more rotting vegetables in your fridge that you have to throw out a week from now?
There’s something really cool you can do to avoid throwing out rotten vegetables: you can eat them before they rot. But instead, we order food, the vegetables rot, and of course, we have leftovers. Then, tomorrow, what happens? You’ve got these leftovers that you can heat up, or you have this broccoli that’s maybe going bad. You might think, Let me eat the leftovers because if I make the broccoli now, leftovers will be more leftover tomorrow, and then they won’t even be edible.
So, let me eat this; let me eat the unhealthy leftovers so I can throw out the healthy broccoli. We’re screwing ourselves over. You have to protect yourself against yourself. You’re the one who is not controlling the spawn point properly. When we spend the first 90 minutes of the day doing this kind of stuff, everything going forward becomes easier.
When I eat breakfast in the morning, I don’t have this 2:00 p.m. incredibly hungry moment where my ghrelin and leptin levels are all messed up, causing me to crave very calorie-dense food because I haven’t gotten any calories since 10 p.m. last night. The more you wait between eating windows, the more unhealthy food you will crave because your body is like, Hey, we can’t survive on broccoli; we’re at a 1200 calorie deficit. Get me a burrito!
You screw yourself in the future by skipping breakfast. I don’t need a huge breakfast; it doesn’t work for everyone, but the principle still stands: eat something. I usually have a banana. Set yourself up for a better tomorrow. Embrace the struggle for today. If you exercise, if you meditate, and if you eat a good breakfast, then it will be easier to eat a good lunch. If you eat a good breakfast and a lunch, you will not be calorically deficient at dinner, and you won’t eat a gigantic pile of food.
The problem with eating a gigantic pile of food is that it will trigger an insulin response. You’ll get really sleepy, you’ll kind of sleep it off, and then you will wake up again at 10:30, making it hard for you to go to sleep. The sleep that you get tonight is determined by how you spent your day. Everyone asks, How do I go to sleep? How do I have a healthy sleep schedule? It’s not about a schedule; it’s about the way that you spent your day.
On days that I work out for like an hour and I’m sweating, dizzy, and nauseous—because that’s sometimes how I work out—sleep becomes very easy. When you eat the right food, sleep becomes easy. When you go to bed at night and you’re beating yourself up for all this crap that you did, like binge-watching a show or spending six hours playing a video game—Deadlock is my poison of choice at the moment; fantastic game—you will screw up tomorrow. If you don’t sleep properly, that’s the easiest way to screw up proper you.
Your day shapes your night; make bold changes today for a better tomorrow.
Tonight is determined by how you spent your day. Everyone's asking, "How do I go to sleep?" or "How do I have a healthy sleep schedule?" However, it's not about a schedule; it's about the way that you spent your day. On days when I work out for an hour and I'm sweating, dizzy, and sometimes nauseous—because that's how I push myself to the absolute limit—sleep becomes very easy. When you eat the right food, sleep becomes easy. But if you go to bed at night beating yourself up for all the crap that you did, like binge-watching a show or spending six hours playing video games—Deadlock is my poison of choice at the moment; it's a fantastic game—you will screw up tomorrow. If you don't sleep properly, that's the easiest way to screw up your life.
The problem with putting together your life is that we want to do it 1% at a time. There’s a very good argument for this approach; people often say, "Oh, habits have changed my life." I'll be the first to say it, but they don't work for everyone in the same way. Your mileage may vary. What about those people who struggle to form habits? Here’s the crazy thing: the reason you struggle to form habits is that your cognitive fingerprint is not habit-oriented. You are more dynamic; you’re the "go big or go home" type. The best points in your life are probably the times when you made drastic changes—like breaking up with a partner, getting a gym membership, starting to eat healthy, or crushing it at work.
Embrace the suck. Don't lure yourself into thinking, "Oh, life will be easy once I build all the right habits. Then I can be the lazy MF that I am, and I'm going to be in shape, eating healthy, and making so much money." It’s not about 1%; sometimes it's about drastic changes. The cool thing about shaping your spawning environment is that that’s literally what you’re doing. If you shape your spawn environment, things will become easy.
Another interesting aspect of drastic changes over time is that they are synergistic. Here’s why it’s so hard to break bad habits 1% at a time: because they are synergistic. Getting high is fun, playing video games is fun, and being in a comfortable relationship where you and your partner are just kind of existing—both of you want something more but enable each other's bad behavior—is also fun. You don’t judge each other because if you do, they’ll start judging you. So, you let their bad behavior slide, and they let yours slide, creating a comfortable yet unhappy existence.
The negative behaviors in our lives are synergistic. In psychiatry, we have this process called dual diagnosis. When someone has a mood disorder and an addiction, you can't treat one at a time; it becomes impossible. I feel depressed because I feel depressed, so I drink. You cannot treat depression with something like antidepressant medication as long as someone is drinking. You have to do both; you have to address everything all at the same time. It’s a vicious cycle. Bad habits are synergistic, and so are good habits.
If I start exercising, I will crave different foods. I’ve never heard of anyone going to the gym and sweating to the point of nausea and thinking, "Oh my God, can someone get me a Frappuccino with six shots of cream and piles of whipped cream?" After running a marathon, what I want more than anything else is water, not ice cream. Good habits synergize. When I exercise, I want water. When I want water, it helps my mood and energy levels. If I exercise and eat the right food, I avoid going into a food coma followed by a glucagon spike that wakes me up at 10:30 PM.
Set yourself up for a better tomorrow. Start to synergize all of these things, and a beautiful thing will happen. If you make drastic changes, the two or three things we are shooting for are first, activating those synergies. The more you do this, the better you will feel. After a good night’s sleep, if you exercised the day before to the point of nausea, you will feel hungry when you wake up.
However, you must be careful. As long as you are embracing the struggle, you will be fine. But the second you slip back into old habits, you’re screwed. All the bad stuff happens together, and all the good stuff happens together. Sometimes, the bad stuff is very hard to eliminate 1% at a time. I don’t think I’ve seen a single case of someone reducing a toxic relationship 1% at a time; it’s almost always like ripping off a Band-Aid—right off and way later than it should have been because you hoped it would be easier.
Protect your future self against your current self. Set your spawn point up for tomorrow. What is the world that you want to spawn into tomorrow? This is subtle. Do you want to spawn into a world where your phone is within arm's reach? Do you want to spawn into a world where there are eggs in the fridge? Do you want to spawn into a world where your kitchen is clean? Do you want to spawn into a world where you feel hungry in the morning? Do you want to spawn into a world where you've slept for 8.5 hours because you were so tired at night from exercising hard?
Or do you want to spawn into a world where your alarm goes off at 7:30 AM and you’ve only been asleep for 5.5 hours? Where you have leftovers sitting in your fridge, you don’t quite feel hungry, and you’re drinking too much caffeine that crashes eight hours later, leaving you with no energy? It feels hard to exercise, and you can't exercise because you have no energy. Of course, you can, but you’re going to build habits. Once you have a habit of exercise, it won’t matter whether you feel tired or not; it will be easy because it’s a habit.
Drastic change will set you up for a better tomorrow. You are unlucky because the person who will inherit all of your hard work tomorrow will not be you. You will wake up as a different human being who will spawn into your life. They will have a clean kitchen, food in the fridge, feel hungry in the morning, and be well-rested. That person will reap all the benefits of your hard work, while you will get nothing.
The moment you adopt this attitude, drastic change will happen. The moment you start synergizing, your life will become easier, and may even become autopilot someday.