The First Step to Breaking Any Habit

In life, timing is everything. And if you want to change your habits, there’s no better time than Virgo season.

Although habit change is typically a popular topic in January, the Gregorian New Year holds no special energy that aligns with or supports habit change. In fact, the energy fights our efforts: it’s the middle of a season, with no clear beginnings or transitions.

Virgo season, on the other hand, is prime time for habit change. It’s a transitional season, which means change is already in the air. It’s also back-to-school season, a time of year we naturally associate with fresh notebooks, new courses, and new habits, routines, and rituals.

So if you have a habit you want to break, this is your time.

Where Most People Fail in Habit Change

I’ve been teaching and coaching clients about the mechanics of habit change for over a decade, and most people falter right at the starting gate.

Here’s how most people set themselves up to fail.

Most people have an idea of something they want to stop doing, like eating excess sugar, drinking, or going to sleep late.

Or, they default to the other end of the spectrum. Many people jump right to considering the new behavior, routine, or ritual they want to create, like “eating healthy,” or exercising more, or writing every day.

Note that these examples create a problem because they’re too vague: What does “healthy” mean? How much is “more”? What kind of writing?

That’s a fault point, but it’s not the first fault point.

The First Step to Changing a Habit

The very first thing you need to do is identify the habit you want to break — the thing you want to stop doing.

Then you need to ask the right starting question.

The first question to ask is not “how do I break this habit?”

It’s also not “what new behavior can I implement to help me shift this habit?”

The very first question you need to ask is How is this habit serving me?

Every Habit Serves You

Here’s the truth: our brains/nervous systems/bodies are more efficient than we give them credit for.

Every habit you have, every behavior you do, serves you on some level. Even if it’s also harming you in many ways, even if it’s destroying your health, damaging your relationships, or interfering with your work, it’s serving you

This goes back to the pain/pleasure principle — one of the very first topics I wrote about when I started my blog because it’s foundational to all human behavior.

Even if the system seems inefficient, your mind and body are working together toward a single purpose: protection from pain and enhancement of pleasure.

Everything we do — and especially the things we do repeatedly and unconsciously (which is what a habit is) — helps us avoid some type of pain or gives us pleasure in some way.

The pain we are avoiding could be physical, emotional, relational, or spiritual. It could be imagined or illusory. It could be our fear of pain.

The pleasure we seek could be sensory, emotional, spiritual, physical, vicarious, experiential. It could also be illusory or imagined.

The behavior could be aimed at avoiding pain or seeking pleasure. The strongest habits will serve both aims at once.

As an example, take exercise. In its healthy form, exercise can help us avoid the pain of injury or bone degeneration. It also boosts dopamine and endorphins and makes us stronger.

That’s why, once you get into it, it’s fairly easy to sustain. It meets both ends of the pain/pleasure spectrum.

You can apply this to any behavior.

Unless you get conscious and clear on how the behavior is serving you, you’ll continue to default to it.

Try This On For Yourself

Think of a habit you want to break or a behavior you want to change.

Take a piece of paper and write down all the ways this habit is serving you.

• What pain does it distract you from?
• What fears does it help you avoid?
• What benefit does it give you?

Once you’ve gotten clear on this piece, you’ll be ready to move on to the next step in changing your habits.