Why You’re Stuck in Habits You Want to Change

One of the most common things I hear from clients is a variation of:

I know what I should be doing but I’m not doing it.

The flip side of this issue is that you keep doing things that you know aren’t serving you.

They often arise together:

• You want to start your morning with a workout, but instead you get caught up in email and social media.
• You want to eat more fruit, but instead you keep going for the candy.
• You want to do more outreach, but instead you’re organizing your files.

The reason you’re stuck in a habit you want to change is because the thing you’re doing is serving you on some level.

The First Step to Changing Habits

This is the season for habit change, and I often teach the ABC’s of Change: Awareness Before Change. If you can identify the issue, that’s half the battle.

Once you have awareness of the thing you want to stop doing, the first step to breaking the habit is to ask: how is this serving me?

Answering this question has two parts.

The first is to identify what pleasure it gives you and what pain it allows you to avoid.

The second part is to identify what needs this is meeting.

For this, I like to use the concept of the 6 Human Needs from Abraham Maslow, as articulated by Tony Robbins. The theory is that we all have six core human needs. Everything we do will meet one or more of these needs. If we do something consistently, it’s likely that it meets at least three needs on a high level.

The Six Human Needs

Here’s a brief overview of the six human needs:

(1) Certainty/Security

The need for certainty and security is the most fundamental. On a pure physiological survival level, we need food, money, water, and shelter to survive. On an emotional and psychological level, we need a measure of predictability and consistency.

This is the reason we like creating habits, routines, and rituals in the first place. It’s also why millions of people read horoscopes and look at weather reports: we want to know what’s coming.

(2) Variety

As much as we like predictability, too much is not good. If everything is the same all the time, it gets boring. Variety is the spice of life. We like to be surprised — at least when we like the surprises.

(3) Significance/Importance

Everyone likes to feel significant or important. We want to feel like we matter, like what we do matters, and like we have an impact on others. It’s human nature to want recognition for our efforts and our contribution.

Human beings have an innate need to feel seen, heard, and fully expressed. This is part of significance.

(4) Love and Connection

We don’t exist alone in this world. We evolved to survive in tribes, and the longing to belong is deeply ingrained in us. The desire for connection, community, interaction, and engagement is fundamental to our needs. And we also desire to feel love — both love for others and from others.

To feel loved is to feel whole.

(5) Contribution

We are wired to give back. Everyone has a need to contribute. Have you ever noticed how you feel when someone refuses your offer of help? It doesn’t feel good because you want to contribute.

(6) Growth

If we’re not growing in some capacity, life feels meaningless. We want to feel like we are being challenged. We pursue the next skill to master, the next personal record, the next accomplishment.

Beyond the external accomplishments, we want to feel like we’re growing internally: like we are expanding our capacity for what we can hold.

Check In With Your Needs

Think about one of those things that you keep doing even though you believe it’s “no longer serving you.” Consider how it’s meeting each of these needs, and how well it’s meeting those needs. Rank it on a scale of 1–10.

Then consider how you can adjust or replace the behavior with a new one that meets those same needs at an even higher level.